Collaborative Post
It’s easy for us to turn up our noses at Disney. To see it as a corporate menace that’s out to lure in our children with colourful characters and simple stories and turn them into mini mass-consumer. It’s easy to fall for the alarmist articles about how Disney Princesses can warp the minds of young girls and lead them to body dysmorphia and self-loathing. Yet, if we set aside our cynicism, Disney’s wealth of content can be a surprisingly powerful educational tool. What’s more, it can allow you and your whole family to have fun while learning a little something.
It doesn’t matter if you’re watching classic Disney cartoons at home or looking to buy Sam’s Club Disneyland Tickets to save some money on a family holiday, Disney can actually benefit young minds in a number of ways. They can provide a useful stimulus for a range of home education topics. For example…
Disney films can provide a gateway into classic literature
The Sword in the Stone can be a compelling prequel that gets kids interested in Arthurian legend. The Jungle Book can provide a gateway into the fascinating work of Rudyard Kipling and insight into everything from Asian wildlife to life in colonial India.
Even when the material itself is lacking in substantive detail, it can provide a useful entry point and a springboard for further reading and study.
They can make complicated concepts easy to learn
How do you teach young boys about the dangers of patriarchy and get them to empathise with girls? Show them Mulan. How do you get kids to think harder about the environment and the importance of ecological stewardship? Show them Wall-E.
One of the great things about Disney films is their ability to introduce complicated issues in enjoyable and easy-to-digest ways. What’s more…
They can teach the importance of morality and empathy
Empathy is an extremely important skill for all young people to learn, and it’s arguable that today’s kids need it more than ever. In an age of social media, we are all at risk of becoming dangerously self-absorbed. Compassion, empathy and morality seem in short supply right now. Who knows what tomorrow’s political and cultural landscape will look like?
By identifying with the trials and tribulations of the Mouse House’s plucky but put-upon characters, kids can learn some valuable lessons in empathy.
They can teach kids to challenge and reconsider gender roles
Our attitudes towards gender and gender roles are, slowly but surely, changing. No longer are kids raised to expect women to stay at home while men go out to work. No longer are women seen as damsels in distress or commodities whose affections are there to be “won” by male protagonists. Disney has made great efforts in recent years to challenge gender roles in their content, giving more agency to their female characters. Emma Watson’s Belle in Beauty and the Beast can get young girls thinking about science and invention. Tiana from The Princess and the Frog can get girls to realise that entrepreneurship could be for them.
Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of Disney as a tool in your home education repertoire.
