Hero Project

Heroes have always fascinated readers and listeners of stories and tales. Today "heroes" of various kinds are more present than ever. Children (and adults) are every day exposed to a range of different heroes or role models, in mass media, books, toys, more or less glossy magazines, advertisements, films etc. We speak about fictional characters like Harry Potter, Aragorn, Pippi Longstocking, but also about fashion models, pop stars etc. etc.

Are they may be persons through whom we can live out our hidden dreams and fantasies….?

For educators it is essential to ask:
Who are heroes today - for whom? How are they presented?
What impact do they have in socialisation of boys and girls?
Why should educators care? How should educators care?

These were some of the questions that led to the project work "Heroes". It was assumed that it would be particularly interesting to work with issues like these in a multinational group.

The student groups were invited to identify their own themes and their own working methods.
They were given examples of what to look for, see the following:

"Problems" can be:

• Who do you consider to be children's (or our) main heroes today? Present them, and reflect upon why these are important just now.
• The heroes in the street picture; search and list/categorise heroes in the city centre of Oslo (boards, advertises, movies, magazines, shop windows, etc, etc). How are they presented? Reflect upon their value as models for children.
• Search toy shops in Oslo. Find out how toys reflect heroes, and how the different heroes are presented (gender, bad/good, etc.) (And/or video/game shops)
• Find a totally theoretic "problem" and use whatever literature/websites you can find to find answers
• Etc.