Brookline resident Colin Stokes will speak about how movies shape our children’s values on April 13 at Brookline High School.
There is a heated debate about how our values are shaped by the popular culture we consume – television shows, movies, cartoons, comic books, and video games. For parents, this question is especially fraught, since children’s lives are soaked in characters and story lines marketed on every surface. Many of us don’t even choose bedtime stories that are culturally relevant or morally sound. Have your thought about Mother Goose rhymes lately?
The best stories, we are told, teach lessons about morality and how the world works. The narratives all around us send messages over and over, and our children can’t help but absorb them. The question is: what are our kids really learning? From Luke Skywalker to Glinda, the Good Witch, from Spider Man to Disney Princesses, our modern mythology sets the boundaries of heroism, justice, and victory in ways that might surprise you.
Acclaimed TED speaker Colin Stokes will weave unique interpretations of well-known popular films together with humorous personal experiences to unlock ways we can master the stories we live by.
Stokes will encourage audience members to share their own memories of the movies that had the greatest impact on them as children.
Before he and his wife had children, Stokes was a professional actor in Boston and New York specializing in Shakespeare and musicals. His three TED Talks on the role stories play in identity have been viewed on TED.com more than six million times. Stokes has a career in non-profit communications and marketing. For the past ten years, he has worked with the leadership of educational institutions on storytelling, branding, messaging, employee engagement, and inclusion. He has spoken at Walt Disney Animation Studios, and helped to develop materials for Lean In, and
the Girls Scouts’ Ban Bossy, Leadership Tips for Girls campaign.
The lecture take place from at 7:00-8:30 P.M. in the MLK Room at Brookline High School. Tickets are $6. Information is available at 617-730-2700 and www.brooklineadulted.org.