Kissing G.I. Joes: Critical Media Literacy Episodes and Wide-Awake, Critical Connoisseurship

This article explores the actions, as well as the thoughts, of teachers who are interested in - and prepared to engage in - critical pedagogy and the potential for using critical media literacy as a framework for this pedagogy. This article investigates the notion that there is a recognizable and describable "mindset" that a teacher can have in order to prepare the type of learning environment in early childhood educational settings that creates a curriculum space for critical pedagogy; in this case we investigate the words and actions of such a teacher. We argue that this "mindset," which we are calling wide-awake, critical connoisseurship, when employed in the classroom, lends itself particularly well to teacher engagement as a facilitator for students in critical media literacy episodes. We argue that these episodes, when engaged in by teacher and student[s] can then lead to critical media literacy projects.