Disney Teaches Everything

In one of my first expeditions into pageflakes, I discovered a fascinating initiative by Disney: jazz education curriculum through the new animated feature, The Princess and the Frog.

Disney's education team has teamed up with Scholastic to create lesson plans for music teachers for elementary age students to teach about the roots of jazz music.

My first response consisted of, "How could a Disney Princess movie help students relate to jazz music?" Apparently, Disney has decided to let the movie reach beyond simple fairy-tale love, and provide some cultural education as well.

For some background, The Princess and the Frog, is Disney's venture back into a traditionally animated fairy tale. The movie was directed by the man who created Aladdin and The Little Mermaid, both classic favorites of little girls in the 90s and now. The Princess and the Frog is a twist on the well-known fairy tale, where a Frog Prince fatefully asks a New Orleans girl for a kiss to be human, only leading her to become a frog as well. The film captures their adventure through classic Disney animated magic and, quite appropriately, the jazz inspired music of Randy Newman.

The online curriculum consists of two complete lessons: the first focuses on the origins of jazz in New Orleans as important to the culture bond of the area. The website provides musical examples, as well as print out worksheets. The worksheets explain the ways improvisation in New Orleans jazz acts as a universal language as well--a value that is important for teachers to emphasize with all types of music.

I also discovered while exploring the website, that the curriculum launch is actually an advertisement for Disney's brand new jazz festival "Disney Jazz Celebration" to be held at Walt Disney World in February 2010. This new major annual festival will be an addition to Disney's existing festivals including Festival Disney and Disney Magic Music Days. As a Disney lover and a music lover, I am certainly a sucker for their marketing.

After listening to the soundtrack clippings, it's reminiscent of a Disney-fied version of The Color Purple: The Musical minus the domestic violence and sexual tensions, but with similar feminist and "follow-your-dreams" kind of feelings. In fact, Oprah, the producer of the The Color Purple, plays the voice of the mother of the "princess" in the movie.

Finally, at the risk of abandoning my academic credibility, I will declare myself as a former "little girl" who always imagined being a Disney Princess. I am excitedly anticipating this new approach to the princess story--to watch it with my girlfriends, and to revel in the cheesy Disney awesome-ness. The feminism, heart, love-story and jazz music aspect makes it the simply awesome--in my idealistic, 20-something, without-a-care-in-the-world head.

Here, watch this video, and be excited with me.