Blog: If You Want to Educate, Entertain

All over my Facebook feed yesterday there were posts about Beyonce and how she was going to do an anti-cop performance during the half time show of the Super Bowl.  She and her husband have been supportive, in the past, of folks who are, shall we say, less than law abiding (they paid bail for several people who were arrested in the Baltimore riots).  While many law enforcement web pages and facebook pages posted about boycotting the half time show because of Beyonce, I couldn’t help but wonder why we believe she’ll have such an impact?  The obvious answer is because she’s a popular entertainer.  But how does being a popular entertainer equate to having an impact on social issues?  The realistic answer is this: The best educators are also entertainers.  Unfortunately that DOES NOT mean that the best entertainers are worth a damn as educators.

Think about it seriously though: all of us are required to attend training for various topics throughout our careers.  Some of those topics are exceedingly boring and dry (report writing is one of those).  Yet we’ve all had instructors who made even what we anticipated as the worst class ever turn out to be, if not fun, at least not dry and boring.  Why?  Because they entertained as they taught.  They caught our attention and elicited an emotional response.  Maybe they made us laugh.  Maybe they made us cry.  Maybe they made us remember something we enjoyed in a fresh new light.  Whatever they did, they HOOKED us emotionally and tied that emotional response to the topic of education for that course.

I can’t explain exactly why there’s such a strong hook between entertainment and education but after having been an instructor for well over 25 years now, I can tell you this:  students are MUCH more receptive to ANYTHING you teach them IF you can entertain them while you do it.  Here is the challenge we face in the law enforcement community (and society in general) today:

Entertainers – especially the big name ones in Hollywood – seem to feel that simply because they can entertain then they can also educate.  Because they are popular they seem to feel that makes their opinion somehow more valid than anyone else’s.  Because people buy their records or watch their movies or whatever, they seem to feel that makes their opinion about America’s values, social norms, laws, etc. all of more importance than the opinion of… say…  someone who actually has a profession that is impacted by those values, social norms, laws and more.

Our challenge is this: We, as a whole community, need to find a way to entertain the citizens we serve WHILE we educate them about the whys and wherefores of our job.  All too often we simply inform them of basic information and feel like they should be appreciative that we did that.  Usually they want information we can’t give them anyway and they get quite upset about the fact that we won’t violate the law to release controlled information.  You know… about criminal investigations and stuff.

When we CAN talk to them, sometimes it’s better to let down our guard a bit; loosen up the coldly professional demeanor, and communicate with them in a way that offers some entertainment.  It doesn’t have to be a standup comedy routine or a movie or any kind of a show.  It can be something as simple as using a funny occurrence as an example of why something shouldn’t be done… or should be done; whichever.

Obviously, for an agency, this is something that has to be done by the Chief or his designee.  If the Press Information Officer is going to attempt it, it has to be both approved and done in a trial run.  Few things are worse than someone who THINKS they are funny but really aren’t.  That can make relations with the community even worse!

What does us no good – and I’m as guilty of it as the next guy (or gal) – is to boycott a popular entertainer because of THEIR lack of class.  The unfortunate reality is that a Beyonce fan isn’t going to care about our boycott and we’re (largely) not her target audience, so we’re not going to have a big impact on her profits; which is the only way she’d pay attention to any of us anyway.  We’re better off not calling any attention to her at all.

Stay safe.