Purpel
I am going to start off by saying that this was my least favorite of the three articles. I guess what I saw in this article is more of the US government doing stupid things and putting crazy ideas in the heads American and the rest of the western world’s population. The Americans and many other governments create situations that appear as threats to the “American way of life” (or western) and then get the populations of the US and the western world to react. This way the Americans can control the foreign policies of western governments. This means that the curriculum of school systems is influenced and changed to deal with the current political climate of the world. Strategies are created to get kids and teachers to think in ways that promote and support American foreign policy. There are examples of this from the days of Sputnik, the Vietnam war, all the middle eastern conflicts up to and including the current situation with the Twin Towers and the alleged terrorist attack on the US in 2001. What really disconcertss me is that very intelligent people (teachers included) buy into these lies and promote governmental foreign policy in their classrooms.
I guess this shouldn’t surprise me. I know that curriculum since the time of the one room school house has been slanted to create good little citizens that obediently obey the policies of the governments that create the curriculum for schools. After all, wasn’t the spelling curriculum created as a means of control in schools? Beauchamp and Parsons (2001), intimate this in their book Teaching from the Inside Out.
Dalai Lama
I really enjoyed this article. More than I thought I would. Even though I am not a person who believes in religion, I thought the Dalai Lama made some excellent points. My favorite point from this article is that science and technology has become the new religion. He asks what is faith? I ask, what should we put our faith in? Science, technology, government, a deity? Is one of these religions better or worse than the other?
The Dalia Lama says that outwardly people look happy, inwardly, they are not. I think I agree with this. The media is out of control with the images and expectations it imposes on people. Men and women alike want to be someone else. They want more money, but even with that, people don’t find happiness or contentment. Comedian Louis CK describes this quite aptly and humorously in his appearance of the Conan O’Brien Show when he rants that. “Everything is amazing and no one is happy”.
So what is the secret? Is it religion? Spirituality? Where people anymore happy when Catholicism reigned the planet? Are the Catholics happier than the Muslims? The worship of anything to fanaticism is wrong in my opinion. It doesn’t matter if it is a person or machine.
Has the worship of technology and the ability to be “friends” with anyone, anywhere and never having to actually physically be with that “friend”, created a generation of people who can’t be nice to one another in-person and even sometimes online? What does it say about our society when people are looking for belonging in virtual worlds instead of their own communities? Is it wrong that people know more about another person in another country than they do about their neighbours? The Dalai Lama states that we can, “…lose touch with the wider reality of human experience and in particular our dependence on one another” (p.12). Is science and technology creating and perpetuating this? Is this bad, wrong or destructive? I don’t know because we can’t see what the future holds. I do however think that we need to put much more thought into the things (everything from technology to lunch programs) we adopt and implement in our classrooms.
Finally, I really liked that the Dalia Lama said that “…democracy, liberalism and socialism have failed…”. This notion for me ties into the whole idea of governments trying to control people. How governments are bullied by corporations to think in certain ways and then how governments download these self-serving ideologies to schools.
Schlosser
I would have to say that this paper was my favorite. It truly is the reading that opened my eyes to what’s going on behind the scenes of corporate (North) America. It is a paper I want my friends and family to read. To say that I was appalled by what Schlosser was describing would be an understatement. On a superficial level, I know that companies target kids, but the things that these companies do is truly despicable. The sad thing is, is that I can’t even just narrow my sites down on any one of these monsters because it is every company. Cell phones providers, television stations, magazine publishers, food manufacturers, beverage companies and clothing designers. The targeting of our youth is everywhere. It is criminal that children as young as two are the targets of these companies.
A piece of me was also very embarrassed after I finished the last part of this paper. The depiction of the invasion of soft drink companies in schools is something I have a history with. In a small way in my last school, I used to be Dan DeRose. I was the person who actively sought out and attained over 40 business partners to donate money and gifts to our school. Two of these partners being Coca Cola and McDonald’s. Now that I have read this article, I am ashamed.
But, part of me completely understands the frustration and desperation of administrators who bring companies into their schools. Every year it seems that schools have to do more, with less money. The kids (and parents) seem to be more challenging and needy. So then, how are schools supposed to offer quality programs, “save” the world and create good little tax paying citizens when they are not equipped to do so. I have taught long enough to see the frustration and defeat of teachers and administrators. I am one of these people.
With this said, I offer a parting shot by asking if it is any better for parent associations to run bingos and casinos to raise money for schools than it is for administrators to bring in pop machines? Is this reliance on gambling any better than the reliance on food and beverage companies? The one thing I do know after reading these papers is that I have more questions now than I did before I picked these readings up.
Respectfully,
Brad
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