China, Columbine, and Consuming Kids

Visit by Lee Feigon

Coming in a few minutes late, I missed the introduction. I found myself surprised to hear such positive comments about Mao Tze Tung. It was interesting to me to hear that he had such a positive impact on the spread of education in rural China. However, I also kept thinking back to the books I have read that detail how horrible it was for the average person in China in 1949, and how many tried desperately to get out of the country. However, what bothered me most was the display of White privilege by this man who seemed only concerned that his children got the education they needed. He knew he had it and could provide it for them, and made sure to do so. Sometimes attitudes come through in more than the words. His attitude made me feel both uneasy and offended. I actually wondered what he was doing talking to doctoral students in social justice. He didn't appear to be an example of it to me.

Columbine

I had never seen the Columbine footage we watched. It is hard to believe that people called for more and more closed circuit monitoring after watching how ineffective the system was at preventing the tragedy. This just seems to be the prevailing attitude of the public: if something seems like it should work but doesn't, do more of it. This applies not only to the current interest in investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in surveillance systems, as Torin Monahan wrote, even through there is never enough money to buy books for or fix the facilities in lower income areas, but also to continuing to follow the dictates of NCLB which has failed to close the achievement gap and has actually made education worse for the students it was supposed to help.



Consuming Children

I remember begging my mom to buy Maypo hot breakfast cereal when I was young because the commercial made it look so delicious and wonderful. She finally bought it, and I didn't like it at all. That was my first introduction to the fact that everything advertised on TV wasn't as wonderful as the advertisers said it was. So now, not only are the kids getting myriads of mixed messages about what to buy and how to look, but they are also getting the conflicting messages about, on the one hand, "being cool" as depicted on TV, and on the other hand, (but not nearly as effectively) doing well in school. Considering that many students are babysat by the TV, it's no wonder they have little interest in doing well in school. It's not necessary. All they need to do to have a happy life is buy the right stuff so they will fit in with the right people. It's too bad the commercials don't remind them that they need a good education to get a good job in order to pay for all the stuff they're supposed to have to make them happy.