Writings & Ramblings

The fourth article for my opinion column ("Small Action, Big Change") in The Badger.

What is your version of green living? What are some changes you have incorporated into your own life? What are some not-so-green habits you are unwilling to abandon? Join the conversation on The Badger forums: http://www.thebadger.ca/forum

My fifth Associated Content assignment was a call for a turkey haiku.

What kind of Thanksgiving does a turkey hope for? My response, in haiku.

My fourth assignment for Associated Content, a call for fresh, interesting content.

The third article for my opinion column ("Small Action, Big Change") in The Badger. This one made it on the website that week.

The second article for my opinion column ("Small Action, Big Change") in The Badger.

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Hannah Montana, Spiderman, The Hulk, High School Musical, Disney Princesses, and Mickey Mouse flash before my eyes. Michael Jordan and Carrie Underwood flash toothy white smiles at me. I am not watching a commercial break from a children’s TV program. I am walking through the halls of a public elementary school.

In the cafeteria, students pass by the Got Milk? ad campaign posters and line up to choose a carton of milk featuring a picture of GI Joe in army camouflage urging kids to drink the milk they just selected. Students then pick up their hot lunches and stop by the cash register to purchase a bag of Scooby Doo cookies or a Cocoa Puff cereal bar. Other students head straight to their seats and open up their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Bratz lunch boxes, pulling out containers of Chef Boyardee, Lunchables, Hostess cakes and Fruit Roll-ups.

Library posters display book-wielding celebrities exploiting their star power to urge students to read. The PTA is running a new fundraiser in which students sell coupon books for local businesses. The Kindergarten classes are participating in Pizza Hut’s Book-It program to earn free pizza coupons by reading X number of books. On a rainy day, teachers might show a Disney or Pixar movie, or give the students extra time on their PC or Mac computers, depending on which company donated to the school. Children color with Crayola crayons and glue with Elmer’s glue. If a student gets a cut, it is covered with a Band-Aid bandage and runny noses are wiped with Kleenex tissues.

There exists a hidden curriculum for students. They are learning to be consumers. Messages are ubiquitous throughout the school building, even on the students themselves. Backpacks, shoes, t-shirts, lunch boxes, notebooks, books, food packaging and even every day classroom products are all sources for advertising to students. Young, unknowing children become walking advertisements for cartoons, universities, teams, companies and products. Public schools for upper grades may not have lunch boxes and folders plastered with cartoons, but advertising wriggles its way into their buildings as well through snack machines, sponsored clubs, restaurants (yes, some schools cafeterias include actual McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, etc.), local business yearbook ads, and military and college recruiters.

While it is noble for celebrities to use their influence to encourage health and reading, any face-time opportunity is at least partially self-serving for a person whose product is her or himself. If a business or university can get their logo on a child’s body, think of all the instant, low-cost viewing of their ad resulting from a walk down the school hallway. As generous as it may be for companies to donate computers to schools, such a gift results in thousands of children who are more comfortable with a particular system and will probably be more likely to purchase that system in the future. Classroom choices of websites, software and web browsers affect children’s outside technology use. A student who uses Internet Explorer at school will probably overlook the Mozilla Firefox icon at the public library, simply based on exposure and familiarity. Some classrooms use current popular tech toys like iTouch and Nintendo Wii as part of the curriculum. I wonder what they will be requesting for birthday gifts…

Businesses are alive and well in government-run schools, and then as soon as students walk back out of the school doors, the advertising bombardment continues on the roads, in the community, and at home. Of course, all children need to use school supplies and computers, wear clothes and eat food. It is not rational or reasonable to dictate to people what businesses they should patronize, or even advertise. Commercialism is a part of our lives now, whether we like it or not and whether we acknowledge it or not.

Young children need help with deciphering the incoming information. They are targets of billions of dollars worth of advertising campaigns but malleable youthful minds are typically not mature enough to make educated decisions about preference. A healthy awareness of ads to which young people are exposed daily might lead to adults being more thoughtful about the role of businesses in schools. Advertising is definitely here to stay, but is it too much to ask that my 4-year old Pre-Kindergarten students not be subjected to the promotion of a violent PG-13 movie on their celebrity-endorsed, government-dispersed milk?

My third Associated Content assignment, a call for non-conventional travel ideas based on personal experience.

A reflection on a quote by Paulo Freire about the power of education to liberate or dominate people, considering the role of teachers as a facilitators of learning, and looking at the importance of the classroom environment.

Published on Associated Content.

My second assignment for Associated Content, a call for "Best Content" on any topic of interest to me.

The first article for my opinion column ("Small Action, Big Change") in a new Canadian publication called The Badger.

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I remember my mother explaining to me as a teenager to avoid terms like "slave driver" and "Indian giver." Years later, I shared with her that the phrase "I got gypped" is derogatory, "gyp" being short for "gypsy" – she had taught me well! Saying "That’s gay" flowed easily out of my mouth for years before I had close gay friends and recognized that "gay" is not synonymous with "stupid" or "bad." In the past, I was unfazed to hear someone describing a humiliating situation say, "I wanted to die/ kill myself / slit my wrists/ [insert self-harming term]." Today I flinch at hearing those expressions, now conscious of the grim reality of actual self-harm and suicide.

On my high school soccer team, if a player was injured or performed badly in a game, she was lovingly teased and called a "gimp" "spaz" "short bus" or "sped" (short for Special Education) – it was simply a joke. A few years later I began working with young people with disabilities, including a young woman with Cerebral Palsy. Difficulties with muscle spasticity affect her daily life – she wakes up some mornings with muscle tightness that makes it difficult to stand or walk. I recall the day her mother mentioned that the word "spaz" is short for spasticity. Suddenly, keeping the word "spaz" in my personal lexicon was a low priority. I also recall the day that this young woman—about 13 years old at the time—came home from school and shared with me, through tears, that some kids had made fun of her, called her a "retard." Her pain caused by a single word said in a malicious tone was real and valid; clearly the students’ intention in the moment had been to verbally abuse and belittle her, but it is unlikely they gave it a second thought when they went home.

Getting carried away and becoming the Word-Police (not "Word-Nazi", the use of which trivializes a very real horror) is easy, but alienating and leading people away from self-reflection to conclude that the fault belongs to the offended is not constructive. Pointing out specific distasteful use of language is delicate, and usually not appropriate. When a word has been trained out of my vocabulary, I am able to tell so if I hear someone use the word and it feels like an online pop-up message – I can close that little window, but my attention has been drawn away from the original thought process. My mind departs from the conversation: "Should I mention that the word 'schizo' is rude?" Rarely do I speak up, though, just like I rarely do more than facially demonstrate annoyance and disapproval when someone illegally parks in an Accessible (not Handicap) parking space.

When visiting family in Texas, I was stunned to hear a family acquaintance casually use "negroid" while describing the prolific mating habits of hummingbirds. Apparently having seen my jaw drop, he rationalized, "You’ll have to excuse me, I’m a little bit prejudiced. I am Texan, you know." I myself was born in Texas, but after a brief pause for shock and contemplation, I ended the conversation, walking away instead of entertaining the notion that I should somehow fault or not fault his stereotypes based on his birthplace. Sometimes the issue is not political correctness or the consideration of others. Sometimes the issue is ignorance.

When talking about individuals or groups of people, the tongue has a particular power to oppress and disparage, ignore and overlook, or value and respect. Freedom of speech is precious (not everyone can safely or legally practice it) so to choose words thoughtfully is to honor that freedom. Being "politically-correct" (an undesirable term in itself) is not about telling others how to think. The point is to think about the effect of our own words on others, on the influence words have in our extraordinarily print- and audio-rich lives. My most recent word deletion has been the word "lame," a pejorative for a person with a physical disability; the dilemma I consistently find myself facing when purposefully eliminating a word from my repertoire is that I must replace the word with another, forcing me to expand my active vocabulary. That is the challenge and positive result of erasing disparaging terms from one’s speech (and mind): to find better, more expressive words that do no harm but elucidate the intended meaning. The nuisance of abandoning a few words you never needed is worth the gain of a more thoughtful mind.

A reflection on body donation after reading the book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. It is not a book review, but rather a way to apply what I learned while reading the book to my own life.

Published on Associated Content.

A reflection on a quote by Thomas Crum about living as if each day were a work of art in progress, how busyness can get in the way of this end, and on how to look at our lives and see where changes can be made.

Published on Associated Content.

My first Associated Content assignment was on healthy "emergency" snack ideas.