This holiday season, teach a lesson that helps your students question our society’s focus on material goods, and pushes back against the relentless messages to find happiness through consumption.
Here are some Rethinking Schools articles and lessons that nurture a critical lens when examining the market forces that underpin so much of what needs changing in the world.
Enjoy these articles, free to all friends of Rethinking Schools:
The Human Lives Behind the Labels: The Global Sweatshop, Nike, and the race to the bottom, by Bill Bigelow
Originally published in 1997, this article offers ways to help students think about the human and environmental consequences of our stuff—the high cost of low prices.
Lost in the Market, by Barbara Miner
A review of the book Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantalize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole, by Benjamin R. Barber.
Why We Banned Legos, by Ann Pelo and Kendra Pelojoaquin
These early childhood educators didn’t really “ban” Legos, but they did take drastic action to help children explore power, ownership, and equity.
Blog bonus article: “‘Lego Fascists’ (that’s us) vs. Fox News“
Standards, Markets, and Creating School Failure, by Michael Apple
“Democracy is increasingly being defined as consumer choice. The citizen is seen as a possessive individual, someone who is defined by her or his position in market relations.”
These articles are free to our friends who subscribe to our magazine. Subscribe today to gain access.* Use code 7BHL13 for a 25% holiday discount!
Six, Going on Sixteen, by Geralyn Bywater McLaughlin
Teachers can work against the commercialization of childhood.
Masks of Global Exploitation: Teaching About Advertising and the Real World, by Bill Bigelow
How we can help our students “read” advertising critically.
Living Algebra, Living Wage, by Jana Dean
Eighth-grade math comes alive when it deals with the economic issues that affect students’ lives.
Can’t Buy Me Love, by Linda Christensen
Students learn to write critically about clothes, class, and consumption.
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Recommended Resources:
Rethinking Globalization: Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World, edited by Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson
This comprehensive 400-page book from Rethinking Schools helps teachers raise critical issues with students in grades 4–12 about the increasing globalization of the world’s economies and infrastructures, and the many different impacts this trend has on our planet and those who live here.
Rethinking Popular Culture and Media, edited by Elizabeth Marshall and Özlem Sensoy
This anthology includes outstanding articles by elementary and secondary public school teachers, scholars, and activists who examine how and what popular toys, books, films, music, and other media “teach.” These thoughtful essays offer strong conceptual critiques and practical pedagogical strategies for educators at every level to engage with the popular.