Introduction to Education Homework # 5

  Not in anyway giving anyone permission to plagiarize or copy this and also not verifying the authenticity of any of the information. Also note that there are probably no sources listed and I am not one myself, so don't quote me. This is just some of my homework; thought it might be interesting to someone:



Should corporations such as Coke, Pepsi, Nike, Reebock, Home Depot or any other business give money to schools with the expectation that no competitors' products be sold or advertised the school?    What are the advantages and disadvantages of such advertising and marketing?   Are we brainwashing children? 

I do not think that if certain corporations are advertised exclusively in schools that it matters because you are limited students to only that type of advertising. For companies like Nike or Home Depot, any instance where American-based companies, who benefit from the education system, can put money into schools should be supported. I do think that it matters if you are exclusively advertising things that are harmful to students, like Coke or McDonald’s.  In cases where the promoted product is inherently unhealthy, like high-fructose corn-syrup sodas or 1,000 calories “value” meals, it seems unquestionably dangerous to allow them in schools.

          The most obvious risk of teaching children to eat junk is creating unhealthy eating habits that can affect them for a lifetime. At Countryside High School, students are in class from 7:05 to 1:24, and have lunch from 1:30-2pm. During that six hour block, they only have one fifteen minute break to get food and the only things being sold are pizza, hamburgers, french fries – junk food. Aside from serving unhealthy food, I do not believe we should be teaching children to think favorably of multi-billion dollar corporations that do not even pay their employees enough money to live on. I guess the same argument could be made for Nike’s treatment of sweatshop workers, whom I am just assuming they employ, but these are considerations that I think a school should have to weigh in its decisions. Just like the Olympics will not support certain corporations or athletes promoting unhealthy behavior (which McDonald’s is an exception to), neither should schools.

          I find brainwashing hard to buy into, except in instances of Nazi-ism, cults, or the Marine Corps.  Kids, and adults alike, are exposed to advertising on television, in movies, on the highway, over the radio, it is literally everywhere. I doubt that advertising in schools will really have much more of an effect on children than advertising on cell phones or Facebook will; what is sad is that schools have to stoop to these methods of funding in the first place. It would make sense to me for sports teams and extracurricular activities to need or use these kinds of funding, but for operating, maintaining, or updating schools, I think it is a real shame.