Middle schools and big business

What I found most interesting about this section of readings was the connection between middle schools and big business corportations. At the very beginning on page 152 the author says, "As the opening quotes indicate this section also addresses the role of corporate interestgs in a changing economy and the institutionalized goals of public education." We all know that schools are a social institution but I never realized how influencial corporations are in public education. Businesses reflect the current economy and schools are meant to train students for the business world so the indirect tie would be the economy shapes what is taught in schools.
Along these same lines, Chapter 10 was an executive summary from the Carnegie Corporation's Turning Point report of 1989. Carnegie was one of the first steel monopolies of America and was famous for building towns around his factories. He wanted every day life to be lived in the shadow of and for the benefit of the company. Clearly here, the corporation wanted schools to be for the benefit on the company and the economy.
This is true that schools should teach students the skills required to be productive in the economy they will be entering, but should they teach more than that? Should the focus be more on 'real world' skills or abstract thought and arts?

Provocative Articles...

All of the articles were extremly provocative and I thought a lot about them. From first article about the media playing a role in the negative image most people have of teenagers, I agreed with the author almost wholeheartedly. I did have a question though, dispite the fact that teenage sexuality and violence is not statistically increasing, is it true that it is occuring at younger and younger ages? For one, my young cousins know way more about what to do with their boyfriends in middle school than I did in my first two years of high school. Second, I recently read the book "Our America" by two African American boys growing up in a southside ghetto of Chicago where an 11 year old threw a 5 year old boy out of a 14 story window. Both parties were children, young children at that.
In the article about poverty violence I wanted to point out that teenagers today can see the rich and famous and all of the material items they have on a daily basis. TV shows that focus on rich people and how they live put a view in teenagers mind of what they think they can accomplish or have. For the majority of the nation, this is grossly exaggerated. How can a teenager from a poor family in a poor neighborhood expect to get a Blackberry cell phone? By stealing it. They dont have the means to buy it legitimately so to live like the people they see on TV, they steal. Therefore, I completly believe the author and their point that poverty drives violence.
The third article about children in beauty pageants was over exagerated in my point of view. Yes, when parents take the pageants to a level where their child is physically hurt for not winning, we have a problem there. However I feel that things like pageants, dance recitals or any other form of performing arts only boosts the self esteem of young girls. Young boys can be pushed by their parents to be all-start 3-sport athletes and no one sees that as abuse? As for their self-esteem suffering from losing... that is something children today NEED to deal with. It seems that more and more 'participation ribbons' are handed out to every kid who participates in sports or academic competitions than ever before. We don't want to hurt the kid who didnt win, but then again are we really creating any incentive for kids to try their very best to actually win that first place trophey. To apply this to the larger world view, everyone says the US is falling behind other nations in technology and other advancements. If our kids have no incentive to strive for excellence because we don't want to hurt their self-esteem, how would our country ever produce leaders, inventors and overall advanced thinkers? I understand the idea of inclusion and making sure every child has the opportunity to attain sucess but saying that parents who sign their daughters up for pageants is abuse is taking it a little far. Again, parents who go overboard are different, but parents who want to introduce their daughters to feeling confident are not doing anything wrong in my book.

Adolescence Mirrors Society

As we all read, adolescence is a fairly new part of our life stages and is very much so socially constructed. I would agree that biology plays A role in adolescence but I believe the society kids grow up in is THE most determining factor. It is sort of the nature v. nurture debate often discussed in sociology and psychology. Were we born this way or have our life experiences made us this way? Along the same lines as the authors, I belive it is both working together. However, a clear way to show the influence of society is to look at how adolescence has changed throughout history.

For example, take a look at this picture of young boys working in a cigar box factory.

They are probably working to support their families who recently moved to the city.

Today, these young boys would probably be playing video games or doing a whole lot of nothing.

Because we have such a high standard of living adolescents do not need to spend their days working. They have the free time that most adults work to try and achieve.

Interestingly though, if our economy continues as it is right now for an extended period of time, we might see more adolescents helping to support their families. This again shows that adolescents reflect the "social, political and economic conditions" (text p. 20) of the time.