Schools in the Plastic Age

Welcome to the PC  (Plastic and Computer) Age kindergarten where kids no longer play.

(Phot0: Denver Post,  Jan. 17, 2012; a kindergarten class at the Ricardo Flores Magon Academy K-8 charter school in Westminster.)

Standardized test scores say nothing about a student's creative ability or potential. If curriculum focuses on prescribed skills, that is what students will learn, but nothing beyond. If kids are taught to read by means of a rigid script and in a lock-step curriculum, they will not be able to stretch their minds beyond the script or facts taught.

If children in kindergarten are not allowed to play and socialize, they will not function well in 21st Century jobs because they'll lack the imagination to come up with innovations, and the skills to work together. Schools will turn out uncaring individuals who will speed up the destruction of the natural world instead of saving it.

How many people today know about the dangers of plastic particles that are now a permanent part of our environment, and even our bodies? How many adults unthinkingly heat up food in plastic containers? Do you? Even Gerber now puts baby food in plastic jars!

Paula Johanson in her book for teens,  Frequently Asked Questions About Testicular Cancer, writes:

"...there is "a significant elevated risk of testicular cancer..linked to exposure to polyvinyl chloride.. and other "plastic" materials that release estrogen-mimic chemicals into food and water."

Why is it that we are not made aware of the poisoning of ourselves and our children?  Our own education did not help us prevent it. Back then too little was known. That is different now, yet schools still do not teach how to deal with, and survive a poisoned world!

Corporations, of course, don't want people to become knowledgeable about the negative impact and even damage that many of their products pose on people and the environment . As Edward Luttwak remarks in his book, Turbo-Capitalism; Winners and Losers in the Global Economy,

"Corporations are not moral entities. They exist to make a profit."

Indeed, with  No Child Left Behind-- initiated by the Business Roundtable-- schools were coerced into testing students to hold schools accountable for receiving education money. If test scores were low, rigid improvement measures were forced upon them.  Profits for textbook and test publishers soared! McGraw-Hill alone saw an increase from 50 million dollars in 2002 when NCLB was just enacted, to 300 million dollars by 2009.

As long as corporations implicitly dictate what and how schools should teach, we can never have quality education. Children will not be taught to think critically and to question, but instead will be molded into the corporations' future workforce and consumers who will mindlessly continue to poison the environment. Schools still drill and test, rather than develop understanding of the importance of sustainable living. As one teacher shared in a survey,

"We need to get our kids to care, because these are the issues that they will be dealing with for the rest of their lives."

Are we?

Watch this six minute clip:

12-year-old Severn Suzuki speaking at the Rio Earth Summit

Of note also:

• The dangers of 'Microwave Safe' plastic containers


• The Documentary Plastic Planet (Check with your public library)


• Severn Suzuki today, 20 years later: Call to Action for Earth Summit 2012