Why I Don't Want Scholastic To Sell My Children's Minds To The Highest Bidder

[This guest post comes from Christine George, who has worked as a teacher in Virginina and Arizona. She has six children. --Eds]

I am a mom.  If you ask me who I am or what I do, that will always be my first answer, because “Mom” is my most important job.  I am also a Cub Scout volunteer and a former teacher and school administrator. But first and foremost, I am a mom of six wonderful boys ages one to eighteen.  Part of my job as their mother is to ensure their safety, security, health, and happiness.  So when I learn that a company that we, as parents and educators, have trusted for decades is willingly selling their impressionable little minds to the highest bidder, I get angry.  And so should you.

Scholastic is the world’s largest distributor and publisher of children’s books and an industry leader in educational technology and children’s media. Their corporate philosophy starts with “Kids love us, parents trust us, teachers depend on us...”  And they’re right, with good reason. Scholastic does a great deal to promote literacy and education worldwide.  They are the leading operator of school-based book fairs and clubs in the United States.  They provide books, magazines, reference materials, educational technology and curriculum materials to schools and libraries across the country.  Having been a teacher, I really do appreciate all they do to provide reading materials to students and schools alike.  As a result of the good work they do, they enjoy a unique position of trust in our schools.  But they are abusing that trust to surreptitiously influence the minds of our children.

I recently discovered, through the work of Campaign for a Commercial -Free Childhood on Change.org, that Scholastic has a lesser-known side to its curriculum development, “Scholastic InSchool.” That program “...develops and distributes curriculum connected, free educational programs, including … brand awareness, and consumer loyalty programs...” It produces curriculum geared to “educate” children about the products of their clients, a list of which includes McDonald’s, Cartoon Network, Shell, SunnyD, Nestle, Disney and the corporate-funded Chamber of Commerce.

This “curriculum” is NOT identified as advertising.  It is corporate-driven propaganda which is being “taught” to our children in the guise of “education.”  Unbeknownst to us, our children are being indoctrinated into corporate culture, groomed to become good little consumers of products that are friendly and familiar from their school days.

This, to me, is absolutely horrifying.  Our children are exposed to corporate advertising at every turn, on signs and billboards, in magazines, on the radio, on television, and even in movie theatres.  Shouldn't our schools be one place where we can trust that what they’re learning is NOT just designed to sell them something?  Shouldn't they be able to trust their teachers AND their textbooks?

If Scholastic needs to sell advertising to support the good work they do, then sell it, but do not label it as anything other than what it is.  Do not continue to disguise corporate commercials as educational curriculum.  Our children deserve better.  They, and we, expected more from you, Scholastic.  It’s now time to prove that you are worthy of our trust again by changing your InSchool policies.  Selling our children’s minds to the highest bidder is simply not acceptable.

Sign the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood’s petition on Change.org to tell Scholastic to stop working with corporate sponsors and drop its “InSchool Marketing” program.

Photo credit: sfxeric via Flickr