FALL 2014- exploring schools, teaching, race, curriculum, and more!

On the brink of so much happening in education...Common Core, all the people for or against it, Where do you stand?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/05/02/6-reasons-to-reject-common-core-k-3-standards-and-6-axioms-to-guide-policy/
And what gives with Koch brothers and education?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/16/koch-brothers-education_n_5587577.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

This year there will be elections, who will you vote for and where do these candidates stand on important educational issues...do you know?

What is this field called Education, and what do you know about it and what do you want to know about it?

How many facets are there to this field?  Is it simply loving kids, or a whole lot more?

Ferguson, and how will you teach kids, or yourself about the topic of race, white privlidge, etc?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/22/proof-of-white-privilege_n_5375800.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-millennials-perpetuate-racism-by-pretending-it-doesnt-exist-2014-5

Market basket:  what does that event teach you about empowerment and how does that translate to teaching?

What about Finland and their awesome schools compared to ours?
http://m.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/06/how-finland-keeps-kids-focused/373544/

Technology in teaching:
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/blogging-in-21st-century-classroom-michelle-lampinen?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=blog-21st-century-classroom-langwitches-shared-image

Welcome to SPRING 2014 EDU 100

HI!  I look forward to meeting everyone in this class.
This class serves as an introduction to education, the foundations of education, the issues facing education, and also at getting to know yourself better as a future educator.

The class is geared toward elementary education as it is required for the elementary education major.
Non majors have taken this class before, primarily to become more familiar with elementary education to explore as possible future career paths.
The blog has the purpose of being a place for you to publish your ideas and thoughts about education, what you believe about education, what you are learning about education.

There will be weekly blog assignments, but you may also add to your blog whenever you choose.  This blog can go with you in the future wherever you go.
The reason I have you blog here is because the work you do in canvas will eventually not be accessible to you or me...This way, you can always go back to see what these beginning thoughts were in your career and continue to add to it.
blogger does a nice job at archiving work etc.
Enjoy!
Here is my example of my 10x10 pechakucha for the reflect on who we are assignment

more info on clothes

NPR this morning had a whole thing on where a t shirt comes from.
the start...and the finish.
They said they talked to two sisters, and it tells the complicated tale of making clothes abroad in places like Bangladesh.
While I abhor anyone who goes against human rights, it seems there is another side. I do not know what it is, but i suspect it is around giving people jobs.
BUT how do you know the company you buy from is a company giving fair jobs or one that is violating huamn rights?  It seems like a fine line, and THAT THERE IS A VEIL.

http://apps.npr.org/tshirt/#/title
This is a beautiful artful piece.
BUt today on money matters on npr they spoke more in depth about it and I guess daily they will share more in detail.
Aparently later in the day they had the tale of two sisters they alluded to:  It also shows how these companies provide for future generations but they hate it, and also how these companies change their cultures...and also divide up familes. classic, where moms go to work in city and leave kids behind in villages.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/11/30/247360855/two-sisters-a-small-room-and-the-world-behind-a-t-shirt (below)
Then they traced the t-shirt back to poverty.  It also shows how as the wages go up...then companies look for new countries to basically exploit (and culturally change)
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/11/30/247360787/our-industry-follows-poverty-success-threatens-a-t-shirt-business

They also had a tie back to how the whole thing started in Bangladesh...began with Nixon!
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/11/30/247360903/nixon-and-kimchee-how-the-garment-industry-came-to-bangladesh
AND THEN WHY DO WE NOT MAKE THINGS IN USA QUESTION: FREE TRADE!  Free trade was one of the worst things for our country and people buying clothes made locally.  It was powered by powerful corporations, who asked for free trade...so several countries signed free trade agreements.  classic deregulation!
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/11/26/247361423/the-giant-book-that-creates-and-destroys-entire-industries

THEN THE AFTERLIFE OF OUR CLOTHES!!! This is amazing.  Where our clothes go when we donate them!  I always thought they get resold in the goodwill where I bring it...but the images are powerful!
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/11/26/247362140/the-afterlife-of-american-clothes

"This is the story of how the garment industry is transforming life in Bangladesh, and the story of two sisters who made the Planet Money T-shirt.

Shumi and Minu work six days a week operating sewing machines at Deluxe Fashions Ltd. in Chittagong, Bangladesh. They each make about $80 a month.

To get to the small room that the sisters share with Minu's husband, you squeeze between two buildings, make your way along the wall, and spill out into a little neighborhood of boxlike rooms, all crammed on top of each other. Their room is upstairs, under a tin roof.

There's no running water in their room, and no kitchen. There's a TV, which Minu bought with the money she earned sewing clothes. There's also the box the TV came in, which takes up scarce shelf space in the small room. Minu was so proud of her purchase, she couldn't bear to throw the box away. "I feel too good when I think about it," she says, with a quick smile.

In the past decade, millions of Bangladeshis have started working in the garment industry. Many of them are like Shumi and Minu: They grew up in villages where conditions are even worse than they are for factory workers in the city.

When Shumi and Minu were growing up, sometimes there wasn't enough food to eat. They had three younger sisters who all died before they were 7. Now, Shumi and Minu are able to send money home. It isn't much, but it makes a big difference in the village.

"Now, we can eat whatever we want," their mother says. Their parents have built a new house, made of brick, to replace their old, bamboo house. And their younger brother can stay in school.

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  Salman Saeed for NPR
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  Salman Saeed for NPR
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  Salman Saeed for NPR
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  Kainaz Amaria/NPR
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The rise of factory jobs in Bangladesh has brought profound cultural changes to the country as well. You can see the shift in just the few years that separate Minu and Shumi.

Minu, the older sister, is in her mid-20s. (The sisters aren't sure of their exact ages.) She's cynical and chews tobacco wrapped in betel leaf.

Minu has a 7-year-old daughter who lives back in the village with her grandparents. "I miss her," Minu says through a translator. "If she were here now, I'd be putting little clips in her hair." But there's nobody to watch Minu's daughter while Minu is at work here in the city.

Shumi, who is about 19, is Minu's opposite. Where Minu is reserved, Shumi is bubbly. Where Minu is serious, Shumi smiles. She loves her makeup and spends time doing her hair. It's hard for her to get through a story without laughing.

Minu's father married her off when she was a teenager, following the local tradition. An unmarried daughter "becomes a big burden," her father told us. "I have to spend money on their food and lodging."

Minu and her husband fight a lot. He goes through her phone and accuses her of cheating with the men she works with. She's a little scared of him. "I'm not capable to forgive my parents," Minu says. "They just destroyed my life."

By the time Shumi was a teenager, the rules of life in Bangladesh were changing. Rather than get married off, Shumi dropped out of school to go work with her sister in a factory.

Shumi's personal life is nothing like Minu's. Shumi has her own savings account. She has a boyfriend. Back in the village, her family would never let her talk to a boy who wasn't a relative. But here on her own, she takes rickshaw rides with her boyfriend. They hold hands; he tells her he loves her.

And, Shumi says, she won't consent to an arranged marriage like her sister's. "If I marry someone, then it should be my boyfriend," she says.

This is the world behind our T-shirt: three people in a small room dreaming of a better life. But for Minu and Shumi, this little room with the TV may be as far as they get. There aren't many jobs outside the garment industry, especially for women who dropped out of school.

Minu's dreams now are for her daughter. She's hopeful that her daughter can stay in school. She dreams that when her daughter grows up, there will be all kinds of jobs in Bangladesh. Maybe her daughter could work in an office, she says, or a bank — but not in a garment factory.

Interactive Documentary

PLANET MONEY MAKES A T-SHIRT: The world behind a simple shirt, in five chapters

NPR

Interactive Documentary

PLANET MONEY MAKES A T-SHIRT: The Lives Of The People Who Made Our Shirt

NPR

my concept map on this issue and TAKING ACTION

THIS IS MY MAP, IT IS SO BIG YOU CANNOT VIEW THE WHOLE THING, BUT CLICK ON IT AND IT WILL SHOW THE WHOLE THING IF YOU BLOW IT UP.

some images of the industry:

and some images of questioning cheap garments

My activism is first, to research possibly activism organization, which I did via first reading the news to see what is happening.  What I found particularily inspiring was University of Michigan having a vigil for the victims in Bangladesh...And their goal is to get the university to divest their garments from being made in sweatshops in Bangaldesh.  http://www.michigandaily.com/news/vigil-raises-awareness

It made me wonder if that would be one way to make change, to get the sports wear at a college to change their source to a local company?  

While looking for petitions I found a recent current event by cnn no less about how even though all these deaths occurred, 7 more people died in a deadly factory fire due to heat in a chimney and poor conditions and how nothing is changing over there http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/24/opinion/bangladesh-garment-workers/

this linked me to an article about an act that was put into play in July (and there is an image of a woman looking at the name list of those who died to find a loved one)  and it shares how this act does not do much for them, but some improvement, kind of.http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/07/15/bangladesh-amended-labor-law-falls-short

But for now, I took action by signing a petition

so this search was NOT EASY!  I found it not by googling, but through facebook search and I found waronwant.  i love the title of this.

http://www.waronwant.org/overseas-work/sweatshops-and-plantations/sweatshops-in-bangladesh

and this linked me to a change.org petition.

signed it:

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/primarkjobs-mango-matalan-ensure-safety-for-workers-compensate-victims-of-building-collapse

BUT I ALSO EMAILED GAP and asked them questions, and emailed other companies too.  I think as a buyer, that is important.  The next step is to question their antics on their facebook page.  

I just love patagonia

So this is a company that I truly trust:
http://www.thecleanestline.com/footprint_chronicles/
Love this blog!
and I think their FAQ page, the more I read it, the better I feel about them.  They admit to how hard it is and the reality of the situation.
http://www.patagonia.com/us/patagonia.go?assetid=67517  but that they do in fact deal...often.
Somehow I trust this openness.

more information regarding the sweat shop and company intel.

1)  I found this website that tells you the steps to figure out if a company is using sweat shops or not.

How Do You Verify Your Clothing Manufacturer Is Not a Sweatshop? http://www.ehow.com/how_7359713_do-clothing-manufacturer-not-sweatshop_.html

Read more: http://www.ehow.com/how_7359713_do-clothing-manufacturer-not-sweatshop_.html#ixzz2j3ugGL5G

Instructions

1.        

o    1

Visit the manufacturer's website to see if it has an FAQ page that addresses concerns over where their clothing is made.

o    2

Ask the employees of the store if they know where the clothing comes from. Several manufacturers pride themselves on using local, sweatshop-free labor and the employees will tell you so.

o    3

Contact customer support. Most large clothing stores have some sort of customer support/public relations line. If you can't find the answers in-store or on the web, contact the manufacturer directly and ask where their clothing comes from.

o    4

Find sweatshop watchdog organizations on the web and review their news releases. Be sure the information is recent; the reputations of some supposed watchdog organizations have come into question amidst reports that they have "sold out" to corporations.

o    5

Type in the name of a clothing company and "sweatshop" in an Internet search. Many of the largest manufacturers' names come up repeatedly in media reports about the use of child labor and unfair labor practices.

Read more: http://www.ehow.com/how_7359713_do-clothing-manufacturer-not-sweatshop_.html#ixzz2j3uQUD12

2)  I then started looking at companies to find their info.  Athleta particularly concerned me since a) I love their clothes and b)  they are owned by Gap/ banana republic...and Gap inc is notoriously under fire from sweatshop activitists:
But the Athleta website, on the very bottom has a little sign that says "social responsibility"  and on that page is a whole GAP INC SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY WEBSITE:
http://gapinc.com/content/gapinc/html/social_responsibility.html
 WOW...is that confusing to me...considering all the allegations right now of GAP INC involved over in the Bangladesh factory finishing and sourcing companies, where they found old navy tags...(and who would create a knock off old navy jean???(that is what Gap claimed).

What to believe?

I can tell you what I believe...I believe that they have no idea...and the more they turn an eye, the more they cannot be held accountable.
I also believe that the more we dive into this global market and expect lower prices, the more we are screwed.

THIS IS WHAT I THINK WE NEED:
1)  Make clothes here, from source to finish
2)  pay more for these
3) workers make money
4) money is kept within the us.  more money to production, and to the real production, NOT THE CEO'S...
the real issue in all of this is the greed on top.

The companies for sure guilty are Sears and Wal-Mart in the fires at Bangladesh in 2012.  152 people died thenhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/world/asia/report-on-bangladesh-building-collapse-finds-widespread-blame.html

Another reason to look into this whole sweat shop issue

See blog posts below on my action of writing IBEX, a wool company from VT about their claim to being sustainable.  It is exciting to see how they are responding to my emails and how much I am learning.  The fact they are so transparent in their business practices and the things they are considering in making their clothes is awesome.
Of course IBEX is ridiculously pricey, so I have to wait for their yearly Columbus weekend tent sale to even consider affording their clothes, but the question does arise about my own behavior:
HOW MUCH CLOTHES DO I REALLY NEED???
I have a closet FULL of clothes, and yet I want more.  I have enough jackets to laast me forever, and yet, when I see the newest come out, I am pretty excited to re-up and get rid of my old one.  I never throw anything away, I do donate them to goodwill or hand down to friends, BUT STILL , do I really need NEW NEW NEW???  I am also not a big shopper compared to other adults my age.  I maybe by 1 pair of pants a year, maybe 1 dress, and maybe 1 jacket...but the clothes i buy lasts, SO...do i need more?

The other thing is factory conditions.  As written below about the sweat shops, what major companies like LL Bean and Old Navy do as far as purchasing from factories who are NOT socially responsible at all, or ecologically responsible is horrible, and by me lining some rich CEO's pocket by buying the clothes, and perpetuating this type of abuse, I am partly responsible.
The BANGLADESH collapse of the building in 2013 was horrific!  over 1000 people died. http://www.news.com.au/world/asia/bangladesh-collapse-toll-passes-1000/story-fnh81fz8-1226639325170  To make clothes for some clothing companies.  They knew the bilding was unsafe and yet they kept 1000's of people working in it making garments.
I will keep investigating this issue.