Skip to main content

Us and Them

This is a very interesting article that a friend found about how "simple living" is actually a privilege for the wealthy. Also will cause anyone to think who has been guilty (myself included) of judging the spending habits of the poor. One example: it's easy to criticize those in the inner city for making poor nutritional choices for themselves and their children - aside from a frequent lack of education, there are no grocery stores in the inner cities. When you have to buy groceries from liquor stores, there's not a lot of choices for fresh produce. Again, farmers' markets, Whole Foods, organic vegetables... may be getting back to the basics but it's an opportunity that many people don't have. Read it.

One student wanted to take this picture of our hands after I told him that I have always wanted to be his color. He didn't believe me. Let me state up front that I understand how many situations in life are much much easier for me because I am white, and I'm not at all downplaying any racism that anyone has experienced, or any pain from having the standard of beauty in our culture be closer to my skin color than his. But from a purely aesthetic point of view, I prefer his skin color.
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
have you ever read "simple living" magazine? it's a huge load of crap about all the stuff you need to buy to live simply, which also happens to be full of advertising from people who want you to spend your money on their stuff... so much for actually thinking that you simple living might involve buying less stuff?? Not that this issue is one of my soap boxes or anything...
10:57 AM
Anonymous said…
You know... I know there are places where schools have made community gardens. I have no idea whether this would be a catastrophe or a boon for your particular class (or maybe local churches or your/other grades already do this), but I'm thinking you could get grant money and/or donorschoose funding to do this. Also, wonder if someone creative could slip it under Physical Education if not biology/ecosystem standards?
1:05 PM
Bronwyn said…
We had a garden, which was funded by Americorps and was great for a few years. The problem is upkeep. After a while, we need money and labor to keep things going and that's where we run into problems... Our Americorps garden got so run down that the district finally just paved over it. :(
5:35 PM
Jessamyn Harris said…
there's a new book out about the authors' "year without buying". they basically went a year without buying anything ... well, anything other than healthy groceries. and a washing machine. and things from the thrift store. etc. there were a bunch of other exceptions.
I didn't read it, just heard an interview. basically they were trying to prove a point, that it's possible but "super hard" or something, ... nevermind that millions of people don't even have those luxuries! dumb.
9:09 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Stuffed Animals

There are several much more serious stories I was going to share, but I'm not in the mood to be made sad tonight, so I'll tell you all about the stuffed animals.  This is a post that needs images so someday when I have or borrow a working scanner, I will add the photos. A few years into teaching, I joined Freecyle.  For those of you who don't know Freecycle, it's a group of people in any given community who are on an email list to get rid of their old stuff and get stuff from other people.  It's a fabulous form of recycling. Somebody posted that they had a huge bag of stuffed animals in good condition to give away and I decided to grab it for my class. I thought that some of the kids would like the stuffed animals, but I certainly didn't think they'd all be into them.  Kids grow up really fast in that neighborhood, and when you have six-year olds talking about how they walk to school alone because their parents say they're "grown," and how
1 comment
Read more

A Loss

  (I have been putting off finishing this blog post for months. You'll see why)  Today, I was cleaning a bookshelf and I found the journal from one of my third-grade students, who I call Fred in my book , in 2001. I still had it because he didn't come to the last day of school to get his stuff this year and I guess it got put in a pile and somehow I've kept it with me.  He didn't come to the last day of school, probably because his family was a mess: dad in prison, mom in an abusive relationship, all the kids (understandably) acting out violently. Fred was expelled from our school in second grade for hitting a teacher. Then he was expelled from the other school, I don't know why, at the end of second grade. He came back on the condition from the administration that he be in my class because I had him as a student in first grade and he listened to me and worked well with me.  We had a really good relationship, although Fred was definitely not easy to have in class.
Post a Comment
Read more

A New Prison, Part Two

  Second very long part of the prison visit report.   After we got all the paperwork filled out and went through the metal detector, we got visitation slips with the name of the inmate, and made our way over to the other building for visitation. This is not maximum security so thankfully you can just sit next to the inmates, and not be separated by glass or have to use a telephone to talk.    First, you get a gate unlocked and go into a holding pen that is of course in direct sunlight (or rain if it's that season) and surrounded by fences topped with razor wire. You wait there until the gate at the other end is unlocked. This holding pen was a little bigger and less claustrophobic than the other prison (I do not have any claustrophobia and I came very close to a panic attack once at the other place) and they opened the other gate more quickly. Then you walk, again in blazing sunlight (or rain) to the visitation building. This one was less of a walk than the other prison but I still
Post a Comment
Read more