Child Labour

Guarcello, Lyan and Rosati wrote a paper on child labour. The aim of the study was to describe the relationship between education and childhood. They also talk about education for all and a program called UNESCO which is a organization that is trying to make it so that all the children in the world will have equal access to school. They then talked about the relationship between Labour and school access/success they say that where work is more values school is less valued and vice versa. They then finish with talking about the availability to quality school will determine whether the child will work or go to school.

Chocolate the bitter truth. part 1 of 5

Here is a video on child trafficking, I only posted the first clip the other four are on youtube and they are very interesting to watch and if you like this one then watch the other ones they are just as good. This video really made the think about the fact that this is still going on in the world and there are still so many people on earth that are not living the life that they deserve to be living. There are children that have a right to an education but instead they are working the hours and have the responsibility of an adult. I know that children here complain about having to do a little house work, but the children there that are working full day do not complain at all. They have a very hard life and have to just learn to deal with it, while here we have children that when one thing goes wrong they got ten people that will make it better. I am not saying that the children here should not be treated that way I am just saying that there is still a big difference between the two lifestyles.

Children and Advertising

There are many things that children learn from advertisements; one of these things is their gender roles. Boys are taught to play with action figures and Lego, while girls play with dolls and Barbie. If a child does not want to play with their genders toys many people may think that there is something wrong with that child. Toys are also in agent in socialization, it teaches children how to perform their gender from a very young age. There are six points that we discussed in class about children and advertizing they are:
1) Postwar Period - was in the 50's, 60's, and 70's there was a reaction between advertizing, children and a broader consumer society
2) Advertising helps create childhood - when people have money they should spend it so people can have jobs and provide for their family. Children are the best resource of this because they have money to burn. They keep the supply and demand going. Advertisements help children become consumers and helps create childhood because it is not a naturally occurring thing. Also it is historical specific and culturally unique.
3) Child world - immersed in advertising, the rise of technology changed childhood, before children did not see very many advertisements in the things they did now they are surrounded by it when they are watching TV.
4) Childs mind - Children do not think that same as adults, they think about playing and they have hardly any problems in the world.
5) Gender - for different genders there are different toys as I have already mentioned.
Girls - Barbie is a cultural expectation for girls. I very much disagree with Barbie because girls think that they need to be just like Barbie, meaning thin, beautiful, social able, rich, heterosexual, and likes to shop. We all know that not everyone is the same and that no girl can be exactly like this. Therefore many girls have self-esteem issues and some cases it leads to depression
Boys - action figure are what boys are expected to play with, they create an expectation of muscular, and fighting for boys.
6) Implications - all these things imply call for regulation and I think that children need to be educated of what is out there and that they are not expected to be like the toys that they play with.

"Challenges in the History of Childhood"

Peter Stern looks at the social history of everyday people, but he finds it perticularly challenging to study the history of childhood there are three main reasons for this difficulty they are:
1) accessing childrens voices
2) missing topics
3) learning from the past
Accessing Childrens voices is hard because everything made for children is made by adults, even when adults are thinking about their past it is still from your adult perspective. Also children are able to communicate but they are always communicating with adult so it would still be an adults interpretation of what that child is saying. Stern goes on to say that it is easier to hear the adolescent voice becuase they actually know how to communicate and they are older so they are at an age that they want their voice to be heard.
Missing Topics: Stern says that people can only imagine how life looks for children because you can only talk about your own perspective and look at your own perspective. He says that friendships and siblings are untouched in the history of childhood and the children that is does have history on is mainly from the working class and that the history favors a European background.

I find that it is important to study the history of children just because people learn from the past and it is easy for history to repeat itself and in many cases we have improved from history therefore we would not want history to repeat. Things like child labour are things that we would not want to repeat.

Shyness

This was the blog post that I did for Edcuational Psychology on the same film. I feel that the ideas i discussed then, apply in this class also.

We watched another video in class today. It was about shyness. The narrator of the film had the students fill out a survey. From the survey they found out which students were most popular. They also found out the least popular ones. There were three; these were considered the shy kids. They were researched on and had to go to a therapist. The therapist figured that the one boy was not shy but was just happier doing things on his own, he liked the quiet. The other boy had a disorder therefore it was not his fault that he was the way he was. The little was considered to have shyness. She always walked with her head down, would not speak in front of the class, and never said anything at all unless she really had to. The researcher consulted her mother, and talked to the girl to try and find out what the reason may be. They concluded that the reason the little girl was shy was because her mother was always pushing her to be perfect and never told her when she was doing something right, only told her about all the things she was doing wrong. They told the mother that they believe this was the problem and she changed the way she treated her daughter. Also the teachers encouraged her, and by the end of the movie the little girl stands up and speaks in front of the class. I related to this video because I was a shy girl myself. Coming from Holland and not knowing how to communicate with my peers was hard. They did not try talking to me either.  I was different and that was that. I was the misfit. I went to school in a small town I had about 20 kids in my class. And the same 20 kids from kindergarten to grade eight.  Then I went to school in red deer and I was excited because maybe I could make friends there. No one knew me there and I would be able to speak the same language as them. Once I got there though I realized I might want to make new friends but I had no social skills, therefore once again I felt alone.  During high school is when I started to develop my social skill. Now I think I am good to go.  This is why I believe it is a good thing that the people in the video took action and did something about the problem the child was having right away. It was a life changing thing for the little girl.

My summer

There is a story that I would like to tell to start off this blog.
This summer I volunteered one week of my summer to be a camp counsellor at camp Alexo. It was literally one of the best experiences of my life. the kids at camp Alexo are amazing and they all have a great future ahead of them. Some of the kids at camp come from foster homes or are in a lot of trouble in their lives, these kids are brought to camp to get a break from their busy and stressful lives. Many of the kids that come to camp as foster kids have loved the experience so much because they are free from their everyday drama. Also many of them come back for years to follow and go on to becoming C.I.T.'s (counsellors in training) and then go one to be counsellors. I find that a summer camp is a very important thing for kids to go to when they are young because it teaches them to interact with other kids their age outside of the school setting. Also the week that I volunteered at the camp I broke up with my long term boyfriend the day before. I had it in my head that I was not going to go to camp anymore because I would just give the kids a bad experience at camp. My sister talked to me and made me realize that I made the commitment and that it would help me keep my mind of what had happened. The kids at camp never knew what had happened and my sister was right they were all so happy and enthusiastic to be at camp and they all looked up to me. This kind of attitude from a group of kids made me realize that is does not matter what I am going through back at home right now I am here with these kids to make them have a fun week and that is what I did. I got many thank you, crying hugs, and a job offer at the end of the week and when I got home I did not even think about what had happened to me before the week because it did not matter anymore because I had just had an awesome week with all these kids.