In “My Year with Nike” by Rachel Clouse, she talks about how her fourth grade class was asked by Nike to attend four field trips. The deal was if they attended these field trips they would receive funding for items the school needs. Title 1 Schools like hers really rely on outside funding and often get sucked into these types of partnerships with big corporations. The students would get free things like t-shirts with the iconic Nike swoosh logo. She felt uncomfortable about the situation because she believes marketing has no place in schools. Her uncomfortableness wasn’t noticed because of the excitement of the kids and other teachers. She felt as if she wouldn’t be heard and would be criticized for speaking out against it. She really wanted to emphasize that if Nike has all this money, why not just donate it to the schools? Why do they need to advertise to the children? On their first field trip, they made the students watch Nike commercials and after a health discussion they gave the students soda to drink. Nike appears in the children’s eyes as this great company when in reality they are running exploitative sweatshops and not paying their workers a livable wage. So many students in urban districts take pride in the way they dress. This marketing was directly targeted to them and how to get this population to buy more Nike products. She wants to get her students to focus on the messages the media is sending them. She wants her students to question the media but she’s unsure of how to go about teaching it without receiving flack from administrators. She decided to do an advertising lesson about where their sneakers were made to try and get them to realize the influence the media has on their choices. Rachel mentions how she would much rather have enthusiastic Nike workers come into her classroom and read to the students. This is more beneficial to her than giving the students free Nike products.
Hi Emily, I just read the chapter regarding Target and their similar marketing strategy involving schools. It's disturbing how common this practice is among major corporations and the subtle yet blatant impact this has upon our culture.
ReplyDeleteIt is absolutely disturbing to think that corporations such as Nike prey on the need for funding in urban schools. This illustrates the need for teachers to use media literacy techniques such as the ones Brittany presented so that students become active participants in understanding and challenging marketing campaigns such as this.
ReplyDeleteEileen
A text like this is good because it opens up our eyes as teachers -- do you see a way to bring it to your students, as well?
ReplyDeleteI was surprised to learn that Nike is running exploitative sweatshops and not paying their workers a livable wage...sad, so sad.
ReplyDeleteChristina D'Ambra