![\"Ripple](\"http:\/\/kandynolesstevens.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/09\/afghan.jpg\")
<\/a>Ripple or chevron? I guess it’s all in how you look at it.<\/p><\/div>\n
The more I thought about it, the more bothered I became by that email.\u00a0 How many times does that type of marketing work?\u00a0 More often than I would like to admit I am guessing.<\/p>\n
My thoughts wondered back to teaching junior high science.\u00a0 Each year at some point, I welcomed my students to the world of adulthood by letting them know a little secret: advertising is not for educated!\u00a0 I would share with them that sometimes even brand names were meant to evoke a certain image: Downy and Nike were two that always came to mind.\u00a0 I told them that they were too smart to be duped by ads.\u00a0 Always one for the flair of the dramatic, I would quietly tip-toe around the room acting as if other grown-ups would pull out pitchforks and burning stakes if they knew I was letting children in on this little secret.\u00a0 Then I would\u00a0share about\u00a0the moment that I caught on to the truth.\u00a0 It was\u00a0\u201cThe Great Cholesterol Scare of \u201885\u201d. \u00a0I didn\u2019t have a sage guide.\u00a0 I was on my own perusing the snacks at Food World in high school. I needed to pick up peanut butter. But which one to choose? Why not the one with large label \u2013 emblazoned with NO CHOLESTEROL.\u00a0 Suddenly angels appeared in Aisle 6 with rays of heavenly light shining forth.\u00a0 This moment was somewhat akin to the beauty school drop-out scene in Grease. At this point in my story, most of my 7th<\/sup> graders were hanging on to every word.\u00a0 Gently, because this was new knowledge in the information age, I explained my epiphany.\u00a0 The uneducated consumer would think that this singular brand among all others on the shelf was there to protect my health, my arteries, (and not mention Truth, Justice, and the American Way).\u00a0 I should buy THIS peanut butter because they cared enough to remove the horrible, evil, bad-guy Cholesterol from its product.\u00a0 The reality: there was never any cholesterol in it.\u00a0 Advertising is not for the educated.<\/p>\n Anyone who has been a teacher for more than twelve years knows that in the education world there are fads -lots of them.\u00a0 I remember a former administrator was practically giddy with excitement at the speaker we were going to for a back-to-school workshop. His words were, \u201cThis is going to revolutionize what we do here\u201d. \u00a0Because I believe that there are many ways to reach a child, I sincerely doubted this revolution was going to last long.\u00a0 Once there, I knew for a fact that my hunch was right.\u00a0 This workshop was twenty years ago, and the buzz-word for teaching was \u201ccooperative grouping\u201d.\u00a0 The idea being that if we did everything in the classroom in groups, children would succeed, our lessons would reach every child, and everyone would learn at equal gains and paces.\u00a0 That isn\u2019t exactly what happened. \u00a0It is a great tool, but no one can build a house with just a hammer.\u00a0 Why would we think that just one method would build a child?<\/p>\n So what do ripple afghans, peanut butter, and cooperative grouping have to do with anything?\u00a0 Together, not much, unless you are lucky enough to teach in classroom that allows naps and snacks while simultaneously having your students arranged in groups!\u00a0 (Some days, that would be my dream classroom!)<\/p>\n In all honesty, this concept of being easily fooled is one of the things that strikes fear in my heart.\u00a0 How many messages do our kids receive in a day? \u00a0\u00a0I want to raise kiddos who love God and who are great thinkers with big hearts.\u00a0 That\u2019s a tall order! \u00a0Are we (meaning: parents, schools,\u00a0 communities) giving our children as much of an opportunity to learn and to think as we are preparing them for standardized tests? \u00a0\u00a0Have we been hindered by the vast availability of knowledge at our fingertips without pushing our brains to go as far as they can?\u00a0 Have we settled for the quick fix rather than creatively engineering the box (not just thinking outside of one)?\u00a0 Have we equipped them with the tools to see through the garbage to get to what message is really being sent to them?\u00a0 Is there an app for that?<\/p>\n Whenever I ruminate too long on this subject, I think about all the ways I have possibly failed as a mom and trust me, the list is LONG.\u00a0 Then God gives me a glimpse that perhaps we haven\u2019t done such a bad job after all.\u00a0 I had an opportunity to watch my children testing a product for a company years ago.\u00a0 I could see what they were doing while simultaneously having access to the questions they were being asked.\u00a0 I watched as one of my sons was asked to describe how the product looked.\u00a0 Every other child in the room looked at the product and wrote down their description.\u00a0 Then I saw movement unlike the others over by my boy\u2019s spot.\u00a0 Behold!\u00a0 He picked up the item and inspected the underside.<\/p>\n That was PROUD moment\u00a0for this\u00a0momma!\u00a0 All those things I worried about maybe were for naught because not only did he think outside of the box \u2013 he reinvented it.\u00a0\u00a0 If I wouldn\u2019t have looked like a nut, I wanted to jump up and down, cheering him on!<\/p>\n All over the country today many are sending their kids back to school.\u00a0 In a really grown-up, fast-paced world, there are a lot of distractions.\u00a0 Some are good, but plenty have no reason other than to\u00a0dupe our kids. With a lot of prayer and nurturing, hopefully, \u00a0all\u00a0kids will learn to think on their own two feet and not be fooled by the flash and dazzle (like the chevron afghans) of the world.\u00a0 Because the way I see it, a horse by any other name is a . . . well, you know what I mean.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I almost choked on my sweet tea the other day when I saw an email in my inbox.\u00a0 In the message were the instructions on how to be hip and cool with my crocheting.\u00a0 Didn\u2019t I want to be hip and cool?\u00a0 Of course!\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t keep my eyeballs from looking into this!\u00a0 I discovered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[743,744,745,746,135,747,748,749,514,750,612,751],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.realsweetgrace.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}