So today I was reading a story to a few students I help in a grade three classroom at OPS, and one of the kids picked a book called "Will We Miss Them?". It was a book published by World Wildlife Fund, and I was really confused what they wanted out of these little eight year olds? The book had pictures of bald eagles, elephants, cougars, blue whales, bears, gorillias and many more endangered species. They would give little information about the animal and then at the end of each page with big writing it read "Will We Miss Them???" And to me... It seemed like they wanted these kids to give them money!? Or even go home and be like "Mommy and daddy lets sponsor an endandgered animal!!!" To me thats just crazy! It might have been the way I was reading it, but its horrible to think companies even try to get into the minds of children in the household. Clever. Tricky.... But horrible!!!
4 comments:
I agree with you. THats horrible. People should not try to get to kids heads. Kids have more things to worry about. And kids should not have to think that the world is on their shoulders becasue people want to get money out of their families.
Great post - I never really thought about it that way, but just because they are a charity doesn't make it okay to manipulate children. Does it? I remember getting really upset watching worldvision commercials and getting my mom to sponsor a child. I suppose I was manipulated - but something good came out of it, and I did learn about the world. Hmmm... maybe it is not so bad to target young kids for charity, I mean, at least compared to targetting young children for cigarettes???
Targetting young children for charity is horrible but if you think about it I would rather see a child wanting to read a book that actually teaches them something and wanting to help the world for the better rather than watching the simpsons or seeing older role models associated with drugs and alcohol. I completely see your point of view tho!
I don't think the book was manipulating kids it was targeted to kids so they can understand that because of humans those animals aren't going to be around in 100 years, although i think the age group it was targeting was a little young
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