Books that influenced this unit.
As mentioned in my introduction, my participation in this Academic Professional Development held at Yale University created the foundation for this unit. The excerpts that we read to foster and give us different perspectives on the subject of consumerism added validity and understanding to the idea of consumer culture. I encourage you, as a teacher, to read the three books that I have outlined and added to this unit's bibliography as a way of gaining a deeper understanding of "things", cultures, and purchasing power when teaching to a young population of students. I have organized all three books as subheadings to make the connection between why I used them and the influence they have had on this unit.
Daniel Miller, The Comfort of Things
This particular reading spoke to me on many different levels, which I discuss later. The main topic of the chapters I read is consumerism, understood as the social meanings attached to personal possessions; so Miller takes the reader on an ethnographic journey into the lives of different types of people and families and dissects their homes and the items in their homes and psyches. His descriptions of the items within the different homes allows the reader to gain a more in-depth look at each person in respect to their objects or "things" that form and order their home environment. Miller delves into the deeper understanding of "things" and how one views their own personal possessions. Two of the excerpts pulled me entirely into the topic of what certain "things" mean and say about us as individuals and how we chose to have and arrange things in our homes. Growing up, I was very much interested in the things that my mother had collected and saved. She was a stay-at-home mom and usually never spent any money on herself and treasured especially the things that were passed down to her from her grandparents who raised her. I was the only one of the eight children in my family to listen intently to her stories of how she acquired her beloved items —such as her Irish linens, Belleek China, and even the little plates that her grandfather rescued from a Wilmington Court House back in the early 40's when he was a fireman. All meticulously kept and treasured.
There was an intense connection that I made to the Clarke family that Daniel Miller depicts in his study. He explains that the Clarke's house was the place to be on holidays and how meticulous and time consuming it would be for the parents to prepare holidays and special events for their family members. The Clarke's cared and fussed over their possessions as my mother did hers which was very familiar to me. It's a type of deep affection that one feels for objects that provide memories of times past.
The "things" that I will ask the students to bring with them to school and explain the significance of them will serve two purposes. Once they present their item for the first time, as a class, we will decide and discuss whether that items is classified as a want or a need. The background knowledge the students will have to enable them to define the item(s) is based on our prior lessons on what makes an item a want or a need. (See lesson plans section) Once the item is presented, the children will describe their item aloud using certain criteria. For this initial part of the activity, I want them to simply explain to us what the item is, who gave them the item, and whether they think the item is a want or a need based on our prior lessons conversations. During the students conversations I will be informally evaluating each of the student presenters in terms of the curricula criteria posed at the beginning of the lesson. What I will be doing during this period is analyzing and thinking through their description of the items: what symbol this item represents for them and what it tells about them.
Purchasing Power
Purchasing Power by Elizabeth Chinn explores the consumer lives of poor, working- class minority children. This ethnography delves into the forces bearing down upon the purchasing choices of her subjects and how they may be viewed as being in large part responses to structural oppressions, oppressions that are then reenforced through consumer channels.(10)
Because of both the economic make-up and the diversity of my class, the book Purchasing Power provided me with a different perspective when approaching the topic of impoverished children and consumerism. Chin describes her experiences working with African-American children, especially the shopping trip she sponsors by giving each of her child-informants $20 to spend. She discovers that the children spend their allotted $20.00 to buy items to share rather than status-items that help them fit in socially. A girl buys a bag of candy to share with her sister. A boy buys a pair of walkie-talkies instead of a Wolverine action figure (which every other boy in the neighborhood has) that will allow him to play with his brother. These kids easily choose 'needed items' over 'wanted items'. A boy buys school supplies, another child buys new shoes. These children also consider their parents. At such a young age, a girl buys a pair of shoes for her mother and curlers for her grandmother. Their purchases are well-thought out. Chin's extensive research for her book correlates with my vision for the activities and objectives for my unit. My goal is for my students to learn to be as conscientious as Chin discovered that children can be when faced with decisions on when and how they spend their money, even at a young age.
Vast differences separate white middle class children from the young children of Newhallville who participated in Chin's study. The most glaring to me was the fact that growing up, in my white middle class home, I never knew how the money within the household was spent and I was continually told that it was simply none of my business. I am one of eight children and the topic of money or income, whether it was available or not, was never discussed with my siblings and me. The majority of the time, I don't even think my father discussed the disbursement of money with my home maker mother. There were shortages at times but we seemed to get through them with no mention or discussion of how and where the money came from.
Chin explains that from an early age, the Newhallville children are not only made aware of the amounts of available income, if any, but they know the amount of each bill and expense and are expected to use their own money to pay for personal necessities such as socks and underwear. Chin shows this as an example of how these family units, which are not traditional "units" in the mainstream sense — nuclear households with father, mother, and children — pull together to survive. I feel that if my siblings and I had been more knowledgeable about the everyday expenses within our household, maybe our spending habits later in life would have been different. An example of how socio-economic rules exist in families and classes. The above descriptors show that even though children are economically disadvantaged, they can be savvy and conscientious consumers.
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