Category: Youth Ministry
Commodification of Children and Youth
To serve in youth ministry or children’s ministry is to often hear an adult say, “The world that children are growing up in today is so much different than when I grew up.” My response is to agree, but go a step farther. “Children and youth are not that different than when you were their age. They struggle with identity, peer pressure, parental units expectations, cultural expectations, gender roles, sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll (input your favorite music to annoy parents here). The difference now from when I was a kid and when you were a kid is that the amount of stuff, information, news, and products that are marketed to children and youth has exponentially grown.” Adults, typically, warm to that perspective and agree. Today’s children and youth don’t have the memory to recall nor the framework to critically evaluate the growth of consumer culture. From the 1960’s to early 1980’s products marketed to children where mainly breakfast cereals and toys; and those ads were primarily on Saturday morning from 7am to 11am. Disney was a place to go and the only place you could buy a Mickey Mouse hat.
I was interested in this article at Truthout, “How Disney Magic and Corporate Media Shape Youth Identity in a Digital Age.” It is a lengthy op-ed piece that will feel anti-Disney, but the Disney Kingdom is one example of how corporations market consumerism to children, youth, and their parental units. I like Disney, though I’m not fond of the Disney channel or the endless stream of fantasy characters played by real live human beings that they sell. Disney is an overt example of how our culture has turned children into a commodity that entertains, works, and influences consumption. It is no wonder that school teachers, first responders, fire fighters, and police are paid so little and held in such low esteem in our culture. They serve the common good that we support with taxes (tithes) that serve us all. They are an insurance policy for the current needs of the community where I live and my future need to dial 911. I don’t have children or youth, but I pay property taxes and school taxes so my neighbors kids can get an education. These are the realities of living and the covenant of community that don’t show up on reality TV or America’s Got Talent. Las Vegas, Branson, MO, “Reality TV shows”, and Disney theme parks all have one thing in common: the are selling fantasy and making lots of money through product placement, brand loyalty, and sub-conscious programming.
Some expressions of Christianity have transformed Jesus, salvation, and God’s grace into a commodity as a way to fill the pews, fill some individual pockets with cash, and gain influence and relevance in the political realm. Prosperity equals consumption which means God is blessing you. That is the fantasy “prosperity gospel” and it only costs a tithe. The argument is that this is the way the gospel competes with the culture. With whom or what did Jesus compete with in his culture? That would be an interesting question for the scholars at the Jesus Seminar.
I’ll end this bit of reflection with the last paragraph of the Truthout op-ed. Though lengthy, it is worth a read if you work with children, youth, and parents in some expression of Christianity. It is a sobering portrait of the culture in which children and youth are being raised in the United States and the amount of deprogramming that ministry, the Church, has to do while introducing children, youth (and their parental units) to Jesus of Nazareth, the lifestyle he lived, ethics he taught, and the God he worshiped.
“How Disney Magic and Corporate Media Shape Youth Identity in a Digital Age.”
by: Henry Giroux and Grace Pollock, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed | Wednesday 04 August 2010Disney’s commodification of childhood is neither innocent nor simply a function of entertainment. The values Disney produces as it attempts to commandeer children’s desires and hopes may offer us one of the most important clues about the changing nature of our society and the destructive force behind the unchecked economic power wielded by massive corporations. Strategies for challenging the corporate power and the consumer culture Disney propagates in the United States and increasingly across the rest of the globe must be aligned with a vision of a democracy that is on the side of children and youth. It must enable the conditions for young people to learn and develop as engaged social actors more alive to their responsibility to future generations than those adults who have presently turned away from the challenge.
Creativity and Problem Solving
I am lucky, blessed to have several peers in ministry that are friends. Between us we read many websites each day and come across interesting articles. We are an eclectic group. My thanks to Randy for the forward of this article from Newsweek online. It highlights the need for a liberal arts education, but moreover a change in the educational standards that are devolving in the public school system. If teachers are judged, promoted and salaried based on how well students do on standardized testing, then one day teachers will be removed from the classroom altogether. There is more to teaching than memory work and more to being a grounded, educated person than a score on the SAT. I took the SAT once. My score was 770. I am lucky that the TCU admissions people read my references and looked at whatever else they did beyond my SAT. Our culture, government and denomination needs divergent and convergent thinking right now.
The Creativity Crisis
by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman | Newsweek.com | July 10, 2010Back in 1958, Ted Schwarzrock was an 8-year-old third grader when he became one of the “Torrance kids,” a group of nearly 400 Minneapolis children who completed a series of creativity tasks newly designed by professor E. Paul Torrance. Schwarzrock still vividly remembers the moment when a psychologist handed him a fire truck and asked, “How could you improve this toy to make it better and more fun to play with?” He recalls the psychologist being excited by his answers. In fact, the psychologist’s session notes indicate Schwarzrock rattled off 25 improvements, such as adding a removable ladder and springs to the wheels. That wasn’t the only time he impressed the scholars, who judged Schwarzrock to have “unusual visual perspective” and “an ability to synthesize diverse elements into meaningful products.”
The accepted definition of creativity is production of something original and useful, and that’s what’s reflected in the tests. There is never one right answer. To be creative requires divergent thinking (generating many unique ideas) and then convergent thinking (combining those ideas into the best result).