Pedagogies of Kindness and Respect
On the Lives and Education of Children
Edited By Paul L. Thomas, Paul R. Carr, Julie A. Gorlewski and Brad J. Porfilio
Chapter Two: Are We Educating Our Children Within a Culture of Care?
Extract
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CHAPTER TWO
Are We Educating Our Children Within A Culture OF Care?
MICHAEL BURGER
INTRODUCTION
By law, this nation does not allow children to work long hours in factories, mines, and mills as they once did in order to help their parents pay the rent for the tenements in which they lived. We wanted them to be both safe and educated, so we built schools for them and required them to be there. We are pleased to report that our children no longer labor where they were unable to engage in childhood activities like singing, dancing, playing, exploring, and discovering new things. Because this culture’s main focus remains on economic productivity, however, keeping children safe does not ensure that they receive the attention they need in order to thrive. For example, according to KidsandCars.org (2014), on average, every nine days since 1998, a child, forgotten by his or her caregiver, suffers for hours before dying in the backseat of a safely parked and locked automobile having been first safely strapped into a properly installed, government-certified car seat. To avoid these deaths, news outlets, psychologists, child experts, and even spokespersons from weather services tell caregivers to leave something important (like a purse, cell phone, or computer) in the backseat with the child, so when caregivers leave the car, they’ll remember the important item they left, and in the process of retrieving it, will notice the child (e.g., Larsen,...
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