| WHAT
IS THE CAMPAIGN?
The ‘Children
for an HONEST education Campaign’, is project of the Native
Forest Council. The Native Forest Council, well known for its’
passion to protect our nation’s public lands, has emerged as
a leader in the quest to expose these PR campaigns in our schools.
Our environmental education coordinator, John F. Borowski, has created
a national stir about the need to confront this issue. His writing
(see enclosed) has appeared in the N.Y. Times, Oregonian, UTNE Reader,
and other national publications. John broke the story of John Stossel’s
attempt to manipulate data while attacking environmental education
on a June 29th program, “Tampering with Nature” Disney/ABC
program. He also got nationwide attention with his appearance on
‘Making Contact’ a national radio project, and his insightful
discussion on the program, ‘Consuming Classrooms: Private Interests
and Private Education. Just recently, VegSource.com ran 3 of John’s
articles on their website. His article, ‘Commercialism
in a Can’ shows how soda pop companies score exclusive
contracts for their products in our schools. Over consumption of
pop has been linked to type 2-diabetes.
The ‘Children
for an HONEST education Campaign’ has already begun, with outreach
to schools across the country. We will kick off our official campaign
in March of 2002. The forum we have chosen to initiate our fight
has tremendous potential to create a national surge of excitement,
enlightenment and education.
The National
Science Teachers’ Convention (NSTA) will take place in
San Diego, California, during March 27-30th. This is the 50th anniversary
of the NSTA, and it promises a turnout of over 25,000 teachers!
But, this prestigious gathering of educators will also showcase
the largest venue of corporate interests ranging from Monsanto and
the American Farm Bureau to the American Forest Foundation and Greening
Earth Society. They will be downplaying everything from species
extinction and global warming to clearcutting and the abuse of our
national lands.
This is the
perfect scenario to announce the ‘Children for an HONEST education
Campaign’ and its mission, both short and long term. Please
let me outline our plan of attack.
- March 27-30th
2002: The Native Forest Council will secure two booth spaces at
the NSTA convention in San Diego. The ‘Children for an HONEST
education Campaign’, will look to distribute the following
materials for teachers and their students:
- 3 different
‘Forest Voices’, including primers on the attack on
environmental education and the ecological values of safeguarding
our nations’ 750 million plus acres of public lands.
- Distribute
the video, “The Faceless Ones” a brilliant short analysis
of the world’s global environmental problems and asks the
question, ‘who are the ones responsible for these shortsighted
policies that jeopardize the livability of the planet?’ The
Native Forest Council has been given copyright to the film and
we will look to distribute between 4,000 and 6,000 copies. A teachers’
guide for both K-5 and 6-12 grade will be given out. The guide
will outline major global environmental threats, provide suggested
readings and solutions to these problems.
- Offer the
Native Forest Council’s FREE E-FAX service. This wonderful
service, e-faxes to teachers, weekly articles from a wide range
of magazines, newspapers and journals covering a plethora of science
topics. The teachers can download the articles that they believe
are most pertinent to their teaching at the current time or in
future lessons. EACH WEEK a featured article, will be accompanied
with a lesson plan for both elementary and high school age students.
This lesson plan to examine the issue of the article, pose questions,
suggest readings and enable the educator to take a very current
topic and make it relevant and exciting.
- Provide
a copy of the report titled, ‘Captive Kids’, by the
trusted researchers at Consumer’s Reports. This detailed
study, highlights the transparency of these ‘corporate sponsored
educational materials’.
FUNDING
NEEDS
Pending funding,
the campaign would like to distribute two very special videos, one
targeted for the younger students and the other for older students.
For K-5th students,
we would like to distribute copies of the ‘Lorax’, Dr.
Seuss’s timeless treasure on protecting our environment and
especially our forests. An accompanying guide would provide a primer
on forests, their structure and value. The primer would also provide
fun activities and labs, for a hands-on approach.
For the older
students, we would like to provide David Suzuki’s masterpiece
on sustainability and globilization, ‘Trading Futures’.
This wonderful film, with guest appearances by Suzuki, David Korten,
Lester Brown, and other respected ecologists and economists, highlights
the folly of treating the earth as if it were a business in liquidation.
John Borowski uses it in his classroom, and recommends it as one
of the most influential videos he has utilized in 21 years of teaching
environmental education. An accompanying teachers’ guide would
provide critical thinking about globilization and looking at building
a sustainable society.
We want to
distribute a 12-15 page, primer (in the style of the Forest Voice,
on the Native Forest Council website) on the worst offenders in
this campaign to brainwash our children. (See Native Forest Council
info@forestcouncil.org
and the website is www.forestcouncil.org)
From Weyerhaeuser to the Greening Earth Society to Monsanto, we
will expose the tricks and lies that these entities are using to
confuse and mislead our children in our schools.
And finally,
we would build a data base of teachers who would help fight the
flood of corporate sponsored materials in classrooms. Our E-FAX
service would highlight federal legislation and other actions to
rid schools of these PR gimmicks. It is crucial to highlight this
issue to the school board associations of the nation as well.
YOU CAN HELP
Please consider
helping our battle against the corporate invasion of schools. We
kick off this noble effort in March 27, 2002. We are trying to raise
$100,000 in seed money for this effort. Every penny will go to teachers’
materials, videos and services to battle the flood of corporate
materials in schools.
Please donate
whatever your heart and soul can muster. Please send donations to
John Borowski/Honest Ed. Campaign, PO Box 483 Philomath, Oregon,
97370. Please make out the checks to the Native Forest Council or
NFC/Honest Ed. Thanks from the bottom of my heart, and the kids
thank you also.
Blessing and
be well.
John Borowski
(please feel free to contact me
at 541-929-5224 or jenjill@proaxis.com)
John F. Borowski has been teaching Marine Science, Environmental
Biology and Earth Science for 21 years at North Salem High in Salem,
Oregon.
John Borowski |
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