Sign the Petition: Say No to Walmart’s Makeup for Young Girls

Just when I was starting to feel like Wal-Mart was improving.  They have started selling more organic produce, and are working to improve the nutritional quality of their food with manufacturers, partnering with anti-obesity champion and First Lady, Michelle Obama.

Then I hear about one of their newest product lines.  Is it a line of non-toxic personal care/bath and body products, made with fully labeled and safer ingredients?

No.

Is it a new, stainless steel Green Walmart water-bottle line, showcasing how they are abandoning bottled water, saving millions of plastic bottles from entering the waste stream and waterways?

No.

They are releasing a line of cosmetics, called Geo-Girl, targeting the pre-teen, or tween. Yes, makeup for your children, ages 8-12.  The products include include blusher, mascara, face shimmer and lipstick, as well as anti-aging products (um, really?).


When I was growing up, these years were called childhood.  Now, apparently, they are tween.  So, according to this targeted growth market, my kindergarten aged daughter will be ready for these products in the second grade.

I don’t think so.

Why not?  According to an expert featured on this segment,

“We are raising another generation of girls who kind of measure their self-worth based on what’s on the outside,” Dr. Logan Levkoff, author of the book “Third Base Ain’t What it Used to Be” said to “Good Morning America.”

Read the rest of the post here.

New Review of Why Great Teachers Quit on the Daily Kos

“If teachers, parents, school boards, administrators, community members, and lawmakers can listen to each other and work on this problem together, we can lessen the tide of teacher attrition, ultimately improving the learning and working environment in schools for everyone. (p. 156)”

Those are the final words of this new book by Katy Farber. Depending on what statistics you use, we lose up to 30% of new teachers in the first three years, up to 50% in the first five. Some clearly should not have been teachers in the first place. But others bring the passion, knowledge and, at least potentially, the skill we need for all of our students. Some of those we lose early in their career are already great teachers, others are potentially so. The reasons that cost us these teachers also cost us those later in their careers, who all recognize are great.

This book can help us begin to address the problem.

Read the rest Kenneth Bernstein’s review on the Daily Kos here.

Popcorn and Noodle Math: Making Math Fun for Kids

At school the other day I was talking to a first and second grade teacher.  She was telling me she heard about a study on NPR showing the amount of math language a child hears in the home affects their number development significantly.

“According to her study, for children to develop the math skills they’ll need later on in school, it is essential that parents spend time teaching their children the value of numbers by using concrete examples — instead of just repeating them out loud.”

Read the rest of the post here.