I was recently entranced by Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, and I'm dying to get your collective take on some of his tenets. The connection to words is tenuous, although I can assure you that the book is *exclusively* written in them.

One revelation he makes (at least it was a surprise to me) is corporate sponsorship of teaching materials. Set aside the "beverage partnerships" that Coke and Pepsi make with school districts, the barrage of advertising that accompanies the "essential current events" on the Channel One system, this offends me on a far deeper level:


"The spiraling cost of textbooks has led thousands of American school districts to use corporate-sponsored teaching materials. A 1998 study of these teaching materials by the Consumers Union found that 80% were biased, providing students with incomplete or slanted information that favored the sponsor's products and views. Procter & Gamble's Decision Earth program taught that clear-cut logging was actually good for the environment; teaching aids distributed by the Exxon Education Foundation said that fossil fuels created few environmental problems and that alternative sources of energy were too expensive; a study guide sponsored by the American Coal Foundation dismissed fears of a greenhouse effect, claiming that 'the earth could benefit rather than be harmed from increased carbon dioxide.' The Consumers Union found Pizza Hut's Book It! Program - which awards a free Personal Pan Pizza to children who reach targeted reading levels - to be 'highly commercial.' About 20 million elementary school students participated in Book It! during the 1999-2000 school year; Pizza Hut recently expanded the program to include a million preschoolers.
"Lifetime Learning Systems is the nation's largest marketer and producer of corporate-sponsored teaching aids. The group claims that its publications are used by more than 60 million students every year. 'Now you can enter the classroom through custom-made learning materials created with your specific marketing objectives in mind,' Lifetime Learning said in one of its pitches to corporate sponsors. 'Through these materials, your product or point of view becomes the focus of discussions in the classroom,' it said in another, '...the centerpiece in a dynamic process that generates long-term awareness and lasting attitudinal change.' The tax cuts that are hampering America's schools have proved to be a marketing bonanza for companies like Exxon, Pizza Hut, and McDonald's. The money that these corporations spend on their 'educational' materials is fully tax-deductible."


Sorry for the length of the quote, but I felt the context was necessary.

Now, I remember back in 7th or 8th grade (circa 1982-84) when some random lady came into the health classroom, and the teacher asked all the girls to go with her, while the boys stayed in the classroom with the teacher. We went off to another room, and were given "the talk" about menstruation. Throughout her presentation, she never referred to just "tampons" or "pads", it was always "Tampax tampons" and "Kotex pads". I didn't even get it until much later - I was unaware enough to believe at the time that she was talking about four separate items: tampax, tampons, kotex, and pads - and I didn't get the distinction among them. So obviously this tactic isn't a huge innovation, but either advertising wasn't as pervasive/impactful then as it is now, or maybe the topic doesn't provide a solid basis for comparison, or maybe I just lived under a rock.

Is anyone else as horrified by this state of affairs as I am? If/when I have children, is home-schooling my only option to protect my kid(s) from corporate brainwashing?