Education or Propaghanda?

For our second debate, I'd like us to examine the educational value of a particular website, called The Story of Stuff.  Captained by Annie Leonard, a passionate environmentalist with an impressive international profile, the site illustrates information creatively through clever digital design.  This effective simplicity has led many teachers, ranging from elementary to high school, to use The Story of Stuff as a teaching tool.  Leonard often targets "consumer culture" as the primary culprit responsible for environmental devastation, and while her arguments are primarily environmental, they become economic, cultural, political, and philosophical in nature.  Most of her detractors are from the right-wing, and they accuse Leanord of attempting to "brainwash" America's youth with leftist Anti-American extremism.

So please review the website, and view the following videos. While Leonard does raise real issues we cannot deny, we can question some of her facts and language.



Simple, persuasive, engaging, and ultimately effective, no one can deny the message is clear.  But is it accurate, and is it balanced?  Does it have a place in the classroom?  Here is a video made by a critic, that says NO:



Since the Story of Stuff has become so popular, so to has the debate become an issue for educators.  Both Fox and CNN have posed the question.



Here is part one of Dobbs' rebuttal.  Is he objective?




What is your opinion? On your blog, respond argumentatively to this video. At the end of your post, please within a list suggest three different possible Motions we could generate from this material. How should they be worded? At least one of them should address education, but you can pick out others that are environmental or political etc.

Remember that "THB" is our abbreviation for "This House Believes" and we can also use THS for "This House Supports."

Example:  THB: vanilla ice cream is better than chocolate ice cream.
             THS:  the death penalty.

***Note: Please repost relevant videos and article links (hotlinks) in your blog for reference purposes. To do this: Right click on the video, select "embed code" and paste it into the "Edit HTML" section where you write your posts. Since the video will be larger than your blog window, you will have to make it smaller. In the code you will see height and width, so reduce the width by 100 pixels - usually 640 px to 540 px. You have to do this twice within the code.