The following is an excerpt from the New Haven Advocate, dated June 14, 2001. The author is Hank Hoffman... presented here without permission

 

Want Fries With That Humiliation?
A Stonington student gets disciplined for dissing the McCorporation

By Hank Hoffman
New Haven Advocate
June 14, 2001

Tristan Kading's first reaction was disgust.

The 15-year-old Stonington High School sophomore, a vegetarian and animal rights activist since elementary school, entered the cafeteria on May 22 for a mandatory assembly and saw a McDonald's banner draped over a table. A guidance counselor had invited the fast food corporation to make a presentation on job application and interview skills. Kading's second reaction was that he had to voice his anti-McDonald's opinion. For doing so, he was denounced as an "embarrassment" by one teacher. He was pressured by two administrators into writing apologies to the company's representative and the school. He was ordered to read the latter apology over the school intercom.

Channel One, which offers schools free TVs in exchange for broadcasting its news lite and commercial programming, broke the taboo on advertising in schools about 10 years ago. Since then, cash-strapped school districts have succumbed to the temptation to accept corporate programming and advertising. But these offers can come at the expense of educational goals like free speech and critical thinking.

The Stonington students had to watch a video about "how great it is to work at McDonald's," according to Kading. The company's four representatives wore McDonald's hats. One led the presentation while the other three set out fruit juice and cookies. Kids who filled out job applications got coupons for free meals at McDonald's. (Stonington Superintendent of Schools Michael McKee says the applications were for demonstration purposes only.)

"I knew I had to do something: McDonald's in our school, a company I hate more than a lot of other companies," says Kading, a soft-spoken teen who is especially critical of the company's responsibility for destruction of South American rainforests to graze beef cattle.

What he did was volunteer to be a mock job interview subject after another student was sent back to his seat for making an off-color remark about playing with himself. When the presentation leader asked him to tell the group something about himself, Kading said, "I hate large corporations like McDonald's."

That won't get you a job at McDonald's, the company representative replied.

"I said, 'Good, I wouldn't want to work at McDonald's. They falsely advertise their french fries as vegetarian,'" Kading recalls in an interview, referring to the recent controversy over the company's failure to disclose its use of beef flavoring in its fries.

Calling Kading an "embarrassment to the school," a teacher sent him to the principal's office. Fearing suspension--although administrators did not explicitly raise it--Kading apologized to the McDonald's representative. He was also told to read an apology to his class over the school public address system. He says his friends "could all tell I was under a lot of duress because my voice was shaking. I really didn't want to do that."

"Students are required by law to be in school. When schools allow corporations to come in, they are in turn requiring them to watch advertising, whether it's Channel One or a McDonald's presentation," says Emily Heath of the San Francisco-based Center for Commercial Free Public Education. It's incredible exposure to a target market at a bargain price.

The second main problem with a corporate presence in school, Heath says, is that "schools, we hope, are teaching critical thinking skills. Advertising is antithetical to that. It teaches [students] to believe whatever is presented to them and take what your school endorses. It takes out any sort of questioning role."

Kading's experience, she argues, "illustrates that in a scary way": When he questioned what was presented to him, "he was slapped down and thwarted."

According to Superintendent McKee, McDonald's didn't pay to make its presentation. Nonetheless, "they're a company trying to make a profit and they want that exposure to the kids," says Andrew Hagelshaw, also of the Center for Commercial Free Public Education. "Why in the world is a school wasting valuable, taxpayer-funded public school time to host McDonald's in an assembly like this?"

Teachers can and do teach job search skills in the classroom, McKee says. But many schools are trying to "make things more relevant and real life-like for students." A guidance counselor, hearing that McDonald's provided the program, invited the corporation to the school.

According to McKee, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that administrators can act against a student who is "disrupting" an "educational process" as long as the intervention is not based on the political content of the student's belief.

"It was not the belief that student had about that corporation" for which Kading was punished, McKee contends, "but rather the disruption of a presentation of which there was educational content."

There was no alternative program. But McKee says Kading could have told a teacher he was offended and didn't want to stay.

"He could have gone to the principal's office. They would have suggested that he take this time to write objections so that it could be published in the paper or in some other way transmitted to the school," McKee says.

In fact, one of Kading's friends did say he was offended. He did get to excuse himself to the principal's office--usually considered a punishment--but it was not suggested that he write his objections, according to Kading and some other friends.

McKee says the message to students from this incident is that "there are forums in which our expressions of opinions or political statements are accepted and oftentimes even sought after. These forums become the most effective and efficient ways to get our thoughts and beliefs known." Such forums include the school paper and town meetings--but not a job-skills assembly.

Stonington has no policy on corporate programming in schools. "It may be that the Board of Education will want to make a policy decision whether any firm ... can be able to come into school and make that type of presentation," says McKee, since the company presumably reaps promotional benefits.

What about the concept of the "teachable moment"?

"If he had just written in the newspaper, I probably would have read it and thought, 'OK, that's his opinion,'" says Stonington High School junior James Morren, interviewed at Kading's home along with four other activist friends. They dismiss McKee's contention that voicing his opinion in another forum would have been more effective. "It was the best time for it. Causing controversy could bring a lot of people who hadn't heard of it to get interested not only in Tristan's issues, but they might get into animal rights or stuff like that."

"It's not like he got up there yowling and cursing. He made an educated remark about a very current event. [Beef flavoring in McDonald's fries] is something that's in the court system," argues senior Billy Ware, who attended the presentation at a different time that day with his classmates.

Contrary to McKee, these students believe it was Kading's politics that got him into trouble. They note that he was dealt with more harshly than the student who made a lewd remark.

Kading and his friends suggest that, if corporations are allowed in schools, alternate voices should also be represented--conscientious objectors to balance Army recruiters, activists from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to respond to McDonald's.

"It was blatant self-advertising," says Ware of the assembly. "I don't support them in any way, but when they came into the school, I had to listen to them. When they handed out the coupons, that was the worst--like one french fry to each kid."