My few experiences aboard a school bus were normal, if loading 40 rambunctious children on board a conveyance with no seat belts and minimal supervision can be called normal. Not so for my younger niece. She had the wonderful experience of getting high or at least lightheaded from second hand marijuana smoke in the back of her school bus not more than a year ago. The next day, a fight broke out in the same bus. She refused to ride anymore and the next year, her parents transferred her to another district. Times have clearly changed. We live in an age when companies make their margin by equipping school buses with digital video surveillance.
Buses remain popular, with hundreds of thousands of children riding long tedious hours every week. One company claims to have found the solution. Instead of acting up, staring vacantly out the window or making a feeble attempt at coping with homework, they can listen to Avril Lavigne telling them to stay in their seats, stay in school and stay listening to Bus Radio.
On the main page of their web site, Bus Radio claims to have the statistics that show students improving their behavior while on board Bus Radio equipped buses. Now, obviously, it's not from a neutral, third party study, but even if it was certifiably true, I have some objections.
While the company claims that the programming they provide does not have any objectionable content, whose standards are they going by? Obviously, it's not the parents' standards. They have no say in what is presented. It's arguably better than just flipping the radio on, because most morning shows lean heavily on racy jokes and poor taste. On the other hand, choosing the lesser of two evils is hardly a good argument, especially when you can turn it off.
Students are exposed every day to a barrage of advertisements. Ad execs know that brand recognition occurs at these ages and begins to impact their spending habits. Why wouldn't you seek to get access to them?
This brings me to what troubles me most. Kids riding school buses are captive audiences. They cannot shut out an advertisement or a song they don't like. They are forced to listen. It sounds a lot like school, but with more entertainment potential. Schools earn money off exposing Bus Radio's content to the children, day after day, month after month. In fact, they get the systems at no cost, simply because Bus Radio knows that the devices will pay for themselves in ad revenue. Schools using Bus Radio are selling their students to whoever wants to grab them at the right price. It's not shocking, but it's sad.
I'm grateful, so grateful, that I have the freedom to educate my children at home, where I have a good deal of control over the media they're exposed to. My children are learning that there are more important things out there than cans of coke, iPods and Nike shoes. They realize that consuming isn't really living. Most importantly, they're learning how to love and serve each other. That's something a bus or a school just can't reliably give them.
HT: Culture Clips
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