Idea for assignment for older child

[ebenz47037]

I got this idea from misc.education.home-school (newsgroup I read). I think it's a very good idea. I'm having Jessica do this because she's told me that she wants to work at Wal-Mart when she grows up. I worked there for a short time. I tried to tell her that if she's planning on having a family, that that may not be the best idea for her. I think this will open her eyes. :chuckle: I

I think this assignment would be good for sixth to ninth grades. Jessica's doing it with a family of four (mom, dad, 15 year old daughter, and 6 month old baby) who has a medium-sized dog and a cat (her choice in family). I told her that when we go to Wal-mart to talk to the personnel director, we will walk through the store to do her "shopping." I also told her that she will have to find out how much rent for a two bedroom house, estimate utilities, find out how much health insurance will cost, find out how much the auto insurance and gasoline will cost. I will leave name-brand or generic up to her. I'm leaving the kind of car up to her.

I will post Jessica's findings on here later. I'm willing to bet she changes her mind about working at Wal-Mart. :chuckle:

Nori

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This one will take a small amount of work, but I think you can find it very useful, whether you agree with the article's conclusions or not.

Step one: Read the article "Wal-Mart Wages Don't Support Wal-Mart Workers", making sure to also read the bit about how they made their choices (it's a text hyperlink in the text itself).

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16111

Step two: Discuss with your child(ren) or SO the following areas:

Economics: Are the conclusions of the article valid? Why or why not?

Home Ec: Can you do better? What would it take for your child to support themselves the way *they* want? Have them make the tough decisions as to what to cut.

English/Media relations: What forms of bias (if any) can you find in this article? Find an article about welfare or welfare reform in your local paper (or equivalent), and do the same. Are the biases similar? Different? Demonstrate. Rewrite both articles without the bias you noticed. Have someone else (preferably someone with the opposite point of view) pick your articles apart for bias.

Underlying assumptions/Civics: Who works at Wal*Mart? Visit several stores in your area and observe, paying especial attention to age, gender, and race. What do you notice? Why do you think this is?

And anything else you can think of. This article prompted a good hour-long discussion just between Aubrey and I ... and we see eye to eye on this one.