There were many surprises in the readings this week for fashion. New ideas that don't make sense to me almost hurt my head because it is like I am trying to figure out what to do with this information where does it fit? The first one was the Afghan women risking prison to wear make-up and style their hair. I can't imagine taking such a risk but I think that is because I have never had anyone tell me that I couldn't do those things. I do feel better with my make-up and my hair styled. I watched students carry lip gloss and risk getting it taken away at school. I saw a student who is in second grade taking off her snow pants before she got close to school. It was below zero and she stopped and took off her boots, mittens, and coat. Then she removed her snow pants and put everything back on. She didn't want her friends to see her in those fat looking snow pants even if they were helping to keep her safe and warm.
The next surprise was the idea of Branding Nations. I understand that nations get reputations but I didn't think about countries having Branding Agencies. I can compair this to schools. If they get a bad reputation it is hard to get rid of that reputation. It can have negative effects on the whole community with families moving out and property values falling. Then the schools have less money for educating the students. Schools get reputations and sometimes they are based on word of mouth, or test scores or new building.
Final Blog Synthesis....
15 years ago
What an interesting concept of school branding that you bring up. As I am sure it is everywhere, the major public and private schools here in Houston have reputations that seem likely to endure no matter what kind of marketing work is done to dispel them. It is a shame that the same "branding" is done in the classroom - not only to students, but also to educational topics. Kids label each other and are labeled by adults as being one thing or another (ADD, bully, hyperactive, etc.) and this starts as young as pre-school. Also, classroom topics can be considered "boring" before the lesson even starts. Things in our society can be branded so easily, and it can be really hard to look past those brands.
ReplyDeleteThese "reputations" can also be based on how the student body dresses. Schools with uniforms have a certain reputation, not necessarily good depending on your point of view, as do schools where "anything goes". (I'm not certain there are any of this latter type, but I imagine some inner city schools may have far more lax dress codes - please, anyone, correct me if I'm mistaken).
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