Book-It Under Attack - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

dawsongirl · 03-02-2007, 11:35 PM

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070302/...ding_for_pizza

NEW YORK - You've read the book, now eat the pizza.

Since 1985, that's been the gist of Pizza Hut's Book It, an incentive program used by 50,000 schools nationwide to reward young readers with free pizzas. The program is now under attack by child-development experts who say it promotes bad eating habits and turns teachers into corporate promoters.

Book It, which reaches about 22 million children a year, "epitomizes everything that's wrong with corporate-sponsored programs in school," said Susan Linn, a Harvard psychologist and co-founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.

"In the name of education, it promotes junk food consumption to a captive audience ... and undermines parents by positioning family visits to Pizza Hut as an integral component of raising literate children," Linn said.
This week, Linn's organization called on parents to end their schools' participation in the long-standing program.

Though some activists have previously questioned Book It, Linn said Friday that only after the recent upsurge of concern over child obesity and junk food did her group feel it could make headway with a formal protest campaign. She said many schools are trying to reduce students' access to soda, and contended that Book It should face similar scrutiny.

But the program — which has given away more than 200 million pizzas — has deep roots and many admirers at the highest levels of politics and education. It won a citation in 1988 from President Reagan, and its advisory board includes representatives of prominent education groups, including teachers unions and the American Library Association.

"We're really proud of the program," said Leslie Tubbs, its director for the past five years. "We get hundreds of e-mails from alumni who praise it and say it helped them get started with reading."

Dallas-based Pizza Hut says Book It is the nation's largest reading motivation program — conducted annually in about 925,000 elementary school classrooms from Oct. 1 through March 31. A two-month program is offered for preschoolers.

Participating teachers set a monthly reading goal for each student; those who meet the goal get a certificate they can redeem at Pizza Hut for a free Personal Pan Pizza. Families often accompany the winners, turning the event into a celebration that can boost business for the restaurant.
Teachers find the program an enjoyable way to build interest in reading, Tubbs said. "We're helping them to do their jobs," she said.

At Strafford Elementary School in Strafford, Mo., the roughly 500 students collectively read 30,000 books a year with Book It's help, said principal Lucille Cogdill.

"I don't have any negative things at all to say about it," Cogdill said. "I know there's concern about obesity, but Book It is not causing it, and the schools aren't causing it."

Chris Carney, principal at Bennett Elementary School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., also is a Book It fan, saying it encourages family togetherness and provides a tool for persuading children to try books instead of video games.

"I don't want to see kids gorging pizzas," he said. "But the positive effects outweigh other effects."

Among those campaigning against Book It is Alfie Kohn, an author whose 11 books on education and parenting include "Punished By Rewards, which questions the value of incentive programs.

"The more kids see books as a way to get pizza or some other prize, the less interest they'll have in reading itself," Kohn, a former teacher, said in a telephone interview. "They tend to choose easier books to get through faster."

Another critic of Book It and the broader phenomenon of corporate incursions into schools is Alex Molnar, director of the Commercialism in Education Research Unit at Arizona State University.

He described Book It as a "dreadful program" that puts pressure on parents to celebrate with their reward-winning children at Pizza Huts.
"This is corporate America using the schools as a crow bar to get inside the front doors of students' homes," he said. "It's very hard for children whose parents who don't want to engage in this to not feel ostracized."
Molnar acknowledged that Book It is well-regarded by many educators and politicians, but said it might be reevaluated in light of rising concerns about child obesity.
"To the extent that this program is correctly identified as part of the problem, then there's a chance of reducing its scope," he said.

dawsongirl · 03-02-2007, 11:37 PM

First of all...where the hell were these complainers, oh, 20 years ago?

And thank you very much, but I did Book It a lot and I've never been obese or did I develop bad eating habits. That's where parent teaching comes in.

Courtnee · 03-02-2007, 11:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dawsongirl

First of all...where the hell were these complainers, oh, 20 years ago?

And thank you very much, but I did Book It a lot and I've never been obese or did I develop bad eating habits. That's where parent teaching comes in.

Exactly. I did book-it and my brother does it now. We're not obese or anything. It's not like you get a large pizza, just a little kid sized one. That's not too unhealthy. It's promoting reading skills by rewarding children with a free pizza. Nothing wrong here.

Hollow · 03-02-2007, 11:42 PM

PZelda · 03-03-2007, 01:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dawsongirl

First of all...where the hell were these complainers, oh, 20 years ago?

And thank you very much, but I did Book It a lot and I've never been obese or did I develop bad eating habits. That's where parent teaching comes in.

Exactly. I'm as old as Book-It (yikes!) and not ONCE have I heard a complaint about them. Not once.

As for the easy book part... That's why you have teachers there to tell you, "I know you can read harder books than that. I've seen you do it."

theshark8777 · 03-03-2007, 01:07 AM

I remember doing Book it in 3rd grade, and that was like 20 years ago. Sure takes them forever to decide they dont like something.

Yooch · 03-03-2007, 02:06 AM

Why don't these Harvard psychologists go sit in a corner and eat their alfalfa sprouts or something. Some people are constantly trying to control other peoples' lives.

catlover79 · 03-03-2007, 10:49 AM

I have very fond memories of Book-It. I was born in 1979, so Book-It was just starting up when I was in elementary school. I have ALWAYS loved to read, so the pizza wasn't the motivation for me. I loved those little certificates they gave you to present at your local Pizza Hut. Another thing, I am 5'8 and 112 lbs, so the pizza did not make me fat. So I say to these morons, SHUT UP ALREADY!! NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR STUPID OPINIONS!!!

OK, I'm done now.

AKA · 03-03-2007, 11:34 AM

I really, really think that commercialism isn't good for children. It breaks my heart that we're turning our kids into consumers at an early age by inundating them with an onslaught of commercials. I've often thought that advertising on children's shows should be against the law.

More kids recognize the Starbucks or McDonald's logos than the American flag, and that's just sad.

Kazza · 03-03-2007, 11:38 AM

I wasn't raised on Book-It but my kids are and I find it great that they get a reward for their effort.

AKA · 03-03-2007, 11:48 AM

I'll preface this by saying I participated in Book-It in grade school: I don't think kids should get a "reward" for reading. It should be expected of them. Reading should be something children do a lot of; more so than watching television. It's a good habit.

AllIWantIsYourClutch · 03-03-2007, 12:03 PM

Oh my god I LOVED Book-It.
That really didnt add much to the conversation, I just thought I should point that out.

EmoJoe · 03-03-2007, 12:10 PM

good lord

we did book-it in elementary school too. memories.

Janice · 03-03-2007, 01:26 PM

It seems like everything is under attack these days with the PC crowd. If the program is successful, who is it hurting. A little pizza is actually good for you anyway. I hate people, lol.

AKA · 03-04-2007, 01:44 AM

I have mixed feelings about this. I can count with my fingers (and have some left over) the amount of times I voluntarily read a book as a child. If it was the new issue of TV Guide, however, I was all over it.

I would only be encouraged to read by reading drives, such as Book-It, or things such as when my elementary school principal promised to bathe with a pig if students read a certain amount of pages in x amount of days. Rarely did I sit down and read a book for my own enjoyment. Why should I, I thought, when a perfectly good Night Court rerun comes on channel 2 at 7:30?

Reading is something that should be rewarded in its preliminary stages - when a child is first learning how to read, for example, or when he or she graduates from, say, picture books to novels. I think that Book-It, while having good intentions, gives children the notion that reading is such a monumental accomplishment, it should be rewarded.

It did for me, anyway.

I'm saddened by the fact that I didn't read as much as I could have as a child (and I was a smart kid), but absorbed an unhealthy amount of television. I find it pathetic that by the time I was eight, I knew what a TV season was, and how network affiliation and syndication worked. I wish I would have spent more time sharpening my intellectual skills by reading.

And I'm still trying to get out of that rut. Even now I can't tell you what happened in such literary classics as The Great Gatsby or Moby Dick, but I can tell you without batting an eye which season and which year Shelley Long left Cheers.

Lots of useless information in this ol' noggin of mine, and not enough, I feel, of substance.

We're raising a culture that, with each year, gets more and more dumbed-down. I think that if children read more, and watched less television and played less video games, we wouldn't see such horrifying displays of ignorance as "netspeak". We would be graduating more seniors with honors.

Am I saying I think Book-It is responsible for the degradation of society? Certainly not. I do, however, think it's a symptom of the afforementioned devolution of our culture.

Instead of raising little consumers, maybe we should try to raise little intellectuals; kids who are more likely to recognize the image of Abraham Lincoln than Ronald McDonald. Call me an old foagy if you will.

P.S. - Hey, you kids: get off my lawn!

03-02-2007, 11:35 PM	#1
dawsongirl Member Forum Icon Join Date: Jan 04, 2001 Posts: 53,134	Book-It Under Attack http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070302/...ding_for_pizza NEW YORK - You've read the book, now eat the pizza. Since 1985, that's been the gist of Pizza Hut's Book It, an incentive program used by 50,000 schools nationwide to reward young readers with free pizzas. The program is now under attack by child-development experts who say it promotes bad eating habits and turns teachers into corporate promoters. Book It, which reaches about 22 million children a year, "epitomizes everything that's wrong with corporate-sponsored programs in school," said Susan Linn, a Harvard psychologist and co-founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. "In the name of education, it promotes junk food consumption to a captive audience ... and undermines parents by positioning family visits to Pizza Hut as an integral component of raising literate children," Linn said. This week, Linn's organization called on parents to end their schools' participation in the long-standing program. Though some activists have previously questioned Book It, Linn said Friday that only after the recent upsurge of concern over child obesity and junk food did her group feel it could make headway with a formal protest campaign. She said many schools are trying to reduce students' access to soda, and contended that Book It should face similar scrutiny. But the program — which has given away more than 200 million pizzas — has deep roots and many admirers at the highest levels of politics and education. It won a citation in 1988 from President Reagan, and its advisory board includes representatives of prominent education groups, including teachers unions and the American Library Association. "We're really proud of the program," said Leslie Tubbs, its director for the past five years. "We get hundreds of e-mails from alumni who praise it and say it helped them get started with reading." Dallas-based Pizza Hut says Book It is the nation's largest reading motivation program — conducted annually in about 925,000 elementary school classrooms from Oct. 1 through March 31. A two-month program is offered for preschoolers. Participating teachers set a monthly reading goal for each student; those who meet the goal get a certificate they can redeem at Pizza Hut for a free Personal Pan Pizza. Families often accompany the winners, turning the event into a celebration that can boost business for the restaurant. Teachers find the program an enjoyable way to build interest in reading, Tubbs said. "We're helping them to do their jobs," she said. At Strafford Elementary School in Strafford, Mo., the roughly 500 students collectively read 30,000 books a year with Book It's help, said principal Lucille Cogdill. "I don't have any negative things at all to say about it," Cogdill said. "I know there's concern about obesity, but Book It is not causing it, and the schools aren't causing it." Chris Carney, principal at Bennett Elementary School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., also is a Book It fan, saying it encourages family togetherness and provides a tool for persuading children to try books instead of video games. "I don't want to see kids gorging pizzas," he said. "But the positive effects outweigh other effects." Among those campaigning against Book It is Alfie Kohn, an author whose 11 books on education and parenting include "Punished By Rewards, which questions the value of incentive programs. "The more kids see books as a way to get pizza or some other prize, the less interest they'll have in reading itself," Kohn, a former teacher, said in a telephone interview. "They tend to choose easier books to get through faster." Another critic of Book It and the broader phenomenon of corporate incursions into schools is Alex Molnar, director of the Commercialism in Education Research Unit at Arizona State University. He described Book It as a "dreadful program" that puts pressure on parents to celebrate with their reward-winning children at Pizza Huts. "This is corporate America using the schools as a crow bar to get inside the front doors of students' homes," he said. "It's very hard for children whose parents who don't want to engage in this to not feel ostracized." Molnar acknowledged that Book It is well-regarded by many educators and politicians, but said it might be reevaluated in light of rising concerns about child obesity. "To the extent that this program is correctly identified as part of the problem, then there's a chance of reducing its scope," he said.

03-03-2007, 01:07 AM	#6
theshark8777 Hats for Bats Forum Veteran Join Date: Jan 23, 2001 Location: northeast Ohio. Posts: 5,315	I remember doing Book it in 3rd grade, and that was like 20 years ago. Sure takes them forever to decide they dont like something.
	__________________ Who ate all the pecan Sandies??

03-03-2007, 02:06 AM	#7
Yooch Member Forum 3000 Club Member Join Date: Apr 07, 2006 Location: California Posts: 3,180	Why don't these Harvard psychologists go sit in a corner and eat their alfalfa sprouts or something. Some people are constantly trying to control other peoples' lives.
	__________________ "The true meaning of America, you ask? It's in a Texas rodeo, in a policeman's badge, in the sound of laughing children, in a political rally, in a newspaper...In all these things and many more, you'll find freedom. And freedom is what America means to the world. And to me." --Audie Leon Murphy June 20, 1924-- May 28, 1971

03-03-2007, 10:49 AM	#8
catlover79 God Bless Val Forum Addict Join Date: May 29, 2006 Location: Bewitched in Ohio Posts: 70,382	I have very fond memories of Book-It. I was born in 1979, so Book-It was just starting up when I was in elementary school. I have ALWAYS loved to read, so the pizza wasn't the motivation for me. I loved those little certificates they gave you to present at your local Pizza Hut. Another thing, I am 5'8 and 112 lbs, so the pizza did not make me fat. So I say to these morons, SHUT UP ALREADY!! NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR STUPID OPINIONS!!! OK, I'm done now.
	__________________ "Jesus loves you and He approves this message." "I'm alive. I'm feeling good. I'm trying to live every moment as much as I can." - Valerie Harper, March 2013 Last edited by catlover79; 03-03-2007 at 12:10 PM.

03-03-2007, 12:10 PM	#13
EmoJoe Cool cool cool Forum Addict Join Date: Apr 23, 2004 Location: New Jersey Posts: 71,478	good lord we did book-it in elementary school too. memories.
	__________________ "I know the difference between TV and reality, Jeff. TV has structure, it makes sense, there are likable leading men. In real life, we have this. We have you." - Abed Nadir, Community www.sitcomsarestupid.blogspot.com

03-02-2007, 11:37 PM	#2
dawsongirl Member Forum Icon Join Date: Jan 04, 2001 Posts: 53,134	First of all...where the hell were these complainers, oh, 20 years ago? And thank you very much, but I did Book It a lot and I've never been obese or did I develop bad eating habits. That's where parent teaching comes in.

03-02-2007, 11:42 PM	#4
Hollow Member Forum Superstar Join Date: Dec 16, 2001 Posts: 30,406

03-03-2007, 11:34 AM	#9
AKA Member Forum Star Join Date: Dec 17, 2001 Posts: 15,746	I really, really think that commercialism isn't good for children. It breaks my heart that we're turning our kids into consumers at an early age by inundating them with an onslaught of commercials. I've often thought that advertising on children's shows should be against the law. More kids recognize the Starbucks or McDonald's logos than the American flag, and that's just sad.

03-03-2007, 11:38 AM	#10
Kazza Member Forum 3000 Club Member Join Date: Oct 17, 2003 Posts: 3,244	I wasn't raised on Book-It but my kids are and I find it great that they get a reward for their effort.

03-03-2007, 11:48 AM	#11
AKA Member Forum Star Join Date: Dec 17, 2001 Posts: 15,746	I'll preface this by saying I participated in Book-It in grade school: I don't think kids should get a "reward" for reading. It should be expected of them. Reading should be something children do a lot of; more so than watching television. It's a good habit.

03-03-2007, 12:03 PM	#12
AllIWantIsYourClutch peaceout. Forum Icon Join Date: Aug 02, 2001 Location: Illinois. Posts: 53,424	Oh my god I LOVED Book-It. That really didnt add much to the conversation, I just thought I should point that out.

03-03-2007, 01:26 PM	#14
Janice Retired Admin - Hollywood Swingin' Forum Legend Join Date: Aug 03, 2001 Location: Beantown Posts: 36,388	It seems like everything is under attack these days with the PC crowd. If the program is successful, who is it hurting. A little pizza is actually good for you anyway. I hate people, lol.

03-04-2007, 01:44 AM	#15
AKA Member Forum Star Join Date: Dec 17, 2001 Posts: 15,746	I have mixed feelings about this. I can count with my fingers (and have some left over) the amount of times I voluntarily read a book as a child. If it was the new issue of TV Guide, however, I was all over it. I would only be encouraged to read by reading drives, such as Book-It, or things such as when my elementary school principal promised to bathe with a pig if students read a certain amount of pages in x amount of days. Rarely did I sit down and read a book for my own enjoyment. Why should I, I thought, when a perfectly good Night Court rerun comes on channel 2 at 7:30? Reading is something that should be rewarded in its preliminary stages - when a child is first learning how to read, for example, or when he or she graduates from, say, picture books to novels. I think that Book-It, while having good intentions, gives children the notion that reading is such a monumental accomplishment, it should be rewarded. It did for me, anyway. I'm saddened by the fact that I didn't read as much as I could have as a child (and I was a smart kid), but absorbed an unhealthy amount of television. I find it pathetic that by the time I was eight, I knew what a TV season was, and how network affiliation and syndication worked. I wish I would have spent more time sharpening my intellectual skills by reading. And I'm still trying to get out of that rut. Even now I can't tell you what happened in such literary classics as The Great Gatsby or Moby Dick, but I can tell you without batting an eye which season and which year Shelley Long left Cheers. Lots of useless information in this ol' noggin of mine, and not enough, I feel, of substance. We're raising a culture that, with each year, gets more and more dumbed-down. I think that if children read more, and watched less television and played less video games, we wouldn't see such horrifying displays of ignorance as "netspeak". We would be graduating more seniors with honors. Am I saying I think Book-It is responsible for the degradation of society? Certainly not. I do, however, think it's a symptom of the afforementioned devolution of our culture. Instead of raising little consumers, maybe we should try to raise little intellectuals; kids who are more likely to recognize the image of Abraham Lincoln than Ronald McDonald. Call me an old foagy if you will. P.S. - Hey, you kids: get off my lawn!