Child Soldier

     Connections I can draw between the text and my learning is that as time is developing children are going through tough times, whether it's about child abuse or children being influenced in the most horrific way. Children don't really have a clue about what they witness, but they try to follow the steps of what they are being shown to or told to do. When someone tells a child to do something, they are truly powerless, they do what they were ordered to do, without knowing the consequences.
     A connection I can draw between the text and my own life is that I play video games that may involve violence, but now saying that I am 15 years old, I have the understanding to determine what is right and what is wrong. While on the other hand, my brother, for example, was playing a video game that involved some violence. After a while, he put away the game and started playing with LEGO blocks, and he made a gun out of those blocks. he then goes up to me and says "hands up, or I'll shoot you." This shows how quick kids can catch up with what they see. The information sinks into them and makes them want to do those things. They are being influenced by the media.
     In the article "Teaching Kids to Kill," similarities that was found was that in all the concepts it revolved around how children are being influenced by the media. It was about how bad media can have a negative effect on children's actions.
Differences in the article that were found was that one concept talks about how children think it's a laughing matter when they see violence, another paragraph says role models, such as sergeants, are used to influence young, impressionable teenagers. So the real question is what is right? Should one laugh when they see people brought to their knees? And is it right  to influence kids to do something dreadful?


     A position I would challenge or argue with in the text, is that are role models really role models? Would one really call themselves a role model if they make innocent children into a soldier? In the text it says role models, such as sergeants are used to influence young, impressionable teenagers. Though this isn't only happening in military, it's happening in the media today. The media are providing children with role models, not just in movies and TV shows,  but also media celebrities. Some people find the need to follow the steps of these so called 'role models,' thinking what they are doing is perfectly fine, when really it's not. So why do they call them role models when they're surely not.


     Key concepts or ideas I believe are important and worth holding on to from the text is that innocent children are being influenced to do things that are truly unbearable to see or hear. All this is the fault of the people behind in the media. The ones who are making the violent video games, movies, videos, etc.


     Changes in action that are suggested in the text for everyone is that "we must work against child abuse, racism, poverty and children's access to guns, and in rebuilding our families, but we must also take on the producers of media violence." The solution strategy is, "education, legislation, litigation." Violence is no game, and it's no fun. Violence kills.
"An educated and informed society can and must find it's way home from the dark and lonely place to which it has traveled."