Gimme

After nearly four years of Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Qoheleth, and Paul, this week I'll be reading and commenting on the heaviest piece of writing i've been assigned yet...

The Berenstain Bears Get the Gimmies. All 29 pages of it.


For one of my Counseling and Psychology classes, with Dave Powlison (who i'd love to be when i grow up), we're reading this Berenstain book to see one way that psychology works at the popular, rather than academic, level. Like Dr. Phil or other popular psychologists, the Berenstains want to educate people and improve life. All well and good. But what assumptions do they make about human nature, about what changes people and what the goal of child-rearing is? Can they actually deliver what they promise?
It may seem over-picky to ask these questions of a kids' book. But kids' books can provide an amazing window into how a society's priorities and how it tries to shape its children, and we ought to take them seriously. I'm looking forward to this, and I'll try to post my response paper later this week.