March 22, 2025 • 25 mins
TD Flenaugh discusses the importance of researching issues that matter personally and sharing these methods with children to foster critical thinking and informed decision-making. She highlights the dangers of synthetic braiding hair, citing a Consumer Reports investigation that found carcinogens in all 10 synthetic hair products tested. Flenaugh emphasizes the need to evaluate source credibility, avoid sponsored content, and cross-verify information from multiple sources. Flenaugh also stresses the importance of building lifelong research skills and applying critical thinking to make informed choices.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
TD Flenaugh (00:00):
Okay, welcome to the falling for learning
(00:02):
podcast. This is episode 91 Sotoday, what we're going to
discuss is actually researchinglike, what can we do to research
issues and matters that makesense to us, that are important
to us, and sharing, sharingthose methods with our kids so
that they be can become, youknow, readers and writers who
(00:28):
have agency and the ability tocritically choose the things
that they want to buy for theirown purposes, making choices
that involve their health, thatare informed and that are going
to be to their benefit.
So this is a research guide, butthis is also some little selfish
(00:48):
stuff too, right? Stay tuned.
Hi. Thank you so much forjoining the Falling for Learning
Podcast. We have this podcast tohelp parents and caregivers with
having the resources, strategiesand tools needed to make sure
that their children are on trackfor learning and to stay on
track for success.
(01:12):
Okay, Episode 91 let's get intoit now. I don't know if you
know, but I have been wearingbraids, braid extensions for
many, many years in my life.
Have them in right now. They'retwisted this time.
Anyway. So I started seeing newsreports about all of the dangers
(01:37):
associated with this type ofhair, and I needed to actually
investigate it for myself. Okay,so in addition to talking about
the research methods, we'regoing to be discussing, you
know, the credibility ofsources, analyzing sources, and
all of that. And again, the jobfor you, parents, educators,
(02:00):
kids who are watching you needto be transferring these tech,
these methods, to your ownresearch, topics that are
interesting to you, that igniteyour passion, that really are
issues that you're facing,decisions that you need to make
in your own life. Okay, so thisis my topic, but I am not
(02:21):
advocating for you to go forthis topic. I am 100% advocating
that you go for the topic ofyour choice. Okay, so here we
go. This is a news report thatclued me into the consumer
report investigation aboutsynthetic braiding hair, okay,
and the dangers of it. So afterwatching this news report, I
(02:44):
wanted to read this consumerreport investigation and do my
own information as well, my owndeep dive into the situation. So
this is very key, that you arefinding sources. And this is why
this is a reputable source. Thisis a news report from the from
(03:05):
the news. It is a balanced newssource. Of course, humans are
not unbiased. Humans are biased.
But it's a balanced news source,okay, it was reporting about a
particular research paper thatcame out from Consumer Reports,
it gave us where they got theinformation from, and I could go
and read it myself. So whenwe're talking about sources,
(03:30):
means to talk about reputablesources. Is this source
reputable? Right? And how do youknow if something's reputable or
not? Very clear. They have someskin in the game. Skin in the
game comes in the form of theirreputation. If they're reporting
negative things, not justnegative, sorry, inaccurate
(03:52):
things and things that are nottrue, they can definitely be put
in the situation where they arediscredited and people would
stop watching them, they havesomething to lose. That is what
skin in the game is. They alsocould lose money from sponsors.
People do not want to advertiseor pay for a commercial to be
(04:15):
ran on a website, a news sourcethat is not reputable, that is
making up things, right, thathas a bad reputation because
they're untrustworthy. Obviouslyno one wants to hear from them.
Let's do the next thing. So Ifirst was looking into
(04:39):
understanding synthetic haircomposition, right? So it is
plastic based material. Myhusband was like, uh duh, which
I thought was, What do you mean,duh, right? So the duh part he
was saying, Well, of course ithas carcinogen, carcinogens. Now
for those of you don't know.
(05:00):
Carcinogens, okay, the reportgot into carcinogens.
Carcinogens are cancer causingagents they cause. They're known
to cause cancer, right? So myhusband was like, Duh, because
it's made of plastic. Andactually, I have been wearing,
(05:21):
you know, synthetic braid hairfor so long I actually never
thought about what it's made of,and didn't worry about it
because I've been using it sinceI was a little kid. It's
something I didn't question inmy life. And so that's again,
about becoming educated,starting to question your
environment, things around you,what makes sense, what doesn't
make sense? What are practicesthat we do that are healing?
(05:44):
What are practices that we dothat we need to disrupt? Okay?
So this is why we learn to readand write, not just to get a
grade from a teacher, but sothat we could have our own
liberation, that we can have ourown authentic and original
thought processes, okay, andhave the tools and skills to do
so. So we know now that you knowwhich I wasn't paying attention
(06:09):
to, was even concerned about,wasn't even thinking about that.
There's chemical treatments thatare on this plastic type of
hair, and they add it for shine,different textures, and even for
heat resistance, some hiddendangers are that the carcinogens
(06:31):
can be absorbed into your scalp.
They could even be inhaled. Andin addition to that, when you
dip braids, which these braidsaren't dip that I'm wearing with
the twist, but even dipping itinto boiling hot water can help
to even activate it further, orto release those toxins into the
(06:53):
air. So lots of issues rightnow. I personally have not had
an issue where, or at least, Ihaven't noticed an issue,
haven't taken note of an issuewhere my scalp was having major
problems, or anything like that.
So I don't know, but I know ifit's a carcinogen, that's
(07:14):
something you're not even reallyseeing or touching until maybe
it's developed in your body. Soit's something that we really
have to be careful with. Now letme take a step back. Okay, this
started with a just a veryregular Google search, right?
Consumer Reports investigationon synthetic hair, and this is
(07:35):
when I was able to findinformation. I want to bring you
know attention to the first parthere, you see that this says
sponsored. There's also thingsthat come up now that are AI,
right? It just AI generates ananswer for me. Usually, when I'm
on my phone, AI generates it.
Here's the problem, sponsoredcontent is paid content, right?
(07:57):
It's paid. Paid means that ithas some bias. They're trying to
make money off of it. So youneed to be careful. Now notice
that this source is actual, theConsumer reports.org itself. So
you kind of have to take thatwith a grain of salt and notice
that I did go to the ConsumerReports myself, but that is not
(08:17):
the only place that I went tofind information about this. So
it's important for you to lookat your sources, see if it's
sponsored, and then you need toscroll down to get to things
that are not sponsored. Is it aYouTube video? Just by a random
YouTube person? Now I'm kind ofa random YouTube person in some
(08:39):
ways, however, I come with aresume, right? I'm letting you
know that I am a careereducator. I have a master's in
writing and ProfessionalWriting, so I can give you
information about writing. Ihave expertise in writing. I'm a
national board certifiedteacher, so I come with
receipts, baby. Anyway, youdon't always know who you're
(09:03):
talking to or who's talking toyou when you're talking about
YouTube or something like that.
Okay, um, so even though theymay be monetized or whatever it
just might be, their audience isokay with the foolishness. So
again, you have to be carefulabout who you are listening to
(09:23):
when it comes to YouTube and allof that. Do they have receipts,
or do they have some reputation,some expertise in that area? Are
they just someone who talks loudand a lot of times people, and
so many people are loud andwrong? Right is that it they're
just loud and wrong. If that'sthe case, you need to know. So
here we go the FDA. So here'sthe consumer report. I clicked
(09:49):
on it, I found that there's apetition that you could sign
again. Research into action.
We're not researching just forresearching sake and parents,
especially home school parentsout there. Care educators out
there try to get your kids, yourstudents, to be researching for
a purpose, for x, for action intheir lives. What are they going
to how are they going to applythis their community to their
(10:11):
own personal lives? For me, thisresearch is going into my own
personal life. I'm going to makea decision about having
synthetic hair, wearing my ownnatural hair, I've got to make a
different decision, right? I gotto find out what I can do. And
so I'm taking you through thisprocess so that you could also
think about what is in your lifethat you need to research.
(10:34):
Right? I'm going to keepbringing that up because this is
about you using your educationfor liberation, right, not just
education for education sake.
Now, if you're very just curiousabout something great, but if
it's just something that thekids are not interested in, that
you're just giving out researchtopics and they're not into it,
this is the problem. Get theminto something they're
(10:55):
interested in. Okay?
So going beyond the basicsearches, you're going to start
with some basic inquiries thatGoogle search, right? Synthetic
hair, synthetic braiding, hair,safety, all of this right to
kind of get what you have. Thenyou got to get beyond those top
results. Those top results aregoing to be sponsored, and it'll
(11:18):
say sponsored next to it,thankfully. But of course,
looking at various sources andthat have the similar
information has similarinformation, very important. If
you've gone through and you findone place that has totally
different information than otherplaces, you may have some false
(11:41):
information, right? Becausesometimes there is
misinformation out there, and weknow things go viral, and then
you go back and fact check andfind out that was a totally
wrong viral thing. Now noteverybody gets to the end where
there it gets fact checked anddebunked, and they're just
around there saying what thisthing is that was totally wrong.
(12:04):
The rewrite method and therewrite method workbook are your
go to resource for helping kidsto learn to fall in love with
writing. It has the tips, tools,resources, strategies and skill
(12:25):
building activities to help kidsfall out of writing and into
loving to write. Get your bookset today. You okay, again, so
(12:46):
make sure you cross verify theinformation, see that it's
reputable, that it's not justsponsored or biased information,
and that you could find it inmultiple places. Okay, effective
research requires patience andcritical thinking. Some things
just don't make sense, but we'rejust sitting here agreeing with
it. So again, a lot of goes intoit. So let's get more into how
(13:14):
you evaluate source credibility.
Now, there are some scientificjournals and studies. Those are
at the top, they're peerreviewed, they have rigorous
methodology. They're connectedto a university with high esteem
and a good, solid reputation.
That's the top of it. Soestablished news and consumer
(13:36):
organizations are at the top. Wehave Consumer Reports. We have
major news outlets with factchecking, so we know there's
some credibility. There isbelievable. Is solid, we can
trust it. So third tier, we'rethinking about educational and
government sources, universitypublications, the FDA, right?
(13:59):
That's the Federal DrugAdministration, the CDC, the
Center for Disease Control,these different guidelines that
the government puts outdepending on your political
ideology you might now, or inthe past, have been looking at
some of the governmentinformation in a different way,
(14:19):
in a different lens. Now, weknow America for sure. The basis
of it is consumerism, right? Sotake a take a moment to think
about that. Think about ifinformation is kept secret or
whatever. So again, be critical.
Don't just believe everythingthat you read. Again, cross
reference, your choice. Yourcross reference, your choice,
(14:41):
your your sources. Okay,sources. What I'm trying to say,
then there's industry sources.
Now let me give you a littlestep further. You want to look
at the industries in the UnitedStates, then you want to go a
step further, because let mejust tell you that. In other
countries, they have differentguidelines than we do, and
(15:04):
sometimes that consumerism beatsout, and sometimes the industry
is being financed by someone,right? So you've heard of the
Philip Morris situation with thesmoking and the cigarettes, when
they put that stuff that some ofthat research was being funded
(15:26):
by the actual cigarettecompanies, and certain stuff
didn't come out the way it wasopposed to. So again, look at
other countries too to see ifthey're saying something else.
Because sometimes othercountries are more, could be
less or more protective of theirmembers of society. So say that
(15:50):
is what it is you kind of haveto take that. You have to find
out for yourself, do yourresearch. So social media and
video content is just at thelowest level, right? Because
anyone can pick up a camera, canstart a YouTube channel, and
they may not have any any waythat they should be talking
about this topic. They may notknow anything. They might just
(16:13):
be going over off a gut idea, orwhat they've heard of, or how
they've always heard it, andit's not grounded in anything
in, you know, specifically. Soreally lowest level, you have to
really take it for a grain ofsalt. You really have to verify
those resources, see if it makesany sense. See if they're
referencing any resources thathave a higher level of authority
(16:37):
and, you know, reputation, okay,so really important evaluate
those sources. Let's take a lookat some of the Consumer Reports
investigation and key findings.
So this was a comprehensiveconsumer report that they in
which they tested multiplesynthetic braiding hair
(16:59):
products, they found carcinogensin 100% every single one of the
10 that they tested okay.
Everything had it. And inaddition to that, there are no
labels, besides it's sayingsomething like connect the line
(17:22):
on it. There's really no labels.
You don't know what is in it,and they don't have to tell you.
It's not like our food that hasspecific labels on there about
what the ingredients are. Soagain, without transparency,
it's hard to be healthy, nothard to be healthy. Is not
healthy. Let's just say it's nothealthy. If it was, you know,
(17:43):
it's not healthy. And so that'swhat the final conclusion I came
to, that is not healthy. It'snot something I should be having
in my hair, but I've been usingit for years. So let's get into
what those details are. It cancontain carcinogens, which are
cancer causing. Agents, high voclevels now voc, I will link in
(18:04):
the comments, in the in thesummary, like, what that state
like another video that hadinformation about this, but
basically some more harmfulstuff. All this is that's here
in this list, flame retardants,harmful. Flat plates are
present. More harmful stuff. Allthese things here are harmful,
(18:29):
but just to you know, again,going back to the top, the
cancer causing agent, which isknown as a carcinogen, all of
them had it in there, but a highpercentage of these other things
were found in it. And again, wedon't know what else these are,
the things they test it for. Wedon't even know everything that
was in it. So it's veryimportant for us to know this
number one, you know, bottomline, harmful, harmful, harmful,
(18:54):
harmful. Again, it's harmful. SoI just need to choose a
different style so commonresearch pitfalls to avoid.
Getting back to the thing, whichis, how do you do some research?
And how can you make sure thatyou are avoiding some research
pitfalls? So relying on topsearch results only, which, if
(19:16):
you're really being honest withyourself. A lot of us do we do a
quick Google search, we look atthe top thing and be like, See,
told you so, or whatever it is.
And again, you need to dig alittle deeper, because a lot of
times it's sponsored, acceptingunverified social media claims.
So someone that you like onsocial media, you're following
them, you like them, you knowthem, you trust them. But are
(19:38):
they trustworthy? That part wedon't know. That part you're not
sure of you don't know. So youhave to actually figure that
out. So then acceptingunverified social media claims
you know can be very harmful.
You're making decisions based onsomeone that you think is cool,
but they don't really have anyexpertise in the. Area. They're
(19:59):
not a professional in the area.
They're just given theiropinion. Then there's
confirmation bias. If I alreadybelieve that this is the best
thing for my hair to wear theseand I find someone who says, Oh,
please, everything is they sayis a carcinogen. I might as well
what we gonna, you know, putourselves in a bubble and like
(20:19):
that confirms what I want. I'mgonna keep wearing this
hairstyle. It's easy. I'm good,so be careful that you're not
just listening to things youwant to hear instead of
listening to what you should behearing. Right?
So then superficial reading,like sometimes we skim a
headline I saw on a headline,and I have 100% been guilty of
(20:42):
this, I tell my husband I sawthe headline where it said and I
did not read that article.
Sometimes it's just click bait,and it could have been totally
from an unworthy website for meto be talking about what that
news with that headline was. Sojust reading a headline or the
first paragraph or somethingdoes not mean that you have done
some research. It does not meanany of that. So how do we take
(21:03):
action again? I already told youI'm gonna change my hairstyle.
I'm not gonna put this stuff inmy hair. No more, because only
reason, only thing I decided todo is like the human hair. Now I
do want to say and I'm gonna putit in the again, that link to
the video with a group of blackwomen talking about this, about
(21:23):
different alternatives that youcould wear, like for more
health, healthy, synthetic hair,whatever. I'll probably have,
like human hair. I ordered someright? So have some twists with
the human hair, whatever. Buteventually, just having nobody
else's hair in my head is veryimportant to me to get that
(21:46):
together. Okay. Um, so, doingmultiple research, I even tried
with this hair I like, cleanedit with apple cider vinegar, you
know. But again, as I did myresearch, if the basis of what
it's made from synthetic fibersthat have all these chemicals in
(22:09):
it, just washing it withsomething is not going to work
when it actually the what it'smade from, is the problem, not
what is coating the hairs? Okay?
So it doesn't make any sense. Sochanging your buying habits,
signing petitions to get thingsto happen differently, and then
(22:31):
sharing the information witheveryone. So I'm telling you the
research that I found or whatI'm going to do differently. You
got to make a choice foryourself about what you want to
do, especially if some of youare from families with you know,
let's just say an epidemic ofcancer in your family. There are
some families out there, so becareful. And so again, the
(22:56):
reason why I went through thisis because we could talk about
building lifelong researchskills, applying our critical
thinking, developing our sourceliteracy. That I'm not just
believing it because it'swritten down, and I hear kids
and people say all the time, Isaw it on the internet. We don't
know which website, we don'tknow which personality that was
on the internet that we heard,where we got that from, but
(23:18):
because it was in writingsomewhere, it must be true, is
such a problem that people havegone through in their lives and
then practice informationsynthesis again, getting it from
multiple sources, and verifyingyour sources and actually
talking to hear what otherpeople, from another point of
view, have to say, so that youcan just open your mind and make
(23:43):
informed decisions for yourself.
Okay, I feel healthy today. I'mgonna be doing some, you know,
getting some health checkups andeverything. But I have been
having skin problems. I've beenhaving skin problems before I
was using I would just have myown hair and so I can't say that
it was because of that, but I'msure it didn't help once I put
(24:05):
it in so again, and I just putit on because I'm really working
on my book. I'm right now at adoing a teacher research right
now. I'm a teacher consultantwith the UCLA writing project,
and I'm doing research today,and I'm on the campus of San
Jose State University, and Iwill be putting some more
(24:26):
pictures on the ground of whatI'm doing today, and then
interviewing other teacherconsultants that I work with as
well. But again, you know, makesure you are doing something
today that your future childrenwill thank you for But really
most importantly, gives you acompetitive advantage. You're
doing things that are going togive your child a competitive
(24:47):
advantage by listening to thefalling for learning podcast and
putting that research intoaction. Enjoy your Saturday.
Thanks again for supporting thefalling for learning podcast. As
new episodes go live everySaturday you can watch us on
(25:09):
youtube.com/@fallingforlearning,or listen on all major podcast
platforms such as Apple, Google,Audible, Spotify and much more
for more resources, visitfalling in love with
learning.comwe really appreciate you. Have a
wonderful week.
Okay, welcome to the falling for learning
(00:02):
podcast. This is episode 91 Sotoday, what we're going to
discuss is actually researchinglike, what can we do to research
issues and matters that makesense to us, that are important
to us, and sharing, sharingthose methods with our kids so
that they be can become, youknow, readers and writers who
(00:28):
have agency and the ability tocritically choose the things
that they want to buy for theirown purposes, making choices
that involve their health, thatare informed and that are going
to be to their benefit.
So this is a research guide, butthis is also some little selfish
(00:48):
stuff too, right? Stay tuned.
Hi. Thank you so much forjoining the Falling for Learning
Podcast. We have this podcast tohelp parents and caregivers with
having the resources, strategiesand tools needed to make sure
that their children are on trackfor learning and to stay on
track for success.
(01:12):
Okay, Episode 91 let's get intoit now. I don't know if you
know, but I have been wearingbraids, braid extensions for
many, many years in my life.
Have them in right now. They'retwisted this time.
Anyway. So I started seeing newsreports about all of the dangers
(01:37):
associated with this type ofhair, and I needed to actually
investigate it for myself. Okay,so in addition to talking about
the research methods, we'regoing to be discussing, you
know, the credibility ofsources, analyzing sources, and
all of that. And again, the jobfor you, parents, educators,
(02:00):
kids who are watching you needto be transferring these tech,
these methods, to your ownresearch, topics that are
interesting to you, that igniteyour passion, that really are
issues that you're facing,decisions that you need to make
in your own life. Okay, so thisis my topic, but I am not
(02:21):
advocating for you to go forthis topic. I am 100% advocating
that you go for the topic ofyour choice. Okay, so here we
go. This is a news report thatclued me into the consumer
report investigation aboutsynthetic braiding hair, okay,
and the dangers of it. So afterwatching this news report, I
(02:44):
wanted to read this consumerreport investigation and do my
own information as well, my owndeep dive into the situation. So
this is very key, that you arefinding sources. And this is why
this is a reputable source. Thisis a news report from the from
(03:05):
the news. It is a balanced newssource. Of course, humans are
not unbiased. Humans are biased.
But it's a balanced news source,okay, it was reporting about a
particular research paper thatcame out from Consumer Reports,
it gave us where they got theinformation from, and I could go
and read it myself. So whenwe're talking about sources,
(03:30):
means to talk about reputablesources. Is this source
reputable? Right? And how do youknow if something's reputable or
not? Very clear. They have someskin in the game. Skin in the
game comes in the form of theirreputation. If they're reporting
negative things, not justnegative, sorry, inaccurate
(03:52):
things and things that are nottrue, they can definitely be put
in the situation where they arediscredited and people would
stop watching them, they havesomething to lose. That is what
skin in the game is. They alsocould lose money from sponsors.
People do not want to advertiseor pay for a commercial to be
(04:15):
ran on a website, a news sourcethat is not reputable, that is
making up things, right, thathas a bad reputation because
they're untrustworthy. Obviouslyno one wants to hear from them.
Let's do the next thing. So Ifirst was looking into
(04:39):
understanding synthetic haircomposition, right? So it is
plastic based material. Myhusband was like, uh duh, which
I thought was, What do you mean,duh, right? So the duh part he
was saying, Well, of course ithas carcinogen, carcinogens. Now
for those of you don't know.
(05:00):
Carcinogens, okay, the reportgot into carcinogens.
Carcinogens are cancer causingagents they cause. They're known
to cause cancer, right? So myhusband was like, Duh, because
it's made of plastic. Andactually, I have been wearing,
(05:21):
you know, synthetic braid hairfor so long I actually never
thought about what it's made of,and didn't worry about it
because I've been using it sinceI was a little kid. It's
something I didn't question inmy life. And so that's again,
about becoming educated,starting to question your
environment, things around you,what makes sense, what doesn't
make sense? What are practicesthat we do that are healing?
(05:44):
What are practices that we dothat we need to disrupt? Okay?
So this is why we learn to readand write, not just to get a
grade from a teacher, but sothat we could have our own
liberation, that we can have ourown authentic and original
thought processes, okay, andhave the tools and skills to do
so. So we know now that you knowwhich I wasn't paying attention
(06:09):
to, was even concerned about,wasn't even thinking about that.
There's chemical treatments thatare on this plastic type of
hair, and they add it for shine,different textures, and even for
heat resistance, some hiddendangers are that the carcinogens
(06:31):
can be absorbed into your scalp.
They could even be inhaled. Andin addition to that, when you
dip braids, which these braidsaren't dip that I'm wearing with
the twist, but even dipping itinto boiling hot water can help
to even activate it further, orto release those toxins into the
(06:53):
air. So lots of issues rightnow. I personally have not had
an issue where, or at least, Ihaven't noticed an issue,
haven't taken note of an issuewhere my scalp was having major
problems, or anything like that.
So I don't know, but I know ifit's a carcinogen, that's
(07:14):
something you're not even reallyseeing or touching until maybe
it's developed in your body. Soit's something that we really
have to be careful with. Now letme take a step back. Okay, this
started with a just a veryregular Google search, right?
Consumer Reports investigationon synthetic hair, and this is
(07:35):
when I was able to findinformation. I want to bring you
know attention to the first parthere, you see that this says
sponsored. There's also thingsthat come up now that are AI,
right? It just AI generates ananswer for me. Usually, when I'm
on my phone, AI generates it.
Here's the problem, sponsoredcontent is paid content, right?
(07:57):
It's paid. Paid means that ithas some bias. They're trying to
make money off of it. So youneed to be careful. Now notice
that this source is actual, theConsumer reports.org itself. So
you kind of have to take thatwith a grain of salt and notice
that I did go to the ConsumerReports myself, but that is not
(08:17):
the only place that I went tofind information about this. So
it's important for you to lookat your sources, see if it's
sponsored, and then you need toscroll down to get to things
that are not sponsored. Is it aYouTube video? Just by a random
YouTube person? Now I'm kind ofa random YouTube person in some
(08:39):
ways, however, I come with aresume, right? I'm letting you
know that I am a careereducator. I have a master's in
writing and ProfessionalWriting, so I can give you
information about writing. Ihave expertise in writing. I'm a
national board certifiedteacher, so I come with
receipts, baby. Anyway, youdon't always know who you're
(09:03):
talking to or who's talking toyou when you're talking about
YouTube or something like that.
Okay, um, so even though theymay be monetized or whatever it
just might be, their audience isokay with the foolishness. So
again, you have to be carefulabout who you are listening to
(09:23):
when it comes to YouTube and allof that. Do they have receipts,
or do they have some reputation,some expertise in that area? Are
they just someone who talks loudand a lot of times people, and
so many people are loud andwrong? Right is that it they're
just loud and wrong. If that'sthe case, you need to know. So
here we go the FDA. So here'sthe consumer report. I clicked
(09:49):
on it, I found that there's apetition that you could sign
again. Research into action.
We're not researching just forresearching sake and parents,
especially home school parentsout there. Care educators out
there try to get your kids, yourstudents, to be researching for
a purpose, for x, for action intheir lives. What are they going
to how are they going to applythis their community to their
(10:11):
own personal lives? For me, thisresearch is going into my own
personal life. I'm going to makea decision about having
synthetic hair, wearing my ownnatural hair, I've got to make a
different decision, right? I gotto find out what I can do. And
so I'm taking you through thisprocess so that you could also
think about what is in your lifethat you need to research.
(10:34):
Right? I'm going to keepbringing that up because this is
about you using your educationfor liberation, right, not just
education for education sake.
Now, if you're very just curiousabout something great, but if
it's just something that thekids are not interested in, that
you're just giving out researchtopics and they're not into it,
this is the problem. Get theminto something they're
(10:55):
interested in. Okay?
So going beyond the basicsearches, you're going to start
with some basic inquiries thatGoogle search, right? Synthetic
hair, synthetic braiding, hair,safety, all of this right to
kind of get what you have. Thenyou got to get beyond those top
results. Those top results aregoing to be sponsored, and it'll
(11:18):
say sponsored next to it,thankfully. But of course,
looking at various sources andthat have the similar
information has similarinformation, very important. If
you've gone through and you findone place that has totally
different information than otherplaces, you may have some false
(11:41):
information, right? Becausesometimes there is
misinformation out there, and weknow things go viral, and then
you go back and fact check andfind out that was a totally
wrong viral thing. Now noteverybody gets to the end where
there it gets fact checked anddebunked, and they're just
around there saying what thisthing is that was totally wrong.
(12:04):
The rewrite method and therewrite method workbook are your
go to resource for helping kidsto learn to fall in love with
writing. It has the tips, tools,resources, strategies and skill
(12:25):
building activities to help kidsfall out of writing and into
loving to write. Get your bookset today. You okay, again, so
(12:46):
make sure you cross verify theinformation, see that it's
reputable, that it's not justsponsored or biased information,
and that you could find it inmultiple places. Okay, effective
research requires patience andcritical thinking. Some things
just don't make sense, but we'rejust sitting here agreeing with
it. So again, a lot of goes intoit. So let's get more into how
(13:14):
you evaluate source credibility.
Now, there are some scientificjournals and studies. Those are
at the top, they're peerreviewed, they have rigorous
methodology. They're connectedto a university with high esteem
and a good, solid reputation.
That's the top of it. Soestablished news and consumer
(13:36):
organizations are at the top. Wehave Consumer Reports. We have
major news outlets with factchecking, so we know there's
some credibility. There isbelievable. Is solid, we can
trust it. So third tier, we'rethinking about educational and
government sources, universitypublications, the FDA, right?
(13:59):
That's the Federal DrugAdministration, the CDC, the
Center for Disease Control,these different guidelines that
the government puts outdepending on your political
ideology you might now, or inthe past, have been looking at
some of the governmentinformation in a different way,
(14:19):
in a different lens. Now, weknow America for sure. The basis
of it is consumerism, right? Sotake a take a moment to think
about that. Think about ifinformation is kept secret or
whatever. So again, be critical.
Don't just believe everythingthat you read. Again, cross
reference, your choice. Yourcross reference, your choice,
(14:41):
your your sources. Okay,sources. What I'm trying to say,
then there's industry sources.
Now let me give you a littlestep further. You want to look
at the industries in the UnitedStates, then you want to go a
step further, because let mejust tell you that. In other
countries, they have differentguidelines than we do, and
(15:04):
sometimes that consumerism beatsout, and sometimes the industry
is being financed by someone,right? So you've heard of the
Philip Morris situation with thesmoking and the cigarettes, when
they put that stuff that some ofthat research was being funded
(15:26):
by the actual cigarettecompanies, and certain stuff
didn't come out the way it wasopposed to. So again, look at
other countries too to see ifthey're saying something else.
Because sometimes othercountries are more, could be
less or more protective of theirmembers of society. So say that
(15:50):
is what it is you kind of haveto take that. You have to find
out for yourself, do yourresearch. So social media and
video content is just at thelowest level, right? Because
anyone can pick up a camera, canstart a YouTube channel, and
they may not have any any waythat they should be talking
about this topic. They may notknow anything. They might just
(16:13):
be going over off a gut idea, orwhat they've heard of, or how
they've always heard it, andit's not grounded in anything
in, you know, specifically. Soreally lowest level, you have to
really take it for a grain ofsalt. You really have to verify
those resources, see if it makesany sense. See if they're
referencing any resources thathave a higher level of authority
(16:37):
and, you know, reputation, okay,so really important evaluate
those sources. Let's take a lookat some of the Consumer Reports
investigation and key findings.
So this was a comprehensiveconsumer report that they in
which they tested multiplesynthetic braiding hair
(16:59):
products, they found carcinogensin 100% every single one of the
10 that they tested okay.
Everything had it. And inaddition to that, there are no
labels, besides it's sayingsomething like connect the line
(17:22):
on it. There's really no labels.
You don't know what is in it,and they don't have to tell you.
It's not like our food that hasspecific labels on there about
what the ingredients are. Soagain, without transparency,
it's hard to be healthy, nothard to be healthy. Is not
healthy. Let's just say it's nothealthy. If it was, you know,
(17:43):
it's not healthy. And so that'swhat the final conclusion I came
to, that is not healthy. It'snot something I should be having
in my hair, but I've been usingit for years. So let's get into
what those details are. It cancontain carcinogens, which are
cancer causing. Agents, high voclevels now voc, I will link in
(18:04):
the comments, in the in thesummary, like, what that state
like another video that hadinformation about this, but
basically some more harmfulstuff. All this is that's here
in this list, flame retardants,harmful. Flat plates are
present. More harmful stuff. Allthese things here are harmful,
(18:29):
but just to you know, again,going back to the top, the
cancer causing agent, which isknown as a carcinogen, all of
them had it in there, but a highpercentage of these other things
were found in it. And again, wedon't know what else these are,
the things they test it for. Wedon't even know everything that
was in it. So it's veryimportant for us to know this
number one, you know, bottomline, harmful, harmful, harmful,
(18:54):
harmful. Again, it's harmful. SoI just need to choose a
different style so commonresearch pitfalls to avoid.
Getting back to the thing, whichis, how do you do some research?
And how can you make sure thatyou are avoiding some research
pitfalls? So relying on topsearch results only, which, if
(19:16):
you're really being honest withyourself. A lot of us do we do a
quick Google search, we look atthe top thing and be like, See,
told you so, or whatever it is.
And again, you need to dig alittle deeper, because a lot of
times it's sponsored, acceptingunverified social media claims.
So someone that you like onsocial media, you're following
them, you like them, you knowthem, you trust them. But are
(19:38):
they trustworthy? That part wedon't know. That part you're not
sure of you don't know. So youhave to actually figure that
out. So then acceptingunverified social media claims
you know can be very harmful.
You're making decisions based onsomeone that you think is cool,
but they don't really have anyexpertise in the. Area. They're
(19:59):
not a professional in the area.
They're just given theiropinion. Then there's
confirmation bias. If I alreadybelieve that this is the best
thing for my hair to wear theseand I find someone who says, Oh,
please, everything is they sayis a carcinogen. I might as well
what we gonna, you know, putourselves in a bubble and like
(20:19):
that confirms what I want. I'mgonna keep wearing this
hairstyle. It's easy. I'm good,so be careful that you're not
just listening to things youwant to hear instead of
listening to what you should behearing. Right?
So then superficial reading,like sometimes we skim a
headline I saw on a headline,and I have 100% been guilty of
(20:42):
this, I tell my husband I sawthe headline where it said and I
did not read that article.
Sometimes it's just click bait,and it could have been totally
from an unworthy website for meto be talking about what that
news with that headline was. Sojust reading a headline or the
first paragraph or somethingdoes not mean that you have done
some research. It does not meanany of that. So how do we take
(21:03):
action again? I already told youI'm gonna change my hairstyle.
I'm not gonna put this stuff inmy hair. No more, because only
reason, only thing I decided todo is like the human hair. Now I
do want to say and I'm gonna putit in the again, that link to
the video with a group of blackwomen talking about this, about
(21:23):
different alternatives that youcould wear, like for more
health, healthy, synthetic hair,whatever. I'll probably have,
like human hair. I ordered someright? So have some twists with
the human hair, whatever. Buteventually, just having nobody
else's hair in my head is veryimportant to me to get that
(21:46):
together. Okay. Um, so, doingmultiple research, I even tried
with this hair I like, cleanedit with apple cider vinegar, you
know. But again, as I did myresearch, if the basis of what
it's made from synthetic fibersthat have all these chemicals in
(22:09):
it, just washing it withsomething is not going to work
when it actually the what it'smade from, is the problem, not
what is coating the hairs? Okay?
So it doesn't make any sense. Sochanging your buying habits,
signing petitions to get thingsto happen differently, and then
(22:31):
sharing the information witheveryone. So I'm telling you the
research that I found or whatI'm going to do differently. You
got to make a choice foryourself about what you want to
do, especially if some of youare from families with you know,
let's just say an epidemic ofcancer in your family. There are
some families out there, so becareful. And so again, the
(22:56):
reason why I went through thisis because we could talk about
building lifelong researchskills, applying our critical
thinking, developing our sourceliteracy. That I'm not just
believing it because it'swritten down, and I hear kids
and people say all the time, Isaw it on the internet. We don't
know which website, we don'tknow which personality that was
on the internet that we heard,where we got that from, but
(23:18):
because it was in writingsomewhere, it must be true, is
such a problem that people havegone through in their lives and
then practice informationsynthesis again, getting it from
multiple sources, and verifyingyour sources and actually
talking to hear what otherpeople, from another point of
view, have to say, so that youcan just open your mind and make
(23:43):
informed decisions for yourself.
Okay, I feel healthy today. I'mgonna be doing some, you know,
getting some health checkups andeverything. But I have been
having skin problems. I've beenhaving skin problems before I
was using I would just have myown hair and so I can't say that
it was because of that, but I'msure it didn't help once I put
(24:05):
it in so again, and I just putit on because I'm really working
on my book. I'm right now at adoing a teacher research right
now. I'm a teacher consultantwith the UCLA writing project,
and I'm doing research today,and I'm on the campus of San
Jose State University, and Iwill be putting some more
(24:26):
pictures on the ground of whatI'm doing today, and then
interviewing other teacherconsultants that I work with as
well. But again, you know, makesure you are doing something
today that your future childrenwill thank you for But really
most importantly, gives you acompetitive advantage. You're
doing things that are going togive your child a competitive
(24:47):
advantage by listening to thefalling for learning podcast and
putting that research intoaction. Enjoy your Saturday.
Thanks again for supporting thefalling for learning podcast. As
new episodes go live everySaturday you can watch us on
(25:09):
youtube.com/@fallingforlearning,or listen on all major podcast
platforms such as Apple, Google,Audible, Spotify and much more
for more resources, visitfalling in love with
learning.comwe really appreciate you. Have a
wonderful week.
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