Talking Point # 3

Gayness, Multiculture Education, and Community
Dennis Carlson

Quote: " some individuals and subject positions, white middle class, male, heterosexual, ect. get priviledged and represented as Normal while other indiviuals and subjects positions black, working class, female, homosexual etc. are disempowered an represnted as deviant, sick, newrotic, crimianl, lazy, lacking in intelligence, and in other ways abnormal.."

comment: This quote is very powerful becauses its an issue that we come across when ever we tend to teacher this matter of gayness in our classrooms. The quote describes how white male, heterosexual are priviledage over those indiviuals who aren't normal or have less power because they don't fit the typical represention of socity norms.
What I found Interesting in this quote is how it relates to the Johnson reading where the Privilegded are those who are white, male and heterosexuals, they are accepted in the world as the powerful ones and the people who are heared. Its devasting that in my cases the issue of gayness isn't really dicuss in classrooms but kids are still learning about it through other ways. I believe that we need to get pass this issue and accept the fact that their are other different kinds of people and they shoudn't be judge so harsh based on their preferences.
 while reading this articule I thought that Carlson points out many key points especally with this quote about who are privledge and how socity keeps those not in power sinced less and not normal, they are looked down and aren't talked in classrooms. This issue had been around a while ago and as more and more people start to open up the issue and introduces this topic the better we get to accepted it. But of course their are those who still are indenial. No matter what this issue I believe should be taught in School becasue kids see and hear all this outside of school and they might not be inform right. So I think its better to make a start and intoduce this to them.

Talking Point #10

Empowering Education
Ira Shor

Quote: He urged teachers to encourage students to question their experience in school: "you must arouse children's curiosity and make them think about school. For example, it’s very important to begin the school year with a discussion of why we go to school. Why does the government force us to go to school? This would set a questioning tone and show the children that you trust them and that they are intelligent enough, at their own level, to investigate and come up with answers".

                     I really liked this quote because it true that for students to get a better experience and to encourage them to think why do they come to school, the first thing to begin with is discussing why is school important and why do we need to learn. If the teacher opens up with this then the students school year will be focus on doing good in school because they had the question answer at the beginning and aren’t lost during the rest of the year as to why they should continue to come to school that it isn’t a waste of time. They are more connecting to what their learning well benefit them in the future. I like how she says that it important to show the children that you trust them and that they are intelligent enough to investigate and come up with their answers. For me that interesting because I never was really asked this question during my early years of learning in school, I never really explore with my teachers the reason to why I had to come to school. It important to do this because that way the students will be before of knowing their responsibility and a commitment they have to do to be able to move on and get an education.

Quote: If the students task is to memorize rules and existing knowledge, without questioning the subject matter or the learning process, their potential for critical thought and action will be restricted.

                I agree with this quote because the students aren’t really learning any skill if they just memorize rules and existing knowledge, they need to be able to question the subjects matter and be able to somehow interpret their own way. If you are only memorizing then you aren’t really learning anything because you are unable to understand or use it. The whole purpose of learning is to be able to think and understand any kind of subject matter. You need to be able to reflect on it and any connect to what you see in the real world. If students are only taught to memorize the materials then really they can’t question or develop their knowledge or even think critical about anything because they are restricted to what they can do with that material. I remember that when I was in middle school I used to memorize the answers to a test and then forget all about it when I was done with it, which really I wasn’t getting any out of what I had learned. The way school are preparing students for tests make them only memorize and not apply it to when they really need it. I say that they should be able to question everything they learn and instead of memorizing they should be encourage to think beyond what they know because they are capable of doing that.

Quote: Do students feel free to disagree with the teacher? Do students respond to each other’s remarks? Do they act like involved participants or like alienated observers in the exchange of comments in the classroom? Are students asked to think critically about the material and to see knowledge as a field of contending interpretations, or are they fed knowledge as an official consensus? Do students work cooperatively, or are the class a competitive exchange favoring the most assertive people?”

                If you look at all this question the basic question asked is are the students involved in their learning or are they just in the classroom to be giving lectures to only listen to. One thing that I liked about Shor was that she points out the idea of participation, which is one elaborating item to value in the class room. They whole idea that it’s very important for students to participate makes big differences in the learning process of kids.  Rather than just give a lecture it’s also important to get the students to response not only to the teacher but also to one another to see if they understand what is being taught. Comments in the class can build others to get new ideas and even interpretations of which they weren’t thinking before. By being able to work cooperatively and exchange thoughts on the material then they are moving towards a new level of thinking. If students especially young children are involved and are participating then they will be more interesting in learning even if you put them to just stand up and get out of their chairs for two seconds they will feel alive and really to learn. If you just have them sitting down and just talking then by the end you will lose them and not have their attention. I agree with Shor t with the idea that people life as motivated learners, not as passive beings. Children naturally enjoy by learning to interact and experiment what they are being giving. They learn better if they participate and are drawn in the classroom.

                Shor remind me of what we have been learning thought out the class semester  and all the reading we have talk about, Shor points out a lot of the problems that teachers face with, Shor kind of says it all with this article about who’s in power, about the privilege and the kind of classes form in the classrooms. Shor influenced me to think about what teachers are really suppose to be doing and how schooling should be promoting to kids. She got me thinking of what kind of schooling I had when I was young and the kid of education system I see today with my service learning. I can related a lot of her ideas to what is said in this article to what I observed each week with the students I tutor, I see a lot of these students in their role in the classroom and what kind of education they are being delivered.

Freedom Writers

Extra posting

 Seeing this movie was great because it kind of got me thinking of all the themes we covered in class and I wanted to share some of my thoughts about what I saw in this movie and how I could of connect to the readings. I loved this movie!!!

How did I connect the Movie Freedom Writers to class readings?

One of the reading which I can relate this movie to is the Delpit reading, in her "Silenced Dialogue" because like this articles says this students are being left behind and nobody really want to teach them just because they come from an environment of violence and they are miss communicated that they don't want to learn. The school only wants to do the job of keeping them in school until they are old enough to drop out. They are being silent and aren't heard because the school thinks they will never be able to learn. Their whole life they have been silences because if they express what they see or feel nobody cares, that what everyone seems to put them already in the list that they aren't worth teaching. Unlike like their teacher Ms. G she actually listens to this voices that tells them why they can't learn and what they hate school. She starts to make a change for all this kids and makes them value their education. She puts them in front of everyone and gets their trust because that the only way she will get respect. I really like how she is the only one who has not giving up on them and does the same as everyone else making them silent and keep teaching something they don't want to learn. To them she is a new hope for all this kids that have been through so much and are tired of never being heard just because they are already labeled the ones that aren’t going to graduate. This film reminds me of this reading of how miscommunication is a separation between all this kids. They don't want to follow the codes and rules because to them it means NOTHING!

    Another reading which connects to this film is Johnson and the Privilege; there is defiantly a culture of power here in this movie. They are part of the Privilege group because it shows it when they get the old and less active vision of the books. The newer books aren’t part of their privilege because they can't read to that level. Frank is too hard for them to read. On the other hand the privilege kids are the ones in the honors class who get the nice room and get new books they are challenge with work. The Johnson reading is there and is related because the ones in power are the white middle class that are more privilege then these students.

                

           There is also a connection to the Anyon reading in the Social class and the hidden curriculum of work.  These kids in the freedom writer movie are all taught in the working class, where they are only suppose to know the right answer so that they can pass and move on. The teacher that comes in changes that because she doesn’t see this methods for her students to improve, she has alternative ways to teach with creatively and the kids get interesting with what she has them do they being to think more a higher working class they start to think more of a professional level because they get the author of Ana Frank to come to talk to them they start to see that learning isn’t just memorizing things and having no effect on their educational life, like Eva said what is this going to teach me that is going to make a difference in my life. They want to see differences in their life.

Talking Point #8

Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of work

JEAN ANYON

Quote: The teachers rarely explain why the work is being assigned, how it might connect to other assignments, or what the idea is that lies behind the procedure or gives it coherence and perhaps meaning or significance. Available textbooks are not always used, and the teachers often prepare their own dittos or put work examples on the board. Most of the rules regarding work are designations of what the children are to do”

                I don’t really see how these students can learn if all there are being taught is how to get the right answer and now really doing any real deep thinking about how to solve that answer. The working middle class from this school are only taught one thing to strive for what can only be so much. These kids are not privilege and it shows that there is Silences thought out there educational life because they can’t express their ideas only have to go along with what the teacher is saying is right and that is the end of the story no opportunity for them to really learn or having a choices as to what they want to learn they just have to follow the procedure as they apply and that is it. Which I believe is really unfair to these students because that’s how they aren’t motivated to challenge their thinking and to bring out their potential.

Quote:  There is little excitement in schoolwork for the children, and the assignments are perceived as having little to do with their interests and feelings. As one child said, what you do is "store facts up in your head like cold storage - until you need it later for a test or your job." Thus, doing well is important because there are thought to be other likely rewards: a good job or college.

                I agree with this quotes because it was much like my experiences at my high school where everything was pretty much no  excitement to what I do in school, all the assignments I was never really interested in learning because it didn’t I didn’t really have anything interested to do with me. Like the child said the material is taught to memorize it and store it in your head until you well need it for a job or when it comes up in a test. I think that’s not really learning anything or put much value to what students need to get out of school to prepare them for college. To prepare them for what they really need to learn. I know that for most schools the most important thing is getting the students to do well and improve their standards tests, but how is that going to happen when all the school does is put this students to only learn the right answer. I think that for most of the students they want to learn and how a teacher that can really explain and encourage them to do well which in most cases doesn’t happened. They are put aside just because they are seen as not smart and not able to learn.

I like this article because it well give all this different view of all the types of schools and what they are characterize as working class, middle class, Affluent Professional School, Executive Elite School. It reminds me of how I was taught in school and which kind would my experience fit in. I would have to say as the working class with in between middle class. Because although I was taught to do thing step by step the most important thing was getting the right answer so that I can get good grades and pass the tests. My choice didn’t really matter and I was stuck on following directions and just being silent t for the rest of the class time. I was taught that the most important thing was to know what was right but never how? This what right or why was it right. I think for my service learning place, the students seem to be in-between the middle class because they are giving a problem and they do work their way up to how did they solve the problem to thinking. I think more is missing for them to get a better understand of what they are learning.  

Talking Point #7

Teaching Boys and Girls Separately

By ELIZABETH WEIL

Quote: Leonard Sax represents the essential-difference view, arguing that boys and girls should be educated separately for reasons of biology: for example, Sax asserts that boys don’t hear as well as girls, which means that an instructor needs to speak louder in order for the boys in the room to hear her; and that boys’ visual systems are better at seeing action, while girls are better at seeing the nuance of color and texture.

            When I read this article, I didn’t really go against the author but against the idea that to be able to pass a standardize test they need to be this students into an all girls school or all boys. I don’t believe that separating classroom base on gender is right, rather it’s separating groups of students and taking them away from experiencing what is diversity. I think that Sax reasoning of separating these two genders because of biology make up doesn’t really make any sense to me. This shouldn’t be a reason to separate these kids. When Sax says that boys don’t hear as well as a girl that is just abuser, and to go off this simply observation and say that since boys can’t hear well they need to be put together so they can be with its own kind. That doesn’t mean that they need to be separated because they need to be taught different. Personality I don’t like this idea of having boys and girls separated because it takes away their social abilities and when they go out in the real world they won’t know how to socialize with women or men. This is not one way to solve a problem of bring up the tests scores, it just going nowhere. I mean if these kids are being taught by the fact that they are different then each other, then they don’t really see that this kids need more than a division of gender, but a division of different methods to learn.

Quote: For boys, he said: “You need to get them up and moving. That’s based on the nervous system, that’s based on eyes, that’s based upon volume and the use of volume with the boys.” Chadwell, like Sax, says that differences in eyesight, hearing and the nervous system all should influence how you instruct boys. “You need to engage boys’ energy, use it, rather than trying to say, No, no, no. So instead of having boys raise their hands, you’re going to have boys literally stand up.

            This could be one observation that could as well be for both genders because there are those girls that act the same and need to be active and move around and get up. They are those girls that tend to be more like boys that have that energy and want to do everything. I have a cousin that’s a girl and she has a lot of energy always active and can’t be still, always moving around so I see no differences in that, which boys are more engaging, I think that some girls could be the same like my cousin. This reason for separation isn’t buying me I think that the problem in today’s education system is that too much focus is being put on the making sure that the students pass this tests so they can be better than other students are the states. There is too much compensation going on and the stress to be drilling this material on this kid’s brain so that they can pass and get the grade. The sense of creativity is being ignored because it’s all about being told want is right and what you should draw instead of leaving creativity show up.

Quote: Given the myriad ways in which our schools are failing, it may be hard to remember that public schools were intended not only to instruct children in reading and math but also to teach them commonality, tolerance and what it means to be American. “When you segregate, by any means, you lose some of that,” says Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. “Even if one could prove that sending a kid off to his or her own school based on religion or race or ethnicity or gender did a little bit better job of raising the academic skills for workers in the economy, there’s also the issue of trying to create tolerant citizens in a democracy.”

            I agree with this quote on how the public schools were intended not only to instruct children in reading, math but also to teach them tolerance and what is means to be American. And if you segregate this means by separating these students then it lose then senses. I think that going off by gender would be like saying putting all the students by ethnicity or by race its two different ways to make students work better because they share the same idea and are in their comfortable zone with their own kind, but it takes away their experiences of diversity and what the real world looks like when they step out. There isn’t always going to be that place where only girls are working with you or with people of the same race are part of your own world. This is just a way again to go on the wrong path to solve the educational system. I mean by putting kids by gender in classrooms they aren’t going to hear them there will be silences in their classrooms and only be taught for the need to make tests scores better.

Talking point #6

A Particularly cheap White Whine

By: Tim Wise

Quote:  “To suggest that race-based Scholarships are some unique and illegitimate break with an otherwise meritocratic system is preposterous. Fact is, there are plenty of scholarships that have nothing to do with merit per se, but about which conservatives say nothing: scholarships for people who are left-handed, or kids whose parents sell Tupperware, or the children of horse-breeders, or descendants of the signers of the declaration of independence, among many thousands of such awards.”

                I found it very ridiculous that most of these scholarships have nothing to do with metric purpose like this article says. I found this quotes very interested because it’s so true that in today’s society scholarship are giving based on this things and I think it shouldn’t be that way. It should be giving to students who want an opportunity to go to college and succeed in life to be better in life like for most cases their parents weren’t able to. I come from a low income family and I am the first in my family to go to college so being able to come to continue my education has been great. I think that there needs to be more opportunity to those unprivileged students that are of color. I see no point to giving this group of people scholarship just because they belong to this privilege group. There are a number of white privilege kids that dominate the other races just because this country and society as a whole allow this to happen. I see no change happening and just because white want to make it better and give scholarship based on color isn’t really helping out much or changing the way society leaves this people out.  

Quote: “ Special efforts to provide access and opportunity to such persons should be made, not because they  are black, per se, or Latino, or whatever; but because to be a person of color has meant something in this country, and continues to mean something, in terms of one’s access to full and equal opportunity”.

                I agree with this quote 100% because it shouldn’t matter your skin color or your race what should matter is how well you do in school and how as a person you work hard to demonstrates your devotion to study and get ahead in life, to want to learn and to show that you are willing to fight for your dream by working hard to be successful and achieve your goals. Each person deserves and an equal opportunity and it should be giving to them no matter what race they are from. Everyone deserves  to get a changes to prove they mean something to this country like Wise says the person has to mean something in the country  have access to that opportunity. I think that it’s not fair for those people that for years had been targeted and deny the chance to allow for the development of their full potential now this country wants to fix it by allowing them to fit in and feeling equal. But to some extant are not treated equal because racism still continues and the problems are just been ignore and put on the side and by coming out with this new solution is going to changed things. I don’t think that is true.

Quotes: “On average, black student’s families are only able to cover about forty-two percent of the cost of college at the nation’s most selective schools, while whites’ families are able to cover, on average roughly seventy-four percent of the total cost.”

                I wasn’t very surprise to see this numbers because I know that for most of the unfortunate families they aren’t able to pay for their kid’s future, which makes it very impossible for these students to continue their education. The reality is that the white rich families have all the advantage to get a better education because they are able to provide their kids with a good future. It’s sad that too see that these families struggle for an opportunity. There is so much differences in looking at this statistics and seeing how racial disparate in economic background and how race based scholarships seek to put remedy for students who want to compete college but can’t. They think that by providing this kind of help will solve the problem and won’t get blame for not trying to help but really there are not helping at all because they is only making them look good and the people are race aren’t looking for that to happen. They need better ways than this.

Talking Point #5

In the Service of What?

The Politics of Service Learning

By: Joseph Kahne and Joel Westheimer 

Quotes/Comments  

"Educators and legislators alike maintain that service learning can improve the community and invigorate the classroom, providing rich educational experiences for students at all levels of schooling. Service learning makes students active participants in service projects that aim to respond to the needs of the community while furthering the academic goals of students.

I agree with this quote that service learning make student more aware of what the community needs and what is going on around them. Having the opportunity to actually go out there and respond to the needs of others in the community well get you to get to experiences what real life situations can occur and what your job might be when you get to become a teacher or doctor or social work.etc. you are expose to participate an a project that makes you more aware of things and to know that you are helping around your community can make you feel better about yourself. there is such so many ways you could volunteer and help out, its charity like mention in the reading, giving to the need and caring to make a change. 

"A music director at a middle class  wanted her students to perform at a nearby elementary school in a  poor neighborhood. but some of the parents objected because they were concerned with their safety, the students also expected them to be rude, tough and very unfriendly.After they went ,their perspective on these elementary school and children changed."

Its interested how this upper-middle class students thought all this horrible things of this other students without even giving them a chance to first get to know them and how they really are. They were told by their parents it was a bad neighborhood and unsafe so that's what made them react that way because they didn't find support in their own parents to do this.Once they perform to the children they found it surprising how totally different everything turn out to be because these poor children wasn't one single thing they had imagine to be.I think that what the authors say about " service learning activities can achieve the first crucial step towards diminishing the sense of Otherness that separates students particularly privileged students form those in need." This kids didn't wanted to go perform because they were white kids that had the privileged to get a opportunity to have a music director take them to share their music skills with younger kids and what they saw was a separation that couldn't be crossed and how the poor students on the other side where just this weird and just had a horrible image of them without actually finding out they were really like.

"By contrast, those oriented towards embrace the importance of political activity. Boyte, for example, believes that services activities should develop students' abilities at public speaking, recruiting others students, organizing meetings, analyzing problems, developing action plans, and conducting evaluations." 

 I think that Boyte examples are very true because with the service activities you perform you get do develop those abilities like how to speaking at a public since you are doing something that you have to learn how to communicate with others and help them in what ever situation they are in. when you do your service activities you become more organize and plan out your meetings with what every group or community of people you have to meet and help out. There is always the the way you start to analyze a problem and try to see if you can fix it so you start to become familiar with developing solutions to a problem and come up with whats the best way to go about it and fix it, so you start to analyze the problem, you then take action plans and try to see if they can work to solve the problem. but what i think the most thing that makes you develop is conducting evaluations about yourself and of how much changed your done to that particular person or to that group if you really got to help them out in their need so that they can not struggle with what ever they are going through if you made a difference to their life.

Talking Point # 4

Unlearning the Myths That Blind Us

Linda Christensen

Quotes: “I start by showing students old cartoons because the stereotypes are so blatant. We look at the roles women, men, people of color and poor people play in the cartoon.”

 I found this quote very interested because it’s very true how an every cartoon there are stereotypes all over with characters. They tend to portray the same thing over and over about white and rich power. How it shows this kind different groups roles play in one way society tends to see them. For example when Christen mentions the Popeye cartoon and how the Arabs are portray as thieves and the this bad people who steal everything and that kind of message to children who see this kind of cartoons might believe this kind o stereotypes, But it’s not only cartoons, the whole media, advertising portrays this kinds of stereotypes.  Like for overweight people they are a group that doesn’t exist to the media because the look is being slim and thin and I think it’s wrong because not everyone is perfect and has to fit one look or be a kind of way.   

Quote:  “A Black Cinderella? Have you ever seen a black person, an Asian, a Hispanic in a Cartoon? Did they have a leading role or were they a servant? What do you think this is doing to your child’s mind?”

What I can said about this is that its true for many years there was only one kind of Cinderella a beautiful white young women and it left out all the other role s of the different people. There was never a Black Cinderella and when there was the same message was seen with here waiting for her prince charming to come and take her away to live happily after. I mean there are those kids who love watching this kind of cartoons and are all about Disney world and happy ever after but the real deal is what the media is teaching the young child. As it said they are being educated by this media which send out wrong messages and don’t really show much leading roles for other groups or classes.

Quote: “I realized these problems weren’t jut in cartoons. They were everything, every magazine I picked up, every television show I watched, and every billboard I passed by on the street.”

It’s very interesting to see that these problems are found everywhere you go and every channel you flip through, so children see it ever were and are being influences by the media no matter what. I remember that when I was young I used to watch a lot of television and that’s where I got most of my information. It’s true the problem is everywhere and you can’t escape it no matter what. So I agree with this quote one of the students had to say when they had a class discussion. I mean it made me realize that it is a parent’s job to educated their kids and control somewhat what they are watching on TV but not all of it. I mean young kids don’t believe everything they see on television.

As I whole I really liked this article because Christensen makes very good point of how “children’s cartoons, movies, and Literature are perhaps the most influential genre, Read. Yong people, Unprotected by any intellectual armor, hear or watch these stories again and again, often from the warmth of their mothers or fathers lap. The messages, or “secret education”, linked with the security of their homes…” the media has these powerful messages that teach young minds the wrong idea of what society and the real world expect out of you. I mean all the fractional characters always even up seeing things as solving problems easily and finding happiness and to me that is not all true life is much harder to picture it. The media, movies and cartoons only teach this assumptions that you have to fit a stern way to feel great and find happiness which to my believe it’s never that case. There is more to that then what they say or show in this kind of media that tends to blind us all.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JhNyNXZosA
check out this video that relates to this article

Talking Point # 1 -White Privilege- McIntosh

      After reading the article “White Privilege” by McIntosh I kind of realize that everyone has a privilege over somebody else. The fact that she made this list of what some of her privileges where based on her skin-color and being white. If I put myself to think about what am I privilege with there could be several ideas the pop to my head but there is also those ideas of what I am not in the privilege group. Like when she states “we might at least start by distinguishing between positive advantages which we can work spread, and negative types of advantages which unless rejected will always reinforce our presents hierarchies.”  I see myself to have many advantages or so call privileges over people that have it worst. But I feel sometimes left out when there are things I can’t be part of because of class issues and power. The big thing that I don’t have a privilege to is being able to be economically wealthy because my parents don’t have that kind of money to say we are rich. I come from a family that has to work hard to be able to get where we want to get. I see myself as being out of that group just I imaging many other feel the same because we share a common thing that isn’t giving to us.

       What I found also interested is the article is when she points this out, “Disapproving of the system won’t be enough to change them. I was taught to think that racism could end if white individuals changed their attitudes,” she has a good point that by disapproving with this system that whites have many more power and numerous kind of privileges isn’t going to solve the problem for all of us. There has to be action from one of the sides. But like she says that racism could end if white individuals changed their attitudes and that is kind of impossible because there are those who don’t care and won’t changed just because things can get better they are in control and are happy with their power to be dominate . so this can’t really changed much , racism still goes on today and whether we like or not it’s still a problem to many people. Privilege plays a key role when it comes to saying if we have an advantage to being some kind of race or any other category.

hello

Hello everyone!!! my name is Maribel, most people call me Mari, I am a sophomore here at Rhode Island college. I am an Elementary Education Major. I am just looking forward to a great year and expecting new things to happen, I am a very Friendly person and I like to help others. One thing I do which I enjoy the most is helping out at my church and being a CCD teacher for a third grade class. I started off as a teachers helper but now this year it will be my second year teaching there. I LOVE kids and hope to become the best teacher!!!