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.


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