"It's not like we come here to be labeled, or to believe the label. We're all here-kids, teachers, parents, whoever-it's all about all of us working together, playing together, being together, and that's what learning is. Don't tell me any of these kids are being set up to fail." Every teacher that works with children, whether they have special needs, are English learning speakers, or come from any variety of class should step into a classroom with this exact attitude. Teaching is all about advocacy, we should be able to see a child who maybe has trouble with motor developments and look at it as an opportunity to teach them and help them to develop the skills in which they may need. Any teacher that gives up on a child who needs different tools in order to succeed is really not a teacher at all. Kliewer describes many ways in which we as teachers can do just the smallest of things for our children to help them succeed, no matter what their mental or physical cababilities are or are not.
I really enjoyed the way that Kliewer had the children put on a play from the book Where the Wild Things Are. She recognized Isaac as a more hands on, active learner, and instead of singling him out in the classroom, had the whole group of children put on a play about the story. "The first time I tried reading Where the Wild Things Are, which is his favorite book, he couldn't sit. He had to be up, dancing in the middle of the circle, acting it out. He just couldn't resist. He could not help himself. It got all of the kids going. We were all Wild Things and it just came alive!" This just made me excited to think that a teacher was able to take children for what they can sometimes be- a little wild. Instead of having them constantly sitting, listening, and quietly paying attention, this teacher was able to accept a small amount of caous as being a way to get all of these children excited about reading. I think we sometimes just expect children to be so focused and constantly sitting quietly listening. When we read we should be able to let children let their imaginations run. Kliewer saw Isaac for who he was as a learner, and instead of singling him out for it, let the other children get involved and see what it is like and be excited.
"Schools have traditionally taken a narrow position when defining and judging student intellect. The presene of a thoughtful mind has been linked to patterns of behavioral and communicative conformity associated with competence in logical-matheatic thinking and linguistic skills. Assessments of how well a student conforms to expectations (measurements through which students come to be defined as smart or lacking intellect) tend to focus teachers attention on the child's adeptness at responding to classroom-based math and language tasks. These evaluative instruments supposidly measure either a student's understanding of a transmitted knowledge base related to math and language, or the student's ability to discover the knowledge base through carefully contrived activities." This made me think of the Divergent Thinking clip we watched in class, and how he mentioned that from the beginning children are being labeled as "smart" or "unintelligent", all based on a certain curriculum that the school systems have set. These labels that are put on the children immediatly become recognized by the student and parents, and when these children discover they are smart or not, it directly impacts their learning habits. We cannot let these labels happen any more, why are children expected to all learn a certain way when everyone is so different in so many ways? Fair does not always mean equal, something that is helpful to one student, may vary from another one. We should see our children for the individuals that they are, and be able to incorporate it into the curriculum. The teacher in this article did this simply by having the children act out the story. We can do this for all different students in different environments. Teachers and parents need to stop expecting children to sit in a classroom like zombies, and get creative. We need to help them to recognize themselves as ALL being intelligent and capable of everything and anything at any age, it just may take a different approach and that is okay.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
The Hidden Curriculum of Work
Language arts is "simple grammar, what they need for everyday life." The language arts teacher says, "They should learn to speak properly, to write buisness letters and thank-you letters, and to understand what nouns and verbs and simple subjects are." .....Here, as well, actual work is to choose the right answers, to understand what is given. The teacher often says, "Please read the next sentence and then I'll question you about it." One teacher said in some exasperation to a boy who was fooling around in class, "If you don't know the answers to the questions I ask, then you can't stay in this class! You never know the answers to the questions I ask, and it's not fair to me-and certainly not to you!"
While I am unsure what class this teacher was from, I certainly hope that she quits her job and moves on to something more appropriate for herself. Working with children, talking to any child in this such manner is highly misfortunate. I beleive strongly in a constructivist theory of teaching and in an article I read by Lilian G. Katz called Curriculum Disputes in Early Childhood Education she talks a lot about some of the controversy involved with the curriculum and teaching methods in certain schools. The theory of constructivism is essentially that children can construct their own knowledge through many various ways focusing on the learning goals of social and emotional development, intellectual development and the acquisition of meaningful and useful academic skills. The article mentions an instructivist form of teaching, which seemed more like the ways of the teachers in this article. The intstructivist theory is that children are dependent on adults' instructions in the academic knowledge and skills necessary for a good start for later academic achievment. Studies have shown, and I truely beleive that this way can not be too effective as far as long terms go. I felt that this article related a lot to Anyons.
Anyon mentions that in one classroom in which long devision was being taught, some of the children were having troubles understanding it, and all the teacher did was reiterate the rules of long devision. I do not understand where or why she would think that this would be a more effective way of getting through to these children. I mean if something fails once do we just keep trying the same way? Is that not how we keep failing? Obviously there are all different types of learners, and clearly most of the children needed to see a new, different approach to this to understand. The old fashion copy and reiterate from a book technique is probably about as fun to a child as sitting in a white room for hours on end. We need to provide these children with open ended questions, with things that can let their creativity run wild, and use their own originality. As teachers we should be challenging every child, every day to go above and beyond what we may find capable for them.
"In the two working-class schools, work is following the steps of a procedure. The procedure is usually mechanical, involving rote behavior and very little decision making or choice." 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." Children need to have opportunitiy to ask questions, to keep their curiosity going. This reading also reminded me of the Shor reading, where he discussed the importance of socializing our youth. If we make our classroom a place where there are strictly followed rules everywhere how is it that the children are going to feel comfortable? It seems in this article that most of the concern with the working class schools is trying to have complete control of the students. While I do beleive that you need to have rules and follow them, I think a teacher needs to be able to have a healthy balance of control, yet be able to let the children have fun with learning and show their personalities to each other. Intellectual intelligence is important, but it can be done in many ways that can also involve social and emotional growth as well. We need our children to be well rounded, and enjoy coming to school every day to learn and grow. If we have these teachers who's only focus is to completly empower these children, then we are going to keep this aweful cycle going of children who hate school and don't want to learn, and that is something that needs to be changed.
While I am unsure what class this teacher was from, I certainly hope that she quits her job and moves on to something more appropriate for herself. Working with children, talking to any child in this such manner is highly misfortunate. I beleive strongly in a constructivist theory of teaching and in an article I read by Lilian G. Katz called Curriculum Disputes in Early Childhood Education she talks a lot about some of the controversy involved with the curriculum and teaching methods in certain schools. The theory of constructivism is essentially that children can construct their own knowledge through many various ways focusing on the learning goals of social and emotional development, intellectual development and the acquisition of meaningful and useful academic skills. The article mentions an instructivist form of teaching, which seemed more like the ways of the teachers in this article. The intstructivist theory is that children are dependent on adults' instructions in the academic knowledge and skills necessary for a good start for later academic achievment. Studies have shown, and I truely beleive that this way can not be too effective as far as long terms go. I felt that this article related a lot to Anyons.
Anyon mentions that in one classroom in which long devision was being taught, some of the children were having troubles understanding it, and all the teacher did was reiterate the rules of long devision. I do not understand where or why she would think that this would be a more effective way of getting through to these children. I mean if something fails once do we just keep trying the same way? Is that not how we keep failing? Obviously there are all different types of learners, and clearly most of the children needed to see a new, different approach to this to understand. The old fashion copy and reiterate from a book technique is probably about as fun to a child as sitting in a white room for hours on end. We need to provide these children with open ended questions, with things that can let their creativity run wild, and use their own originality. As teachers we should be challenging every child, every day to go above and beyond what we may find capable for them.
"In the two working-class schools, work is following the steps of a procedure. The procedure is usually mechanical, involving rote behavior and very little decision making or choice." 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." Children need to have opportunitiy to ask questions, to keep their curiosity going. This reading also reminded me of the Shor reading, where he discussed the importance of socializing our youth. If we make our classroom a place where there are strictly followed rules everywhere how is it that the children are going to feel comfortable? It seems in this article that most of the concern with the working class schools is trying to have complete control of the students. While I do beleive that you need to have rules and follow them, I think a teacher needs to be able to have a healthy balance of control, yet be able to let the children have fun with learning and show their personalities to each other. Intellectual intelligence is important, but it can be done in many ways that can also involve social and emotional growth as well. We need our children to be well rounded, and enjoy coming to school every day to learn and grow. If we have these teachers who's only focus is to completly empower these children, then we are going to keep this aweful cycle going of children who hate school and don't want to learn, and that is something that needs to be changed.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Single Sex Education
I started to read this article and began to think about single sex classrooms and single sex schools, I tried to think about whether I agreed or disagreed with the idea, and could not draw a strong conclusion. The article mentions many valid points of having single sex classrooms as being very beneficial. I do not agree with single sex schools, but think that single sex classrooms within a co-ed school could have its many benefits. For one, I undoubtedly agree with the idea that males and females learn very differently. "Sax threw himself into studying neurological differences between males and females, eventually focusing on how to protect boys from a syndrome he calls “failure to launch,” which Sax often characterizes as caring more about getting a Kilimanjaro in Halo 3 than performing well in high school or taking a girl on a date. Among his early proposals was that boys should start kindergarten at age 6, a year later than girls, in order to ease the “sense of scholastic incompetence” that so many boys feel early on because they tend to develop later. Several friends quickly convinced Sax that American families would never go for this. So Sax started thinking it might be better for boys and girls to be in different classrooms" I think this arguement could be solved easily by having boys and girls in seperate classrooms, but in the same school. This way, they are still integrated at times during free periods, electives, lunch, and other school involved activities. However, they will not have the distractions from one another, and teachers can accomodate to the way in which the certain sex excells.
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. You’re going to do physical representation of number lines. Relay races. Ball tosses during discussion.” For the girls, Chadwell prescribes a focus on “the connections girls have (a) with the content, (b) with each other and (c) with the teacher. If you try to stop girls from talking to one another, that’s not successful. So you do a lot of meeting in circles, where every girl can share something from her own life that relates to the content in class.” This other quote is a good example of how having seperate classrooms with the sex's seperated could be helpful. I think there are ways in which you can get different chlidren engaged, I think however that every teacher should integrate all different types of learning into their teaching on a day to day basis. I think that it may be possible that boys and girls learn differently but I think that using those various forms of learning among boys and girls in a typical co-ed classroom.
One of the first things he noticed was that three boys were getting suspended for every girl, “and for the most ridiculous things in the world — a boy would burp, or he’d pass gas, or a girl would say, ‘He hit me.’ ” Nationwide, boys are nearly twice as likely as girls to be suspended, and more likely to drop out of high school than girls (65 percent of boys complete high school in four years; 72 percent of girls do). Boys make up two-thirds of special-education students. They are 1.5 times more likely to be held back a grade and 2.5 times more likely to be given diagnoses of A.D.H.D. So Wright met with his fourth-grade teachers and recalls telling them, “O.K., here’s what we’re going to do: how about you take all the boys and you take all the girls?” Wright says that in 2001, after Marshall’s first year in a single-sex format, the percentage of boys meeting the state’s academic standards rose from 10 percent to 35 percent in math and 10 percent to 53 percent in reading and writing. While I could see where this could be true, I do not understand how seperating boys and girls would keep either sex from rebelling. After all is that not a part of growing up is rebelling? I think that there are many complications to this statement, and that maybe it may be something to have further research into. However, if we start segregating again wont that take our goal of diversity into a whole new direction? If we begin to seperate boys and girls into seperate schools more often then what is the difference between seperating whites, blacks, latinos, etc. into different schools just because maybe they "learn differently."
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. You’re going to do physical representation of number lines. Relay races. Ball tosses during discussion.” For the girls, Chadwell prescribes a focus on “the connections girls have (a) with the content, (b) with each other and (c) with the teacher. If you try to stop girls from talking to one another, that’s not successful. So you do a lot of meeting in circles, where every girl can share something from her own life that relates to the content in class.” This other quote is a good example of how having seperate classrooms with the sex's seperated could be helpful. I think there are ways in which you can get different chlidren engaged, I think however that every teacher should integrate all different types of learning into their teaching on a day to day basis. I think that it may be possible that boys and girls learn differently but I think that using those various forms of learning among boys and girls in a typical co-ed classroom.
One of the first things he noticed was that three boys were getting suspended for every girl, “and for the most ridiculous things in the world — a boy would burp, or he’d pass gas, or a girl would say, ‘He hit me.’ ” Nationwide, boys are nearly twice as likely as girls to be suspended, and more likely to drop out of high school than girls (65 percent of boys complete high school in four years; 72 percent of girls do). Boys make up two-thirds of special-education students. They are 1.5 times more likely to be held back a grade and 2.5 times more likely to be given diagnoses of A.D.H.D. So Wright met with his fourth-grade teachers and recalls telling them, “O.K., here’s what we’re going to do: how about you take all the boys and you take all the girls?” Wright says that in 2001, after Marshall’s first year in a single-sex format, the percentage of boys meeting the state’s academic standards rose from 10 percent to 35 percent in math and 10 percent to 53 percent in reading and writing. While I could see where this could be true, I do not understand how seperating boys and girls would keep either sex from rebelling. After all is that not a part of growing up is rebelling? I think that there are many complications to this statement, and that maybe it may be something to have further research into. However, if we start segregating again wont that take our goal of diversity into a whole new direction? If we begin to seperate boys and girls into seperate schools more often then what is the difference between seperating whites, blacks, latinos, etc. into different schools just because maybe they "learn differently."
The Culture of Power
Delpit mentions in his article many ways in which the educational system is flawed and favored toward the white American. He mentions the issues of power and how they are shown throughout the classroom. Delpit makes an interesting point of saying that; "if schooling prepares people for jobs, and the kind of job a person has determines her or his economic status and, therefore, power, then schooling is intimately related to that power." This quote made me think about our society in general, and weather or not everyone really has equal opportunity in our nation. I would have to say from reading his article that he would agree with me as well. Those children who are recieving a poor education have very little opportunity for a succcessful future.
One specific example of power that Delpit mentions is something white educators introduced; dialect readers. Delpit mentions, and I had to agree that this label that is placed on some children who were taught differently how to speak, and just because it is different they were automatically placed as being wrong, which is certainly not the case. This reminded me of the article written by Robert Lake, An Indian Father's Plea about a father who was very concerned with a teachers opinion of his child being labeled a "slow learner." He was labeled quickly by his teacher just because his upbringing was not the way society would typically expect. These two articles take a deeper look at our educational system, and how there may be many flaws to it that should be fixed. We should not be looking at children and labeling them, or expecting that they learn one way, and that one way is how all children should act and learn. We should be accepting and understanding of other people's upbringings, no matter if we understand them or not.
One specific example of power that Delpit mentions is something white educators introduced; dialect readers. Delpit mentions, and I had to agree that this label that is placed on some children who were taught differently how to speak, and just because it is different they were automatically placed as being wrong, which is certainly not the case. This reminded me of the article written by Robert Lake, An Indian Father's Plea about a father who was very concerned with a teachers opinion of his child being labeled a "slow learner." He was labeled quickly by his teacher just because his upbringing was not the way society would typically expect. These two articles take a deeper look at our educational system, and how there may be many flaws to it that should be fixed. We should not be looking at children and labeling them, or expecting that they learn one way, and that one way is how all children should act and learn. We should be accepting and understanding of other people's upbringings, no matter if we understand them or not.
Still Seperate, Still Unequal
Johnathan Kozol talks about his many encounterments with various American educational settings. He talks of the schooling, and how its diversity has not changed much. These schools could still almost be considered as segrigated by the lack of diversity among it. "Schools that were already deeply segrigated twenty-five or thirty years ago are no less segrigated now, while thousands of other schools around the country that had been integrated either voluntarily or by the force of law have since been rapidly resegregating." I thought this quote was a particularly interesting point to make, for if you do look at schools today and the children that are in them you will notice either a school with all African Americans and few whites or vice versa. Typically also, these schools that have a high population of African Americans are inner city, run down ones with very limiting resources.
Kozol asks a few important questions that many people who are looking at educational equality tend to forget. It is not always about the test scores, and how children are doing academically, but we must question the fact if the children are enjoying coming to school? Are they happy where they are? If a child dreads coming to school every day, it is not going to matter what their intelligence level is, because they are not enjoying learning, and that is the main goal for every educator to try to obtain in their career. "Do kids who go to schools like these enjoy the days they spend in them? Is school, for most of them, a happy place to be? You do not find the answers to these questions in reports about acheivment levels, scientific methods of accountability, or structural revisions in the modes of governance. Documents like these don't speak of happiness. You have to go back to the schools themselves to find an answer to those questions. You have to sit down in the little chairs in the first and second grade, or on the reading rug with kindergarten kids, and listen to the things they actually have to say to one another and the diologue between them and their teachers." Kozol clearly shows that it is about caring about the students and their comfortability in the classroom, it is about having an environment in which children are excited to learn, and can feel like they can be themselves among their peers. If a school is run down, dull, and filled with teachers and people unenthusiastic about what they do then the children themselves are going to feel the same, and it is not going to matter how you teach, because they are going to be unwilling to learn.
When visiting a tenth grade class at Fremont High School in Los Angeles Kozol tells his experience of his visit there, and how honest the children were about the bathrooms, the cafeteria having rats in it, the walls falling apart, etc. The students mentioned how embarresing it was to be attending a school like this. Besides all those things, however, was something even more concering. Kozol mentions how he was told by one black student that told him she wanted to be a social worker or a doctor, but was put into a sewing class. The children are being told to take classes that are well under the level of which they are capable. The girl says " I don't want to take hairdressing. I did not need sewing either. I knew how to sew. My mother is a seamstress in a factory. I'm trying to go to college. I don't need to sew to go to college. My mother sews. I hoped for something else. I wanted to take an AP class." Another boy in her class tells her that the owners of the sewing factories need laborers, he goes on to tell the girl "You're ghetto, so we send you to the facctory. You're ghetto-so you sew!" I found this whole paragraph of this article to be particularly disheartening. Aspecially because there is some truth behind the situation. In our society we do need laborers, however who is to say at this young age who is to do those low wage jobs? Why is it set from the very begining of these children's lives that this is their highest expectation of what they will succeed to? These children are taught from the very begining that they don't have what it takes to live their dreams and do what anyone else can, and why is that? Has society forever engraved who will be the ones to succeed and who will not?
Kozol asks a few important questions that many people who are looking at educational equality tend to forget. It is not always about the test scores, and how children are doing academically, but we must question the fact if the children are enjoying coming to school? Are they happy where they are? If a child dreads coming to school every day, it is not going to matter what their intelligence level is, because they are not enjoying learning, and that is the main goal for every educator to try to obtain in their career. "Do kids who go to schools like these enjoy the days they spend in them? Is school, for most of them, a happy place to be? You do not find the answers to these questions in reports about acheivment levels, scientific methods of accountability, or structural revisions in the modes of governance. Documents like these don't speak of happiness. You have to go back to the schools themselves to find an answer to those questions. You have to sit down in the little chairs in the first and second grade, or on the reading rug with kindergarten kids, and listen to the things they actually have to say to one another and the diologue between them and their teachers." Kozol clearly shows that it is about caring about the students and their comfortability in the classroom, it is about having an environment in which children are excited to learn, and can feel like they can be themselves among their peers. If a school is run down, dull, and filled with teachers and people unenthusiastic about what they do then the children themselves are going to feel the same, and it is not going to matter how you teach, because they are going to be unwilling to learn.
When visiting a tenth grade class at Fremont High School in Los Angeles Kozol tells his experience of his visit there, and how honest the children were about the bathrooms, the cafeteria having rats in it, the walls falling apart, etc. The students mentioned how embarresing it was to be attending a school like this. Besides all those things, however, was something even more concering. Kozol mentions how he was told by one black student that told him she wanted to be a social worker or a doctor, but was put into a sewing class. The children are being told to take classes that are well under the level of which they are capable. The girl says " I don't want to take hairdressing. I did not need sewing either. I knew how to sew. My mother is a seamstress in a factory. I'm trying to go to college. I don't need to sew to go to college. My mother sews. I hoped for something else. I wanted to take an AP class." Another boy in her class tells her that the owners of the sewing factories need laborers, he goes on to tell the girl "You're ghetto, so we send you to the facctory. You're ghetto-so you sew!" I found this whole paragraph of this article to be particularly disheartening. Aspecially because there is some truth behind the situation. In our society we do need laborers, however who is to say at this young age who is to do those low wage jobs? Why is it set from the very begining of these children's lives that this is their highest expectation of what they will succeed to? These children are taught from the very begining that they don't have what it takes to live their dreams and do what anyone else can, and why is that? Has society forever engraved who will be the ones to succeed and who will not?
Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community
"I want to suggest that public schools may play an important role in helping build a new democratic, multicultural community, one in which sexual identity (like other markers of difference including class, gender, and race) is recognized, in which inequities are challenged, and where dialogue across difference replaces silencing and invisibility practices." A quote by Burbules and Rice mentioning the importance of teaching children about differences in gender and sexual identities. While I do have to say that I find this to be an important thing to teach our community, it may be hard to say at what age it would be appropriate to begin. As young adolescents do not often carry the proper maturity to be able to properly talk about things such as this. However, if we did begin to teach differences to children, it would become something of a normalcy to them, and would possibly not be looked at as being so abnormal. I think it would be very beneficial for our society to begin to open up their minds, or at least learn about other ways of life other than what they think is average.
Dennis Carlson mentions the three techniques of normalization in his article as being; the erasure of gayness in the curriculum, the "closeting" and "witch hunting" of gay teachers and verbal and physical intimidation of gay teachers and students. I think it is crucial that if we are going to teach about women's and African American rights, and all of the troubles that they went through in a time when they were the others with even less rights, we should now be looking at homosexuals and the fact that they should be treated just the same as anyone else. Why should your sexual preference have anything to do with your rights as a human being? I find it very odd that people look down upon those who have a difference in their sexual identity, is America not suppose to be a free country? A country of understanding and equality? Just as we learned about the Equal Rights Movement, we should learn about things like the Minnesota bill that made it illegal to discriminate against lesbians and gay men in employment housing.
Carlson mentions that "At the level of state educational policy, it is noteworthy that no state currently recognizes gays and lesbians as legitimate minority or cultural groups to be considered in textbook adoption or to be included in multicultural education; and a number of states explicitly prohibit teaching about homosexuality. I think much like any other movement of change, the gay rights movement should be considered as a legitimate change among our nation. Being gay should not be considered anything less than the rest of our nation. The fact that teachers of a different sexual identity are prohibited from teaching is one thing even more baffling. We need educators among our nation, whether they be African American, homosexual, have a handicap disability, or what ever else may be considered as "difference". Everyone should have the equal opportunity to choose to teach, and help to better our society. We need to begin as nation to become more accepting and loving of one another, as long as you are a good person it shouldn't matter what color your skin is, or what your sexual identity is. Its something that makes you who you are, and should be taught to others.
Dennis Carlson mentions the three techniques of normalization in his article as being; the erasure of gayness in the curriculum, the "closeting" and "witch hunting" of gay teachers and verbal and physical intimidation of gay teachers and students. I think it is crucial that if we are going to teach about women's and African American rights, and all of the troubles that they went through in a time when they were the others with even less rights, we should now be looking at homosexuals and the fact that they should be treated just the same as anyone else. Why should your sexual preference have anything to do with your rights as a human being? I find it very odd that people look down upon those who have a difference in their sexual identity, is America not suppose to be a free country? A country of understanding and equality? Just as we learned about the Equal Rights Movement, we should learn about things like the Minnesota bill that made it illegal to discriminate against lesbians and gay men in employment housing.
Carlson mentions that "At the level of state educational policy, it is noteworthy that no state currently recognizes gays and lesbians as legitimate minority or cultural groups to be considered in textbook adoption or to be included in multicultural education; and a number of states explicitly prohibit teaching about homosexuality. I think much like any other movement of change, the gay rights movement should be considered as a legitimate change among our nation. Being gay should not be considered anything less than the rest of our nation. The fact that teachers of a different sexual identity are prohibited from teaching is one thing even more baffling. We need educators among our nation, whether they be African American, homosexual, have a handicap disability, or what ever else may be considered as "difference". Everyone should have the equal opportunity to choose to teach, and help to better our society. We need to begin as nation to become more accepting and loving of one another, as long as you are a good person it shouldn't matter what color your skin is, or what your sexual identity is. Its something that makes you who you are, and should be taught to others.
Hunger of Memory
"I felt that I had shattered the intimate bond that had once held my family close. This original sin against my family told whenever anyone addressed me in Spanish and I responded, confounded. But even during those years of guilt, I was coming to sense certain consoling truths about language and intimacy." This author makes a clear distinguishable point of telling you just how important his language that he had and shared with his family was. It made me very disturbed when I read about the nuns, and how they with no thought asked the family to stop speaking their language, the thing that made them and identified them, to just get rid of it all together. As you read you start to understand just how much this language meant the the writer. It was his personal bond that he shared with his family that was taken away from him.
"Intimacy is not created by a particular language; it is created by intimates." The writer tells how he began to speak publically rather than intimatly with the English he had learned. This makes me think about the way in which I speak to others, and how I take for granted the bonding that it brings us together with. This character had that in an even more special sense, because he was using a language in an environment that was totally different. It makes me think about if my family and I were to move to a spanish speaking place, and were forced to speak their language. While I would probably look at this as a great opportunity to learn a new language, I could see how I would also feel a loss of a bond between my family members and I. We would not have that special sense of comfort to be able to just talk amongst one another in a natural way.
"Supporters of bilingual education thus want it both ways. They propose a bilingual schooling as a way of helping students acquire the skills of the classroom crucial for public success. But they likewise insist that bilingual instruction will give students a sense of their identity apart from the public." This was the main point that the author was trying to make throughout the article, that it is important for bilingual speakers to be able to keep their main language as much a part of their life as their new one. Thier original language is their identity, it is what makes them and what defines their interactions with others around them. From reading this article, you can see just how negativly it effected the character to have something so much a part of him taken away, and how we as a nation need to make sure we are able to keep these identities whole, and not tear them apart.
"Intimacy is not created by a particular language; it is created by intimates." The writer tells how he began to speak publically rather than intimatly with the English he had learned. This makes me think about the way in which I speak to others, and how I take for granted the bonding that it brings us together with. This character had that in an even more special sense, because he was using a language in an environment that was totally different. It makes me think about if my family and I were to move to a spanish speaking place, and were forced to speak their language. While I would probably look at this as a great opportunity to learn a new language, I could see how I would also feel a loss of a bond between my family members and I. We would not have that special sense of comfort to be able to just talk amongst one another in a natural way.
"Supporters of bilingual education thus want it both ways. They propose a bilingual schooling as a way of helping students acquire the skills of the classroom crucial for public success. But they likewise insist that bilingual instruction will give students a sense of their identity apart from the public." This was the main point that the author was trying to make throughout the article, that it is important for bilingual speakers to be able to keep their main language as much a part of their life as their new one. Thier original language is their identity, it is what makes them and what defines their interactions with others around them. From reading this article, you can see just how negativly it effected the character to have something so much a part of him taken away, and how we as a nation need to make sure we are able to keep these identities whole, and not tear them apart.
Discovering Disney
While reading Christiansians article Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us, I felt a mix of emotions. While going into it I knew I was going to have the preconcieved feeling of disagreement. I have always been a very strong supporter of Walt Disney and his work that he has done to create images and characters for young children to look up to as fantacies. However, Christiansian brings up a few points in her article that have an underlying truth to them.
"Personally, handling the disection of dreams has been a major cause of depression for me. Not so much dissecting-but how I react to what is found as a ressult of the operation. It can be overwhelming and discouraging to find out how my whole self image has been formed mostly by others or underneath my worries about are years of being exposed to TV images of girls and their set roles given to them by TV and the media." There were a lot of points that the author made that made me think, but this one was the one I really did agree with. While I do not think that it is necessarily Disney that does this, I do think that society itself has created these images and pressured our youth to be things that are fairly unnatainable. Even myself, I have found myself desireing the typical fairytale ending with a handsome wife and kids and living happily ever after. However, I do not think that children take this as seriously, I think that Disney and cartoons are more of a way of sociodramatic play in which children can pretend to be prince or princesses, or evil vilians. They get to use their imaginations to set up a pretend
"I;m not taking my kids to see any Walt Disney movies until they have a black women playing the leading role." I could see and understand where the author was trying to go with this, by trying to take a stand and make a point, however I think not letting your chlid see a Disney movie until they change their ways may be taking it a bit far. Avoiding media stereotypes is quite impossible, they are everywhere. It is one thing to take a stand and make a point, but to abandon Disney may just be taking it too far and causing a bit too much isolation.
"I am uncomfortable with those message. I don't want students to beleive that change can be bought at the mall, nor do I want them thinking that the pinnacle of a woman's life is an "I do" that supposidly leads them to "happily ever after." I dont want my female students to see their "sisters" as competition for the scarce and wonderful commodity-men." I feel this woman is a bit bias, clearlly she is a strong feminist that has had reality hit a bit hard. I do not think that it is a bad thing for people to want a happy ending, or to want to live happily ever after. Frankly I think this woman is very negative in her connatative points she makes, and while I respect her for taking a stand, I think she should also take a look at all the positives Disney has done for us.During my childhood I watched every Disney movie known to man, where stereotypes may have been shown, and every ending was as happy as ever after could be. But isn't that what childhood should be like? Shouldn't children be able to live in a happy, ignorant bliss as long as they are young? Reality is a rough turning point, and I think that children should be able to avoid it while they can, and think what they want and let their imaginations take them wherever they may.
"Personally, handling the disection of dreams has been a major cause of depression for me. Not so much dissecting-but how I react to what is found as a ressult of the operation. It can be overwhelming and discouraging to find out how my whole self image has been formed mostly by others or underneath my worries about are years of being exposed to TV images of girls and their set roles given to them by TV and the media." There were a lot of points that the author made that made me think, but this one was the one I really did agree with. While I do not think that it is necessarily Disney that does this, I do think that society itself has created these images and pressured our youth to be things that are fairly unnatainable. Even myself, I have found myself desireing the typical fairytale ending with a handsome wife and kids and living happily ever after. However, I do not think that children take this as seriously, I think that Disney and cartoons are more of a way of sociodramatic play in which children can pretend to be prince or princesses, or evil vilians. They get to use their imaginations to set up a pretend
"I;m not taking my kids to see any Walt Disney movies until they have a black women playing the leading role." I could see and understand where the author was trying to go with this, by trying to take a stand and make a point, however I think not letting your chlid see a Disney movie until they change their ways may be taking it a bit far. Avoiding media stereotypes is quite impossible, they are everywhere. It is one thing to take a stand and make a point, but to abandon Disney may just be taking it too far and causing a bit too much isolation.
"I am uncomfortable with those message. I don't want students to beleive that change can be bought at the mall, nor do I want them thinking that the pinnacle of a woman's life is an "I do" that supposidly leads them to "happily ever after." I dont want my female students to see their "sisters" as competition for the scarce and wonderful commodity-men." I feel this woman is a bit bias, clearlly she is a strong feminist that has had reality hit a bit hard. I do not think that it is a bad thing for people to want a happy ending, or to want to live happily ever after. Frankly I think this woman is very negative in her connatative points she makes, and while I respect her for taking a stand, I think she should also take a look at all the positives Disney has done for us.During my childhood I watched every Disney movie known to man, where stereotypes may have been shown, and every ending was as happy as ever after could be. But isn't that what childhood should be like? Shouldn't children be able to live in a happy, ignorant bliss as long as they are young? Reality is a rough turning point, and I think that children should be able to avoid it while they can, and think what they want and let their imaginations take them wherever they may.
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