This is a pretty sweet video one of my friends had me look at...take a look I think you'll enjoy it.

Privilege, Power, and Difference

What Can We Do?

By: Allan G Johnson

Authors Argument:

Johnson argues that topics such as racism, sexism, and other topics of that nature should not be to the side and not taken care of but brought up and recognized as a problem that needs to be fixed.  He argues that in order to fix what the present problems we need to learn form the past and accept what we need to do.  Not only those who have the problems but all those who see and who are surrounded by it.

Quotes:

"It's easy to have opinions, it takes work to know what you are talking about."

I chose this quotes because when I first read it, it reminded me of when that loud person ina crowd thinks they know everything and they are right just because they are the loudest.  When it comes down to the fact of having your own opinion on certain subjects its absolutely right to have them, but when they are degrading and disrespectful that puts you in the wrong.  What Johnson is arguing here is that people just believe that their own opinions are right no matter what evidence is shown, so maybe once in a while we need to step back and realize that we are not always right and to look around before we are that "loud" obnoxious guy in the crowd.

2)  "Make Noise, be seen."

In order to make a change, you need to make a stand.  Sometimes people who have the best intentions don't have the heart to have their great ideas thrown out there.  For change to be had, there needs to be noisiness and a loud voice to be heard over the mess of nonsense.  But still not that "loud" guy. 

3)  "Don't let other people set the standard for you."

Johnson is trying to get across that by your own power and strength and knowledge, you need to stand up and say what you believe in, even if your standing alone.  Not something radical or crazy but for a good moral reason it should be said.  If you know it is right and you want to challenge others, do it.  It's people like that, that get stuff done, that make history, and make change.

Comments:

I really enjoyed this article.  I thought it brought out a lot of passion and it was a good article to end the semester with, see as Johnson is the author we started with.  It was encouraging for me to know that I will stand up for what I believe in and it is ok, because other people are pushing for that too.  I hope everyone follows Johnson's advice as we all go to become teachers.

Citizenship In School: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome

By:  Christopher Kliewer

Authors Argument:

Kliewer is arguing that people with disabilities, Down Syndrome especially should not be cast away from the average student in school settings.  They should be able to learn at the same level as the other students who do not have disabilities because it alters their learning and deprives them from the full academic experience.

Quotes:

1)  "It's 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."

I picked this quote because I have felt very strongly for awhile of why special education students are shunned off.  They are usually put into their own wing of the building interacting with the same people all the time and through much of their academic career.  Life is really no like that, there isn't a bubble to protect them always.  If we are trying to involve handicapped people in every day life and want to make it normal, their should be equal involvement in the other classrooms.  Students should be together, if special help is needed then that is understandable, but segregating them is not doing anything but teaching more and more that they are different so they don't belong.

2)  "They didn't think it was realistic, that she could handle it, that she could handle the job.  Here they have her educating America's future, but they're scare to let her work at a movie place."

This just shows because a person has special needs or has some handicaps does not mean they are going to sit on a couch for the rest of their lives waiting for people to wait on them hand and foot.  These people have brains, and talents, and understandings of the world and how things work.  I love the fact that someone with special needs can come back and show up by teaching when they doubted their abilities to work at a movie store.  Goes to show to never underestimate people.

3)  "Don't think, she said, 'that those special needs kids drain anything.  That class would not be half what it is if any one of those kids got segregated.  We are all in this together.'"

I hope that my classroom when I become a teacher is like this.  I feel that special needs children being so much more, more innocence, imagination, and creativity, just because things don't look the same to them as to us doesn't mean its wrong, it means its different and wonderful and full of life.  And who wouldn't want a classroom full of life.  And thats what they bring life to a whole new meaning.

Comments:

I really enjoyed reading the descriptions of the children and of Shayne.  The technical stuff got annoying and I tended to skip over it, but I enjoyed learning about a new portion of special needs.  I plan on getting my special education credits and I hope one day I can be a teacher with a classroom with mixed children and it won't matter to me because they are all students willing to learn and I'll embrace it all.

Talking Points #8

Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Schooling

By: Jean Anyon

Author's Argument:

During this article, Anyon argues that students based on economic backgrounds are being schooled to be ready for certain jobs and professions.  The "working class" students are being prepared to grow up to also have "blue collar" jobs and the executive elite school studnets were being prepared to have white collar jobs, such as lawyers and doctors.

Quotes:

1)  "One teacher explained to me, 'Simple punctuation is all they'll ever use.'"

This quote is saying working class people only need to know the basics because they won't need any of the in-depth stuff because they won't use it.  While higher class schools emphasize the importance of the complex language of English.

2)  "The teacher's attempt to control the class involves constant negotiation.  She does not give direct orders unless she is angry because the children have been too noisy.  Normally, she tries to get them to foresee the consequences of their actions and to decide accordingly."

This is pretty interesting he is changing the way kids think  that they don't have a voice in the classroom.  When the teacher attempts to negotiate with his/ her students shows the kids that they are trying to work on the communication with teacher's.  That gives the students a great feeling of belongingness.

3)"The four 5th grade teachers observed in the working class schools attempted to control classroom time and space by making decisions without consulting the children and without explaining the basis for their decision."

I'm not sure what author it is that we got the quote from in class, but its is something like we do the things we do but do we know why we do what we do.  The school being lower class, the teachers don't really care about the students learning and becoming successful in society.

Comments:

This was an interesting article.  I felt it was pretty easy to read and had a lot of true, but eye-opening information.  Its one of those things you know goes on and you think about it, but you never really expect it.  Being form a public school I always talk crap about private schools just because I don't like the whole idea of paying to get a "better" education. 

Anita Hill Is A Boy

By: Peggy Orenstein

Author's Argument:

This article is trying to dissect the "hidden curriculum", and the learning of girls in the classroom.  Ms. Logan's class teaches people about it.  The whole aspect of how males look through the window and girls look into a mirror.  They are self conscious about many issues.

Quotes:

1)  "My own gender journey ends where it began, in the classroom of one teacher who is trying not only to practice equity but to teach it, to change both boy's and girl's perspectives on the female self."

This is a great quote.  This is Johnson right in the middle of the classroom.  Ms. Logan wants to teach and change the ways of a classroom.  She is a firm believer of the "hidden curriculum".

2)  "...girls opted to take on either male or female personae, the boys chose only men.  It disturbed me that although girls were willing to see men as heroes, none of the boys would see women that way."

This quote is kind of crazy. When I was reading it I was surprised that such things actually happen.  It can be something that people joke about and guys make fun of girls for it but I didn't think it was something that girls actually believe.

3)  "It's different in those classes because we're focusing on the important people in history, who just happen to be men."

This quote is also crazy.  It makes you think and you're like wow its kind of true.  All of the people we learn about in math class are males, history class there are only a handful of females.  It is hard to turn away from it.  All of the "important" people in our schooling have been of the male figure.

Questions/Comments:

This was a really interesting article.  It made me thing about things that I have never noticed before.  After reading this article I actually noticed things like girls holding back when guys are around.  Or they let the males answer or volunteer first in public settings.

"One More River To Cross"

Recognizing the Real Injury in Brown:

A Prerequisite to Shaping New Remedies

By: Charles Lawrence

Authors Argument:

Lawrence talks about how the Brown vs. Board of Education court case influenced our nation.  He argues that there will always be : "one more river" for blacks to cross.  Even though this got blacks and whites into the same school, that didn't erase the years of segregation in the past.

Quotes:

1)  "In short, segregation American-style, like South African Apartheid, has only one purpose: to create and maintain a permanent lower class or subclass defined as race."

Wow, this quote can really catch you off guard.  The only reason for South Africa is because of its production of race??  How can someone possibly think that.  This just shows how poorly these people were treated.

2)  "Segregation's only purpose is to label or define blacks as inferior and thus exclude them from full and equal participation in society."

This is a reason why the Brown case has such an important value.  I feel blacks do not suffer from having their own schooling because even when they got into the same school as the whites, they suffered and were not given the same education as the white kids.

3)  "Many black schools that existed within the segregated school systems of the South were in fact superior to their white counterparts."

This is quite surprising to me.  It seems like the blacks schools were the ones that always got the short end of the stick.  They were the ones that had all the bad materials.  However, this quote tells us that the Blacks' schools were better than the whites.  I don't know if this quote is true or if what I learned during my schooling is true, but I found this quote very interesting.

Comments/Questions:

I found this article really interesting.  I don't ever recall learning about the Brown verse Board of Education.  As you can see I did this late and I loved how we connected it to Remember the Titans.  This case took place in the 50's, and in that movie we see huge problems still existing in the early 70's.  Very interesting topic.

In the Service of What?

The Politics of Service Learning

by: Joseph Kahne and Joel Westheimer

Authors Argument:  

The authors are arguing that service learning is very important to be done, but that the focus should be more represented in the democratic way rather than the individuals feelings on service learning.

Quotes:

1) "almost all discussions of service learning practices emphasizes the importance of reflection."

I agree completely with this quote because even with our service learning, when we discuss our VIPS in class I feel I gain more from my experiences than others peoples experiences.  I really think when you look back on the things you accomplish because the more you look back at the good times, the more you learn and take from it.

2) "Similarly many contemporary scholars focus on change over charity and argue that the lack of connection between individual rights and communal obligations within our culture has left us with a bankrupt sense of citizenship."

I think that service learning should be really for oneself and not to change the world.  It is wonderful that people are getting together to save each other and help other people out, but its  great for a personally experience to get you use to a field, or to make you feel better.  Service learning should not be just because people are forcing you to do good deeds.  It should be self motivated because you need to do it for yourself.

3) "The importance of a meaningful reflective component becomes clearer when one considers the kind of deliberation and student empowerment that such a curriculum can foster"

This basically means learn from your experiences.  This is completely true.  The fact of what your learning comes through more, the more you reflect upon it.

Questions/Comments:

I think this is important because I reflect on my service learning all the time and I know that it helps me to realize what I am doing when I think about it.  It think it is more important to realize how you are serving others and why you are doing it because it makes it that much more fuller and meaningful personally.

Talking Points #4

Unlearning the Myths That Bind Is

Linda Christensen

Authors Argument:

Christensen is arguing that the media we have as younger children imbeds into our brain early stereotypes, racism's, and superficial motifs.  She reveals that as adults, and parents that it is our responsibility to stop these actions and not let them continue.  It is not right to have these images, being displayed to young children who develops into adults, to have these ideas in their heads as being "ok".

Quotes:

1)  "Women who aren't white begin to feel left out and ugly because they never get to play the princess."

This must be the worst feeling as a non-white women.  What little girl doesn't want to be a princess, or pretend to be one, or be treated like one.  When every single princess is white, every single queen and royalty is white, doesn't that give the image that a non-white women could never amount to a princess.  This doesn't only make a women feel bad, but it is also racist.  Why can't an African American woman be a princess?  There isn't a good reason why there shouldn't be one.

2)  "Happiness means getting a man, and transformation from wretched conditions can be achieved through consumption-in their case, through new clothes and a new hairstyle."

A woman does not need a man.  A woman shouldn't have to change who she is to be who she is not, just to impress a man.  It is like those movies where the ugly, trouble maker suddenly becomes this beautiful queen, and everyone wants to be her friend.  Every guy wants her, she win homecoming, and lives happily ever after, just because she changed her hair style, put on makeup, and took her glasses off.  Girls shouldn't feel like they have to be dressed up and beautiful all the time.

3)  "We don't call it deception; we call it good taste.  And soon it feels awkward going to the mailbox without makeup."

Lol.  Makeup isn't beauty, its a mask to pretend to be pretty.  I always tell girls not to wear makeup.  I feel it is unattractive sometimes.  I'd rather see the true beauty in her than the expensive stuff she bought to mask herself.  I think this quote is hilarious because it is true.  There are some people I have never seen without makeup.  I always tell my close girl friends not to wear it because its pointless.  Girls shouldn't feel the need to put it on if they are just running out of the house if anything.

Questions/Comments:

I really enjoyed reading this article because it was easy and fairly laid back reading.  I enjoyed how it showed all the different ways that people are influenced as a child.  It's pretty hard to look at all these Disney films that I loved growing up and realize how crazy the stereotypes are, and how much they really did put images into your head, without you realizing, that we have keep for all of these years.  I think this article will be fun to talk about in class, because it takes us back to our childhoods.

Talking Points # 3 

Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community

Dennis Carlson

Authors Argument:

Carlson is arguing that communities, and schools should teach the people how to realize everyone is normal, and there isn't normal or abnormal people, just people.  He also states that it is the job of teachers and leaders to use the words "gay", "lesbian", "homosexual", etc. in their language, because it isn't something to be ashamed of just another aspect of life different from the "normals".

Quotes:

1)  "gay people have for the most part been made absent, invisible, and silent within this community and at the same time represented as the deviant and pathological 'other'."

When I first read this quote, I thought to myself, I never thought of gay people as invisible or silent.  It makes me wonder who really starts pointing out someone that is different.  I'd like to know what the normal persons looks like, or what the normal should be.  There are infinite number of different people, how can there be a normal.  That's pretty sad that some people stay "silent" because of their sexuality, and not because of the person they are.

2)  "(ie. black, working class, female, homosexual, etc.) are disempowered and represented as deviant, sick, neurotic, criminal, lazy, lacking in intelligence, and in other ways 'abnormal'."

Wow.  This quote is insane.  Because of someone's gender, sexuality, or race, they are dumb or lazy.  I am almost speechless about this.  I wonder is this the parents who help the kids to grow up like this, is it the views they are taught in school, I don't know what it is but it needs to be figured out and stopped.

3)  "The objective of classroom discourse is thus not so much to achieve consensus on "truth" or "objective" depiction of reality, but rather to clarify differences and agreements, work toward coalition-building across difference when possible, and build relationships based on caring and equity."

This is our future job, this is what as future teachers we need to strive to do.  I read this quote over a couple times and I thought to myself, I hope that I can really do this.  I hope I'm up to the responsibility as a teacher to shape and mold young people to become better than what I am and how everyone else is.  I am really excited to inspire and change you children's lives.

Questions/Comments:

This piece was actually pretty hard for me to read.  I don't know if it was the language or if it was his writing style, because it wasn't relazed, but I had to read a couple things over a couple times to understand it.  I think this is good that we are learning about gender, because I know in a high school classroom, which I'm looking to teach in, I will definitely have to deal with such things a gender, sexuality, race, etc.

Talking Point # 2 Rodriguez

Aria

Richard Rodriguez

Authors Argument:

Rodriguez argues that ones' self identity can often be altered in the face of adversity. He also agrues that ones' personal family and traditional lifestyle can be completely changed when one is trying to become a member of the society/culture of power.  Rodriguez stresses that a person should keep their individuality no matter how they have to change their lives.

Quotes:

1)  "In an instant, they agreed to give up the language (the sounds) that had revealed and accentuated our family's closeness."

I picked this quote because it made me feel sorry in a way.  Not only for Rodriguez, but for all the people who speak different languages and have to change their traditions to be accepted into the society/culture of power.  It's not fair for people to have to change, but it is the reality of it.  It's very different being in the white majority of people, I will never have to change anything in my life to fit in, nor will I ever know what it is like to give up a tradition just to fit in.

2)  "That day i moved very far from the disadvantaged child i had been only days earlier.  The belief, the calming assurance that I belonged in public, had at last taken hold."

I know Rodriguez is expressing joy in this quote, but I looked at the implicit meaning of it and thought of how horrible he must have felt prior to that day.  Not being able to speak, or hold a conversation, or express his own thoughts just because he wasn't speaking English.  That makes me angry at this "power" white people seem to have.

3)  "But the special feelings of closeness at home was diminished by then.  Gone was the desperate, urgent, intense feeling of being home; rare was the experience feeling myself individualized by family intimates.  We remained a loving family, but one greatly changed.  No longer so close; no longer bound tight by the pleasing and troubling knowledge of our public separateness."

It seems to me that there is a sense of new hope here, but no great happiness.  Rodriguez expresses how much tradition and family mean to him, and by loosing all of it, he feels as if he lost his family in a way.  Now they are accepted into the "public", because they all can speak English, but they have lost the bonds their family shared because they were not accepted.

Questions/Comments:

I really enjoyed reading this, I got a firm sense of what it is like to give up what you think is right to become something you never knew you had to be.  Rodriguez shows what it is like not to be able to talk in public because it is not a public language.  he shows what it is like to be excited to be able to speak in public finally.  He also expresses what it is like to loose personal identity and feel like an out cast.

Talking Points #1

110 People Who Are Screwing Up America

Bernard Goldberg

Author's Argument:

Goldberg states that Kozol has a very liberal attitude towards the education system.  Goldberg argues that Kozol's attitude in the education system is highly used and that people don't only use the liberal system but the children leaving these education systems are being turned out with blinders on, and that liberal is the way to be.

Quotes:

"They got there for lowering the level of civil discourse in this country- or for their shameless willingness to destroy decent people"

I really enjoy this quote, because it shows how angry Goldberg is about the situation in which peoples morals are being subjected to change, whether they like it or not.

"Once, it was understood by almost everyone that there is no free lunch and that you got yours, as the old commercial had it, "the old fashion way", you earned it!"

I can not say I fully agree with this quote, however I understand where Goldberg is coming from.  I know what its like to have to work hard so I can pay car insurance and small bills like that, so I think that shows that people have to take the initiative to work so they can pay for some of their own stuff.

Questions/Comments:

I found this article pretty interesting because it brought some basic things that you don't normally think about into perspective.

Amazing Grace

Jonathan Kozol

Author's Arguments:

Kozol argues that peoples lives get ripped away from them when tragedy strikes, and illness or misfortunate events happen.  He believes that no matter why a person is in the situation they are in, they deserve a better life, that the poor, sick, or others deserve to have the same life as those who earned it, whether they did or not.  He also argues that even though people live in poor quality homes and towns, they deserve to have a good life, without the threat of robbery, shootings, etc.

Quotes:

"The $150 million spent to build the dazzling new structure..., is almost exactly the same as what the city spent in the same year to purchase the massive prison barge that it has moored at Hunts Point in the South Bronx, where it accommodates the graduates and dropouts of much less attracting high schools on six floating floors of prison cells."

This quote really makes you think about how much money the cities and states waste on people who have messed up and are in prison, rather than spending it on the people who can barely make it day to day.

"I am in hell and you are not and so I hate you and I have to try to bring you down to where I am.  I feel pity for them and fear because they are lost."

It seems as though Kozol feels the pain of these people and is trying to see where they are coming from.  I agree with him, I feel everyone can change how they act but sometimes people get sucked into their lives of poverty because of they chances they have missed.  

Questions/Comments:

I enjoyed this article, because it made me think about how it is to live in such an unfair environment.  Kozol points out problems that really effect people and why they may be in the situations they are in.  He points out how some people have to change their whole lifestyle because of their living conditions.