Citizenship in School, Kliewer Response

In my experience in grade school, they, the school system, had a place specifically for those with disabilities and tempers, the were sent to a building separate from the main one where all of the "normal" students reside. If you had a disability you were sent to this building. If you were disrespectful to the extreme and were viewed as violent, you were sent to this building. The only time either students interacted with each other was during a fire drill. Neither the "normal" students or special needs students saw each other, some not at all. In my time at my highschool I had no interaction with special needs students and may have benefited through interaction, expanding my view of the world. Unfortunately this did not happen and thus I remained blind until College where I met a handicapped man with one leg, though he was not mentally handicapped we did share a few interests and became friends. If he were at my highschool we may never have met. Even when we transferred to RIC we remained friends to this day. Because of the walls put forth by the school enlightenment is difficult to achieve for both sides. This only serves to enforce the stigma between special needs people and the "normal" people. A Stigma that still resonates today, though steps have been taken to break this metaphorical wall.

Tracking and Oaks Response

Tracking a student's progress and grouping them into a class at their level can be very detrimental to their education. A lower level student given the resources of a lower level student will have difficulties excelling do to the limitations of the materials and staff provided. Teachers who teach children of this sort are usually disinterested thinking that because they are of a lower level their performance will be as well. The materials presented are usually of a grade behind or more or not provided at all and so these poor stimuli can only decrease the progression of said students. It is a vicious circle that continues through their school lives, likely putting them off from attending college, thinking that the instructors are as enthusiastic as their grade school counterparts. The one's that are sent to the higher level classes however receive special treatment, with the expectation of greatness from them, these students receive high grade books detailing their subjects to a T, barely missing any information at all as the teachers enthusiastically instruct them and give them special treatment in hopes of spawning a genius amongst the group, since the seed of intelligence is clearly shown through these children's grades. In doing this we are separating these children into two categories, Dull and lesser and bright and greater, we label them even before they are sent into the real world where those labels influence the rest of their lives and in doing so reflects the great divide between classes. It is terrible to assume that a student who does not excel at one subject will not be able to learn it effectively, we are branding them because the teachers and staff are too lazy to focus on them, they would rather throw them away and get on to the next batch so they can continue earning their paychecks according to schedule.

http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/ability-grouping-and-tracking-in-schools-advantages-and-disadvantages.html#lesson

Empowering Education, Critical Teaching for Social Change, Shor Response

I would have to agree with Ira Shor and her views on educating through political intrigue instead of monotonous spoon fed procedures. The social aspect of teaching and learning is as important as the act itself. To talk about the act of teaching is more thought provoking in itself. Self questioning always is. When we think back to our days at school we don't fondly remember PEMDAS or MLA formatting, rather we remember the relationships and experiences we had with one another. The emotions that our young minds experience echo throughout our lives and shape who we are in the current. Sure grades are a motivator but not to all students in early life. The fact that you got an A on a test felt good but what did that A really mean? Did it influence your decisions this morning or did it help you find out more about your self? In reality it's just a letter that can mean many things and means different things to different people. The act of laughing or a general feeling of happiness is usually achieved through social interaction, a common feeling that we all enjoy, yet schools tend to skip social action in favor of processed information injected through quickest means into our psyche, no matter the danger, because the only thing that matters is that A right? A chart of A's and nice report to the faculty's boss, just so they are assured that paycheck that they struggle to live on. All children want something, sometimes that shapes their future, but more times or not that want warps from the views and teachings of education, from the teacher. It is difficult for even a trace of that spark to come out of Highschool un altered by the standards set forth from standardization, from "what works".

In this reading Shor goes on with a process that I like to call PAPSMDDDRIA, A process in which she breaks down teaching to it's core to respond to the problem of mass produced education.

• Participatory

• Affective

• Problem-posing

• Situated

• Multicultural

• Dialogic

• Desocializing

• Democratic

• Researching

• Interdisciplinary

• Activist 

Long story short, Shore explains that participatory learning is important because interaction with the surrounding environment is one of the few ways that someone can truly learn from it. That interaction is the only way to transform the learning environment to your needs and that to not do so leads to being a slave to the education system. To accept your lesson inoculation and taste that sweet cherry "A" lollipop to distract you from the damage that has been done. 

Unnatural critical thought as the driver of social change: Steve Joordens at TEDxTrondheim

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM07P-5BlYI

From Belly Dancers to Burqas: Media Representations of Muslim Women Response

I recently went to a presentation by Afshan Jafar who discussed to views on Muslim women in a 45 minute lecture. She first handed out scrap paper and asked of us to record our thoughts on what Muslim women are, just three words to describe one half of an entire culture. Most words chosen were beautiful, abused, and secretive and at the end of the exercise she asked us what words would describe a Christen women. We all questioned what kind of Christen woman and from where since there are a lot of variations of the Christianity. Then she said and what of the Muslim women? Don't you think there are more than just one type of Muslim? We all thought about this for a minute and she was right. We just do not have enough of a point of view when it comes to cultures across the see or better yet across our borders. We tend to keep to our selves and assume what it is like out side of our red, white, and blue nest.


Another topic Afshan talked about is the depiction of Muslims in the Disney movie Aladdin, in which the villain also named Jafar is represented more closely to the image of a Muslim than the main characters who are depicted as Americanized to relate to the viewers but in doing so stigmatizes the true Muslim image. Jasmin in this movie is also not depicted in a traditional burqa and instead seems to wear a belly dancer's outfit, showing off her flared hips and impossibly small waist. In the Opening song of the movie they comment on how barbaric the setting is and how your ear will be cut off if they don't like your face. They later changed it to commenting on the desert but kept the barbaric portion due to complaints.

Original Lyrics: Oh I come from a land, from a far away place, where the caravan camels roam. Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face, it's barbaric, but hey, it's home. When the wind's from the east, and the sun's from the west and the sand in the glass is right; come on down, stop on by, hop a carpet and fly to another Arabian night. Arabian nights, Like Arabian days more often than not are hotter than hot, in a lot of good ways. Arabian nights, 'neath Arabian moons, a fool off his guard could fall and fall hard, out there on the dunes.

New lyrics: Oh I come from a land, from a far away place, where the caravan camels roam. Where it's flat and immense and the heat is intense, it's barbaric, but hey, it's home. When the wind's from the east, and the sun's from the west and the sand in the glass is right; come on down, stop on by, hop a carpet and fly to another Arabian night. Arabian nights, Like Arabian days more often than not are hotter than hot, in a lot of good ways. Arabian nights, 'neath Arabian moons, a fool off his guard could fall and fall hard, out there on the dunes.

 

Original Song

After this discussion she moved to another point of interest involving National Geographic. In 1984 Steve McCurry photographed a young Afghan girl who would later become famous in 1985, though no one would know her name for 17 years. National Geographic commented on her eyes and how haunting and haunted the girl was from years of war, though in reality she was pissed that some random white guy was taking a photo of her when she clearly did not want to be photographed. The person who benefited from this photo was McCurry, not the girl that he so rudely photographed and this went on for 17 years until he was asked to go find her. Through eye and jaw analysis the girl was eventually found. Sharbat Gula is her name, now around 30 and she was a victim of generalization by foreigners.

 Take this article with a grain of salt.
 http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2002/04/afghan-girl/index-text


 When we think of the burqa we tend to think that women who wear them do not like to, and that they would prefer to be free like many of us Americans, to wear what ever they choose. But in reality they choose to wear their burqas. It is another part of their culture, a part of themselves that they show proudly. Afshan went on to say that our view on what is right is not always right and that other cultures such as the Muslims have different view points. 

Overall this lecture was very eye opening to the views of Muslim women in this country and how the media likes to make it American friendly, even if the process strips the truth, poisoning our views on what really is the Muslim way of life.


Afshan Jafar
 
http://uvenus.org/editorial-collective/afshan-jafar/

Between Barack and a Hard Place: Challenging Racism, Privilege and Denial in the Age of Obama Response

After watching "Between Barack and a Hard Place: Challenging Racism, Privilege and Denial in the Age of Obama" I realized that what I have as a white person was inherited through foul play. How the Whites began their wealth in an age when Blacks, Natives Americans, and Chinese were unable to, setting a ripple that continues today, a momentum of a wealth gap with little signs of slowing down. Because of the amount of time between now and then the mindset of White superiority has been ingrained within the consciousness  of the nation to the point where racist thoughts are common place even with non-racists, a Freudian slip sort of speak. A slip of the tongue or thought that enforces the racial biases everyone embodies. For example, when ever a bus full of African Americans arrive at the restaurant that I work at order I always assume that the majority of those customers want some form of chicken, the same with Asians and fish and ect. Why do I think that? Most of the time this is true but at the same time I am subconsciously focusing on the orders that include chicken and fish and in my mind this confirms the stereotype that I was presented even though they might have ordered the same amount of burgers, the fact that they ordered said racial foods overrides that fact. While this is not a negative thought, well at least I'd hope not, of a certain race, it is still a racially biased thought. These biased thoughts that people have can have more consequences than a couple of extra chicken sandwiches, lives can change from biased opinions based on race. White privilege again is an issue, when the blind sentence the seeing based on illusioned conjecture, how can we see this as fair? Again looking back at White Privilege and Power, Blacks are less likely to obtain jobs or degrees based on the color of their skin. Whites have no such obstacles and see everything as fine, as they continue life with little to no speed bumps while the Blacks take the lower unpaved road, a road that was neglected by early society, a road that the Whites did not see to pave, instead paving their own roads with the unwilling help of the Blacks. The highway of society is paved by those with power, White power, taking advantage of the other races to use as labor. This highway that we have now is improving in the ares that need improving but not at an acceptable rate. The momentum set foot centuries ago is slowing down but it will not stop anytime soon.

Part 2

Christenson, Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us Response

After reading Christenson's text I feel lied to. As if my entire childhood was a secret training camp to shape me into a racist, sexist American pig. I enjoyed many Disney movies and several cartoons as a child since that was the only thing to distract me from my parent's constant bickering and I can see how the subliminal messages in said cartoons and movies have shaped my perception on how the world supposedly should be. My views on femininity stem from such media as I viewed girly acting women as how they are supposed to act, though I eventually broke out of that train of thought, the thought of a woman taking a mans role seemed strange to me as a child. My ideas about race were also based on the media growing up and that it loosely impacted my thoughts about those of different ethnicites I have encountered, though few when I was growing up. You could say that I was ethnically challenged. The idea of being the "hero" as a child set my standards high, so high that there was no way to reach them and so I thought of my self as weak and insufficient to the world's view. This subconsciously continued through out my early life and aided my medical depression in making me take drastic action against my self, actions that I do not wish to discuss unless you are a therapist in the field of depression and self harm. As I grew older I realized that it was a false view of the way people should be though the thought still persisted on what my perfect self should be, I saw that no one really fit the description of the perfect person and that it was okay to be who you are. This helped a bit while going in and out of high school though other problems at the time still weighed me down.

Delpit, The Silenced Dialog Response

Like in in White Privilege by McIntosh, Delpit explains the communications block between those with power and those with out it, mainly Whites versus everyone else. White educators have difficulty relating practices and experiences with people of color because they have different experiences and practices. As Delpit put it, "Those with power are frequently least aware of-or least willing to acknowledge-it's existence. Those with less power are often most aware of it's existence." To see the advantages of another race while you your self has to endure lesser or different treatment is much easier than to see a difference when you assume that everyone enjoys the advantages that you enjoy on a day to day basis. Teachers of other colors besides white are sometimes considered to be skills oriented when teaching students. Teachers of the White ethnicity are usually considered to be process oriented as process is what they are used to. A student in Delpit's text complained about a White teacher who used this method, she would have the students write essays then have them correct each others work. The student felt as though he was not learning anything while in another classroom he comments on how a friend has a black teacher who explains in detail the skills and steps in writing a paper. "Neither teachers agreed on each others teaching methods. The cultural and or view barrier is real and it can effect the way students view their teachers. A teacher who just stands for example from the text who seems like she does not know what to do and who assumes that the students should know what to do may look weak and unworthy to the st
udents and this may turn such students off from education. A balance between the several methods of teaching should be shared in group meetings and practices of many kinds should be tried at least once to accommodate for the students. The students attitude is what drives them in the end.



Critical Pedagogy and Teacher Education: Radicalizing Prospective Teachers

Lilia I. Bartolomé

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/23478420?uid=33249&uid=3739888&uid=2&uid=3&uid=67&uid=368664851&uid=33247&uid=62&uid=3739256&sid=21104389090171

McIntosh, White Priviledge Response

In McIntosh's article she describes the advantages of being a white male in this society and I found that most of them do correlate with me and that I did not realize a good portion of them. For example, I have never been harassed by anyone while shopping. This might have to do with the fact that I'm a 6'2" white male as I may look intimidating and or innocent while shopping for shampoo or Old Spice deodorant. The same could not be said for someone of the opposite sex, height, and race. I don't have to be worried about being followed and raped either because the notion of someone doing that to a 6'2" white male seems ridiculous, though it probably rarely happens. So I don't really need to buy pepper spray or a taser to keep those sort of people at bay. Also buying flesh colored bandages threw me off a bit. The more I think about it I realize that I have never seen any shades of brown on a band-aid meant to blend with the skin. In fact I assumed that the band-aids were tan because of tradition more than skin color, because that's how I have always viewed band-aids, as a tan strip off adhesive and padding. I also notice that because there are so many white people in America, it is difficult to not find music or a position in power that includes a white person. In fact, it feels as though I am in an ocean of white with little experience swimming in different waters. It feels as though there is nothing special about me, like I'm just another white male American with certain expectations. The same could be said for others though I do not feel like I have tight group of my race to relate to since my race is diluted, like it's nothing special to see another white  person in a Stop and Shop or to see another on the street while walking to the RISD museum. With the good comes the bad and vice versa. While I feel protected by a community full of whites I feel distant from them as well. While I wish everyone had the priveledges I had, I know that change is slow and that the trend of a white dominated society may stay true for many years, probably decades. The paradigm shift from white privelidge to public privilege will happen. It's just a matter of when. And maybe then we will all be judged by our actions rather than our skin color.
As McIntosh said "To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions. The silences and denials surrounding privilege are the key political tool here." White men in power do not usually acknowledge their privilege. This is because it is invisible to them, because it is the norm for them, because it has never caused a problem for their lives, and so they do not acknowledge it and apply themselves to solving the problem of white privilege, it's not a problem to them, so why would they solve it?

http://everydayfeminism.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/white-privilege-6.jpg
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Meier, Why Can't She Remember That? response.

I found the speech patterns in early childhood to be interesting in this reading, how the culture of a family can be so influential in the way a child thinks, reacts, and speaks. Meier conveys the difference in the way several children in similar age ranges spoke and how it is related to their culture. I myself had difficulty speaking as a child as I was quiet and did not really convey language but rather actions. I do not know what that says about me but my sister was very talkative as a child. She would actually sing or play the blame game if she got in trouble, which would rarely happen, and it usually worked. I do not know if this has anything to do with culture as my family does not really have any connections left to our Scandinavian and Slavonic roots. Perhaps it was from watching our mother watch soap operas on the television, perhaps that is why she resorted to her ways of evading trouble. I really can't say, perhaps I was quiet because I preferred to be alone, playing with my legos and ignoring interaction with my family as much as possible, at this time both of my parents were beginning to have marital problems, keeping us up all night with their 10 p.m. yelling while we plunged our heads into our pillows, hoping everything would turn out all right, it did not. Maybe the lack of parenting or the constant chaos of fights and moving had something to do with our disjointing speech patterns. I really can't say.




Culture and Subculture
http://www.consumerpsychologist.com/cb_Culture.html

Allan et al Speaking the unspeakable response.

After reading Allan Et Al's Speaking the unspeakable I realized several things. The desexualization of teachers in the school environment is almost a standard as anything relating to sex and it's preferences are hidden from view until sexual education in later years. Even then sexual orientation is not touched upon enough as the process of birth is apparently more important. I remember in my 11th grade class that they once had a homosexual speaker come in and tell everyone about his exploits and how AIDs  ruined his life. He became rich through some means that I do not remember and became bored and depressed after a few years. So to pass the time he would go out and fulfill any urges he could including sex. Eventually he contracted AIDs and was thrown out of his job. That was pretty much the moral of the story, don't get AIDs or your life will be ruined, but the most interesting part of this story was the fact that he was a homosexual man who got it on with other men. This was not touched upon much at all when he was giving the lecture and was swept underneath the proverbial public school rug. When it came to the faculty of my school their sexuality was as much as a mystery as their ability to cope with students. Sure there were homosexual students and they were talked about but when it came to the staff of the school no one really knew. It was as if they wanted to keep them as a blank slate, to distance themselves as much as possible and to only interact to teach. Is this a good thing? Yes and no. While teaching is a very personal job it is also sometimes alright to be impersonal. Their lives could distract or interfere with the students studies or anger their parents if they adopt a life style that is not to their liking, adding to the stress of student life. While finding out about who you are is important I believe it should be gradual, to be grown in grade and high school then to blossom after graduation when they can be as open as they want to the real world. Then again maybe it would be a good thing for teachers to just come out with their sexual preference on day 1 at school, shouting what gender they like then beginning a lesson that has nothing to do with what they just said.

 Transgression and the Situated Body: Gender, Sex, and the Gay Male Teacher.
http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED423332

Privilege, Power, and Difference response.

I, being a middle class white male living the United states have gone through out my life knowing about racial, gender, and class in equality with out really digging deep into it. Why would I? I am on the higher shelf of this society with an easy road set before me with open opportunities so why would I look into it if it did not benefit me? That was my subconscious mind set before addressing the situation in FNED 346, where I have opened my eyes to the ethereal injustice that we accept day after day. In Allen G. Johnson's piece, Privilege, Power, and Difference, he addresses these problems head on even though it would not benefit him being of the same class and race as I. CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG? Johnson quotes the famous civil rights leader Rodney King, and as he does so answers said question with two questions. CAN WE NOT? or WON'T GET ALONG? Personally I believe that as a society we have the capacity to get along though due to each persons hubris we may never see that day. Only with acknowledging our own ignorance can we start anew in an age of acceptance and perhaps, equality.

RACE is one of the most physical differences that we see in each other besides gender. It is also the most definable of one's self even if this definition is negative or untrue. Stereotypes have a habit of misinforming people who rarely interact with those of another race. I for example have not had much interaction with African Americans or Hispanic Americans as there were few or none where I grew up and studied as a child in Southern Rhode Island. It was mostly white people who associated them selves with country and farms along with the occasional  Asian American and Native American, Native Americans mostly. So when ever I encountered someone of a vastly different skin tone than I, there was a mental click in my head that said this person was different. It was not something I could control and still cannot control today because that's just what happens when  identify someone. I'd like to associate this feeling with the fact that I had little to no interaction with people of color during the first 3/4ths of my life and meeting these new people is as if I was an astronaut visiting an alien world and encountering the natives of said world. It was difficult to connect really. Especially as I entered college and left the white pocket of Rhode Island. Eventually I became friends with people at CCRI, the Community College of Rhode Island for those who are unclear of what this is, and several of them were Haitian, Hispanic, and Dominican. One such friend called himself Dawry. He is of Dominican descent and shared several interests with me. We would play cards and table top games together as we talked about how shitty and terrible our jobs were in between classes. We would eventually become such good friends that he would invite me over on occasion to his house where I would meet his family who besides his sister, spoke almost exclusively Spanish or Spanglish in some cases. It was awkward at first due to the fact that besides my schooling of Spanish 1 and 2 in high school three years ago at the time, I did not speak a lick of Spanish. But I would still put on a smile and politely inquire and answer questions I could understand. Eventually they commissioned me to paint a back drop for Dawry's nephew. It was of the movie Monsters Inc and was very large as it consisted of three 4x6 foot plywood sheets and covered in acrylic paint. I did so on time while painting the nephew into the scene, even thought they did not request it, and they loved it. So much so that they commission me to paint for the nephew's birthday each year. Though they and I were cautious at first, we eventually bonded and accepted each other for who we were. I being a white middle class male painter and them being a Dominican middle class family. As this short story concludes I would like to point out that we CAN GET ALONG, and that we should ignore the barriers we put in front of our selves every day and reach out to those who we alienate and avoid, for if we can, we will, GET ALONG.

GENDER is a category that we fall into as we exit the womb, crawly and crying not yet knowing that our genital area will dictate our futures, for the good and the bad. There is no denying that this is a male dominated world with many men making far more than women and holding shut that glass ceiling that keeps the fairer sex at bay. Or at least that's the public opinion. Johnson sure seems to think so as he reminisced about a fellow teacher who was African American and female. He commented on how he does not have to worry about walking alone at night or worry about smiling to one one of the opposite sex and sending the wrong message. He also talks about how his status as a man elevates his self over her whether they accepted it or not. Sexism is an undeniable problem in this society and feminist groups try to attack this head on, whether sending the right message or not, but I do not believe that women are the only targets of sexism, whether me being male makes me biased or not is up to you, but I don not readily see billboards promoting equality among the sexes, they mostly if not all lean toward the favor of women as their stereotype makes them seems week and defenseless when in reality this is not always the case. The mere fact that the issue of female abuse and unfairness is being addressed and not males taken advantage on is sexist in it's self. The media is being sexist in it's attempt to protect and enhance women's rights. I have seen several strong women in my short lifetime, some stronger than men, metaphorically and not, and I have seen the abuse of the system that tries to protect them. I used to date a woman who's name I do not wish to disclose and she had a sister. This sister was violent, rude, and disrespectful to most people especially her boyfriend. Every time I commented on these violent acts my girlfriend at the time would become defensive and comment on how she was family and how she would protect her when they were young. I really disliked that I could not voice my opinion but at the time I would just let it go because I did not want to ruin our relationship. Eventually I saw the sister violently hit the boyfriend in question with blood drawn form her sharp nails, the boyfriend left the house and drove away in a huff. I stared wide eyed at what just happened and the family just stared as well, doing nothing to what just happened, no conscious actions taken, the barriers were put up and they all just went on with the day like nothing happened. I often wondered what the situation would have been like if it was the other way around. The boyfriend would probably have been arrested for assault at the very least. Strange how the fact that the sister was female protected her from the consequences of her actions. The workplace is strange as well. I work in the food industry and most of the people that work there are female. I would say that 1/4th of the staff is actually male and most of the managers are female. There are 6 female managers and 2 male managers. I suppose when hiring people you would want those who are pleasant to talk to and look at instead of gruff, rude, and violent workers correct? What did you think when I said gruff, rude, and violent? Male or female? Men or Women? If you live in this current society you probably thought of males and their testosterone driven minds who obviously are not meant to be polite by nature, compared to the gentle flower of the female mind which is only filled with peace and tranquility. Or at least that's what we are led to believe. To tell you the truth I believe we are all the same no matter our shells. We all might react differently to some situations but we all feel happiness, pain, sadness, and joy. So why have women present food to you while the few men who cook for you stay in the kitchen away from public eyes? It's all about presentation, the delightful greeting of an order taker is more accepting than that of a man. And I have seen this in so many establishments other than my own place of work. It is a female dominated industry in my eyes and is not entirely fair to those men who apply and get turned down because they aren't hiring their kind at the moment. You can take this as you will, I will just leave this opinion here and see what happens, and it is just that, an opinion. Or rather an opinion of a white middle class male.

CLASS is an issue I am not familiar with unfortunately. Johnson seems to tie this issue in with race but I have seen cases where this is not really a factor. On the way to college in Warwick or now recently Providence, I have seen people now and again on the curbs of roads waiting for people to stop at a red light and beg for money. This upsets me and makes me uncomfortable when confronted with the situation. I just do not know if they are actually homeless or not and so I put up my barriers and evade my eyes from the person in question. There are little to no homeless where I some from or at least none that I can see being a forested and small community of neighborhoods and farm land so as again I am not used to the idea or sight of a homeless person. It upsets me that this happens because if they really are homeless, they are losing so much aid because of the stereotypes and pretenders that poison their image. I do not know what else to say on this sensitive subject so I'll just leave it at this, the only way we can help these people is to spend a mile walking in their shoes, only then will we be able to truly sympathize with those who lack a roof over their head.

http://inequalitybyinteriordesign.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/whiteprivilege_knight.jpg
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