"Education Is Politics: An Agenda for Empowerment" by Shor

1. "Is the curriculum balanced and multicultural, giving equal attention to men, women, minorities, and nonelite groups, or is it traditionally male-oriented and Euro-centric?"

I chose this quote because it reminded me of the Delpit reading. It makes me think about the way in which students are taught based on the culture of power. It's unfair to present information that is based solely on white males. In order to fully understand history, one must be able to view it from all sides.

2. "To teach skills and information without relating them to society and to the students' contexts turns education itno an authoritarian transfer of official words, a process that severely limits student development as democratic citizens."

I found this quote to be very important. How are students expected to learn anything if they cannot relate to the information that they are being taught? We need to stray away from the Eurocentric male views in history and literature and take a look at that of women and minorities.

3. "To them, schooling supports existing power and divisions in society by sorting students into a small elite destined for the top and a large mass destined for the middle and the bottom."

This quote relates to the Oakes reading on tracking. It is unfair for minority students to be placed in lower level classes based strictly on their race. These students are stereotyped as being less capable than their white counterparts when this is not necessarily true.

I thought this reading was a good choice to end off with. It connects nicely with several of the readings including the Oakes and Delpit readings. Overall I think that Shor did a nice job showing how education gives us power, tying in the culture of power and the Johnson reading.

"Citizenship in School: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome" by Christopher Kliewer

1. "The phenomenon of categorization at the expense of individual value has been described as a 'disability spread' in which we 'extrapolate the characteristics we associate with the notion of disability to the particular individuals we meet. These perceptions are often based on stereotypes and what we think we know about a particular disability. They are expressed in predictable ways. For example, all people with Down syndrome are happy.'"

I chose this quote because I think it does a good job representing how people often think about a particular disability. Too often we judge a person based on the stereotypes that society has developed for the particular group of people this person fits into. Just like all other stereotypes, there are many exceptions to the "rule".

2. "'I don't tend to see Down syndrome as something. I fyou look at those three kids running around the room, they're incredibly different from each other. They're different in terms of what their bodies are like, how they best communicate, what they're like socially, their interests. And with those three kids in the room it would be hard to say, 'This is how you should teach kids with Down syndrome.''"

This quote reinforces the idea that the stereotypes placed upon those with Down syndrome are false. Not all children with a particular mental disability function the same way. Somebody cannot say that "this is how you should teach kids with Down syndrome" because they all learn differently. It depends on the individual student and the teacher must be willing to try different methods with each of their Down syndrome students.

3. "As mentioned earlier, people with Down syndrome are joined in their struggle for citizenship by other oppressed groups."

I like this quote because it shows how people with learning disabilities are grouped with Others - those of a different race or background. These people are set apart and treated differently than every one else because they are not "normal". We have to take time to think about what "normal" is and who defined it. This relates to the Johnson reading which states that "the dominant racial group has the cultural authority to define the boundaries around 'white' as it chooses."

My mother is a special needs teacher, so I have been able to witness the struggle children with Down syndrome have with fitting in personally. Also, the inclusion of the stories of children with Down syndrome helped me to understand this a bit better. As a prospective teacher, I am able to see how this is going to affect the way I teach. I can only hope that once I become a teacher I will be able to make the children in my class with Down syndrome among other learning disabilities feel as though they belong.

"Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work" by Jean Anyon

1. "Work tasks do not usually request creativity [in the middle class school]. Serious attention is rarely given in school work on how the children develop or express their own feelings and ideas, either linguistically or in graphic form."

I chose this quote because I think that creativity should be present in every activity. If students are not asked to be creative, then there's no room for individuality. It's impossible to determine one student's work from another's.

2. "The products of work in this class [in the affluent professional school] are often highly valued by the children and the teacher."

This quote stuck out to me because I think that every child, no matter their social standing should be proud of the work they have completed and so should their teacher. If a teacher does not show that they care about their students' work, then they will feel poorly about themselves and may not put in an effort.

3. "Schoolwork helps one to achieve, to excel, to prepare for life."

I chose this quote because I think that's it's not completely true. Sure, school does help students to prepare for life, but there are many things that one needs to live a successful life that they cannot learn in the classroom. Social skills are a part of this. We do need to learn math and how to write in order to be able to properly communicate, but many of our experiences outside of school contribute to our preparedness for life.

Having gone to school in town where the schools would be categorized as affluent professional schools, this article opened my eyes to what else is out there. I never knew that students who attend working class schools are treated so poorly. Their teachers give directives and don't explain themselves. I find it troubling that these students aren't given more positive attention. Children from low income families need teachers that will make them feel good about themselves, not cut them down.

"Teaching Boys and Girls Separately" by Elizabeth Weil

1. "Principal Mansell reports that her single-sex classes produce fewer discipline problems, more parental support and better scores in writing, reading, and math. She does, however, acknowledge that her data are compromised, as her highest-performing teachers and her most-motivated students have chosen single-sex."

It appears that single-sex classrooms are a good idea and should be implemented nation-wide. Since boys and girls tend to learn differently, the teacher can properly help each child reach their highest potential when teaching a single sex. If test scores are increasing in schools where single-sex classes are being introduced, then it seems viable to say that they are working.

2. "'The neglect of gender in education and child rearing has done real harm.' These tragedies 'might have been averted if the parents had known enough about gender differences to recognize what was really happening in their child's life.'"

This quote directly follows references to a young boy who has been diagnosed with A.D.H.D. and depression who takes three pills a day and to a middle school girl who went from being a wallflower to an "outgoing socialite" who eventually killed herself. These are both heart-breaking stories. This just goes to show that parents as well as teachers need to be aware of gender differences. In the case of the middle school girl, if her parents had been paying attention they would have noticed that she was unhappy with who she was and decided to change herself, but when that didn't make her feel better, she killed herself. In the case of the young boy, he was probably stereotypically diagnosed with A.D.H.D. because he was an active little boy which is not uncommon. If their parents had been aware of gender differences, they may have been able to prevent these things from happening.

3. "While there's some dispute over whether there's an ongoing education crisis for white, middle-class boys, there's no doubt that public schools are failing poor minority students in general and poor minority boys in particular."

Even after No Child Left Behind was implemented, things are not changing. White, middle-class students are still performing better than minority students. Further steps need to be taken in order to ensure that all children are performing equally in the classroom, no matter their race or socio-economic status.

This article was very interesting. To be completely honest, I was dreading reading it, but I actually enjoyed it. I had never really put much thought into the different learning styles of girls and boys. Gender differences have been discussed in several of my other classes, but we did not touch upon the difference in learning styles. I think same-sex classes are a good idea if test scores are improving. It seems as though it would be easier to teach a class of either all boys or all girls. Of course we must keep in mind that there are many exceptions and some children are wrongly stereotyped and a single-sex classroom may not be appropriate for him or her.

"Between Barack and a Hard Place"

Until today I was not aware that there is such a thing as a White Privilege Conference. It is wonderful to see someone who is so passionate about a single topic, especially white privilege. Tim Wise's lecture reminds us of how when whites commit heinous crimes it is the individual that takes a toll not the entire race like it is with African Americans and Latinos. It is too often said that African Americans are violent just because of the things that particular people did-the crimes they committed. Is it fair to put this label on the entire race? Absolutely not. He also discusses how people believe that since Barack Obama is the President of the United States that we are in a post-racial era, but they are wrong. Near the end of this clip Wise mentions statistics about people with white sounding names are more likely to be called back for a job interview than people with black sounding names which were discussed in, I believe, the Johnson reading. He reminds us that we need to be the change that we want to see in the world.

White Privilege Youtube Video

I came across this video on Youtube today and I found it really interesting. Tim Wise, the same man from "Between Barack and a Hard Place," talks about whiteness in this clip. I hope you enjoy it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3Xe1kX7Wsc

In the Service of What? by Joseph Kahne and Joel Westheimer

1. "By engaging in meaningful service-whether tutoring children for whom English is a second language, helping patients in a hospital, doing difficult chores for the elderly, or supervising younger children's recreational activities-students will have opportunities to experience what David Hornbeck, former Maryland state superintendent, referred to as 'the joy of reaching out to others.'"
I chose this quote because personally I find joy in helping others. I think that everyone should want to lend a hand in whatever kind of service projects they're interested in, whether it involves feeding the hungry or building houses for Habitat for Humanity. When you go out of your way to help someone, you gain a sense of pride.

2. "The experiential and interpersonal components of service learning activities can achieve the first crucial step toward diminishing the sense of 'otherness' that often separates students-particularly privileged students-from those in need."
One of the benefits of helping those in need is that it helps to erase the divide. By bringing the privileged and those who need the help together, it allows a bridge to be built between the two communities.

3. "To be critical thinkers, students must be able to consider arguments that justify conclusions that conflict with their own predispositions and self-interest."
This can be achieved by performing service work. Many times the volunteers are able to interact with a different group or class which can sometimes change their perspective about the particular group of people. After working with students for whom English isn't their first language one can understand their side of the argument.

Overall, I found this piece to be very interesting. In high school I was part of the Key Club-a club that performs community service. As a memeber of the Key Club I participated in many volunteer activities such as tutoring middle school students and setting up for Father-Daughter dances. Even though I was required to perform 25 hours of community service in order to graduate, I went above and beyond this because I enjoyed helping others.

Unlearning the Myths That Blind Us by Linda Christensen

1. "Our society's culture industry colonizes their minds and teaches them how to act, live, and dream."
Television shows, along with other forms of mass media teach us from a young age what it is that we're supposed to be. It teaches us what we should strive to become.
2. "Both of these tales leave young women with two myths: Happiness means getting a man, and transformation from wretched conditions can be achieved through consumption."
This statement proves how detrimental fairy tales are to young girls. They teach us the wrong lessons. As a young child, I personally wasn't a fan of the Disney princesses, but I know that many little girls do indeed suffer from the Cinderella complex. Disney is single-handedly destroying the self-esteem of girls all over the world.
3. "Students have also said that what they now see in cartoons, they also see in advertising, on prime-time TV, on the news, in school."
I agree with this statement. In my writing class, we have been discussing stereotyping in the media and I have viewed various movie and commercial clips demonstrating this exact thing. Take, for instance, a commercial for beer. Beer commercials typically portray women as being good-looking, thin, and blonde. Overall, this is how men think women should look.

This article was very enlightening. Although the topics discussed were not new concepts for me (I learned about gender stereotyping in children's television shows in a developmental psychology class and in my current writing course), I thought it was interesting how the author asked her class to examine these same ideas. Now a days, the television shows catered to children are not as evidently sexist or racist, but elements of these two "-isms" can be seen. Did you know that cartoons for children generally have more male than female characters? It's true. Watch a popular children's tv show and count how many characters are male and female and how these characters are portrayed. It's shocking what you'll find.

Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community by Dennis Carlson

1. "Within normalizing communities, some individuals and subject positions (i.e., white, middle class, male, heterosexual, etc.) get privileged and represented as 'normal' while other individuals and subject positions (i.e., black, working class, female, homosexual, etc.) are disempowered and represented as deviant, sick, neurotic, lazy, lacking in intelligence, and in other ways 'abnormal'."
When I read this, I was immediately reminded of Johnson's piece. Carlson is referring to the same exact concept that Johnson brought up, although his piece is centered on sexual identity rather than several different aspects.
2. "Nevertheless, normalizing texts systematically exclude and neglect the culture of those outside the norm for the purpose of ratifying or legitimating the dominant culture as the only significant culture worth studying."
This reminded me of both the Johnson and Delpit readings. The dominant culture that Carlson refers to, in my eyes, is similar to the "culture of power" brought up by Lisa Delpit in "The Silenced Dialogue." Carlson discusses how textbook writers generally stay away from "Others" and that gay men and women are often not included as a group of minorities in statistics.
3. "We cannot and should not attempt to impose 'politically correct' beliefs on students; but we have a responsibility as public educators in a democratic society to engage them in a dialogue in which all voices get heard or represented and in which gay students and teachers feel free to 'come out' and find their own voices."
The last sentence of Carlson's essay reminds us that teachers have the responsibility to take the time to talk to their students about homosexuality in order to create an accepting environment. If teachers avoid these topics, then their students will most likely not have the proper experience talking about it and will probably continue to see being gay as something that is wrong or abnormal.

Overall, I found this piece to be very interesting, especially the section on gayness in popular culture. I feel as though times are changing and gays are more accepted now than they were in the 1990's when this essay was written. Carlson describes the generalization that gay men are "flamboyant, emotionally unstable, and feminine," a generalization that is not always true. I believe that today, gay men are no longer represented only in this way. The appearance of movies dealing with homosexuality and popular television shows with gay characters along with many books and other forms of entertainment (i.e. musicals and plays) will make it easier to discuss the topic of homosexuality in schools and will encourage acceptance of Carlson's "Others" in our everyday lives. I feel that this isn't a topic that teachers should fear to discuss with their students. Should they neglect that it is an issue, it will only worsen the problem in the future.

Hunger Of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez

1. "What I needed to learn in school was that I had the right-and the obligation-to speak the public language of los gringos."
Rodriguez is explaining that it is necessary to learn English when living in America. This is becoming less necessary each day with more and more immigrants moving to the United States from Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries. These immigrants are able to move to an area in the US that is predominantly Spanish-speaking, so they never have the need to learn English, but it is their children who suffer as we see in Rodriguez's case. His parents spoke very little English, so he felt that he was betraying them by speaking in English.
2. "Supporters of bilingual education today imply that students like me miss a great deal by not being taught in their family's language."
This quote made me think of the article by Terry Meier on storybook reading in multilingual and multicultural classrooms. Meier cites the work of S.B. Heath who found that children from different background "learned to tell very different kinds of stories based on their community's cultural beliefs about what constituted an effective story." If this is true, then who's to say that teaching a child in their native language isn't beneficial to the child? Students who are taught in their native language might feel more comfortable participating in class and will probably understand the material better than if they were being taught in English.
3.. "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."
Although he was opposed to it in the beginning, Rodriguez did eventually learn English, and once he did, he felt as though he belonged. It's hard to succeed in a nation where English is the predominant language if you only speak Spanish or any other foreign language.

I found this article very interesting. I suppose I would consider myself a bilingualist. I believe that students should have the opportunity to be taught in their native language and that a teacher should be provided for them. Even though the major language of the United States is English, I don't think that children or their families should be forced to learn English and it is not necessary to succeed here. Today there are many opportunities for Spanish-speaking job hunters. I believe that if Rodriguez had been a child now, he and his family would have been able to do fine with just speaking Spanish.

"White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" by Peggy McIntosh

Quotes:
1. "I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which i can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was 'meant' to remain oblivious."
When I read this sentence, I was immediately reminded of Allan Johnson's "Privilege, Power, and Difference." White privilege is innate, meaning that we are born with it. We are not meant to pay attention to this fact, and many of us don't give it a thought unless provoked by a writer such as Peggy McIntosh. Personally, I know that I don't think about how, just because I'm white, I have more privileges than an African American person until reading this piece and others like it.
2. "Individual acts can palliate, but cannot end, these problems."
Once again, I am reminded of Johnson's piece. In order for our society to change, everyone has to put forth an effort, not only those who are experiencing racism. As Johnson states, we must "feel obligated to make the problem of privilege [our] problem and do something about it." Those who have this so-called "power" are not likely candidates for trying to stop this problem. If you are in power, why would you want to give it up, even if it meant that EVERYONE would have completely equal opportunities?
3. "To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions."
This quote also reminds me of Johnson's piece. We have to be willing to accept that white privilege is out there and once we do, we need to be willing to do something about it. These problems are not talked about - the quote-unquote silenced dialogue, one of the main ideas Lisa Delpit explores in her book, Other People's Children. Since it is never talked about, many are unaware of the size of this problem. We tend to acknowledge that racism occurs today, but we don't know the half of it. Only after we talk about the injustices African Americans and other termed racial others face will we ever understand how great of a problem this is.

Questions/Comments/Points to Share:
As previously noted, I found this article to be very similar to Johnson's "Privilege, Power, and Difference." I liked that the author included a list of ways that white privilege effect her life. This is similar to the lists Johnson presents in his piece on white, gender, and heterosexual privilege. I never thought about the ways in which I experience white privilege in my daily life until I read these lists. Gender privilege is often discussed, but white privilege is hardly ever mentioned. I come from a small town that is primarily white. In my graduating class of 143, there was one African American student, one Chinese student, and one Arabic student. The other 140, including myself, were white. Because of this, I have not been exposed to racism and I have not been made aware of how big a problem white privilege is.

Who am I?

My life is anything but extraordinary, but I wouldn't change a thing. I'm in my first semester at Rhode Island College in Providence, Rhode Island. Last semester I went to Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts. For years I'd been dreaming of going to Stonehill. It was everything I wanted: a small, Catholic college in the suburbs. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to my high expectations. Although I did love the campus, the people I had met, and my professors, their education program was lacking in classes I thought were necessary to become a well-rounded teacher and a second major was required. Since the school was so small (only about 2,000 students total), there weren't many options for a second major. After a lot of thinking, I decided to transfer this semester to RIC. So far, so good.

But who am I out of the classroom? I love the arts as well as the sciences. I know-it's a weird combination. I love the theater, whether musicals or traditional plays. I was involved in drama club in high school and I loved it. Many people assume that since I'm so shy that I don't like being up on a stage performing in front of people, but it's not true. Being up on a stage changes me. I become a different person.

Music is also a big part of my life. I listen to a wide variety of music-from metal to pop to showtunes. I find myself listening to whatever I find meaningful. I'm constantly looking for new artists on iTunes based on the recommendations I'm given.

When I'm not reading a play or listening to music you can usually find me with my camera. I love photography. I spend the summer out in my yard taking pictures of flowers, animals, and whatever else I can find. I'm always looking for new subjects to photograph.

As I already mentioned I love the sciences, especially biology. I'll admit it-I'm a HUGE science geek. I love genetics and human evolution. I've been known to record programs on pbs about these types of things. I find it to be incredibly interesting. That's why I am pursuing a concentration in general science.