Saturday, October 29, 2011

Talking Points # 7

Gender and Education


Gender and Education in the same sentence is always difficult. Boys and Girls are usually separate when you talk about the classroom or even school. You can tell this because some teachers do a boy-girl system for seating arrangements, have boys in one line and girls in the other, have boy bathroom passes and girl bathroom passes and even in gym its normally boys vs. girls (although, sometimes the gym teacher tries to mix it up).


Teachers even influence gender in the classroom and they might not even mean to. I found this quote on a website about gender equality:


Teachers socialize girls towards a feminine ideal. Girls are praised for being neat, quiet, and calm, whereas boys are encouraged to think independently, be active and speak up. Girls are socialized in schools to recognize popularity as being important, and learn that educational performance and ability are not as important. "Girls in grades six and seven rate being popular and well-liked as more important than being perceived as competent or independent. Boys, on the other hand, are more likely to rank independence and competence as more important." (Bailey, 1992)


Gender can also be biased on grades, also on that website i found some information on grades compared boys to girls. "..boys have never been in more trouble: They earn 70 percent of the D's and F's that teachers dole out. hey make up two thirds of students labeled "learning disabled." They are the culprits in a whopping 9 of 10 alcohol and drug violations and the suspected perpetrators in 4 out of 5 crimes that end up in juvenile court. They account for 80 percent of high school dropouts and attention deficit disorder diagnoses. (Mulrine, 2001) This quote proves that boys are being gender biased in most school systems. It is sad that the world has come to this bias. But along with racism, I guess we (the U.S.) can't get away from biasing or racism. For example, people treat black people with disrespect or lower them because of their skin color, and people also do the same for boys in the academic world. 


Since I am going into teaching, I do not want to follow this and separate my boy students from my girl students. As like any teacher, I want to keep my classroom as equal as I can but I bet that I will bias my girls and my boys at some point in time. That will not stop me from working towards my teaching and trying to be the best teacher I can be.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Car Crash in Charlestown :(

This car crash happened in my town over the weekend. I didn't know 3 of the 4 boys but they are in my prayers. A good thing from this is everyone in my town is coming together to keep everybody's spirits up.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Talking Points # 6

Connections: Between Barack and a Hard Place and Brown vs. Board of Education
Author: Tim Wise


The article, website and videos are telling racism truly how it is. Unfortunately racism has been going on for many years. In the Website, it has information dated back as far as the 1800s. In class, we have been talking about racism for most of the times we meet. I fell like even if the discussion isn't focused on racism, at some point we talk about it. I come from a town where most of the people are racist, but i am totally against it. People shouldn't make fun of other people because of their skin color. There are also songs in the media that are very racist and i don't understand how they can be produced.


Some of the articles that I think are connected to racism is "White Privilege" by Peggy McIntosh and "Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us" by Linda Christensen. These texts are similar to the readings/videos this week because they are either all about racism or have racism in them. Obviously just from reading the title of "White Privilege" you can tell that it is going to be about racism. In the article "white Privilege", there is a quote that really stands out to me about racism. "In my class and place, I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth" I feel like the author is saying that she only thought being racist is saying individual acts of meanness against people because of their race. I feel that being racist can be about anything as long as you are making fun or not liking someone because of their race. In the article, "Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us", it isn't all about racism, but it touches upon the subject. The author talks about how the media influences us. A connection I made about this article and racism is that there has never been a black princess until recently, or the last election was the first election for a black president. People need to start being more equal so we don't have to be stuck in the era of racism. If people can stop being racist to other people, i feel the U.S. as a country can accomplish even more.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Talking Points #5

Extended Comments: In the Service of What 
Author: Kahne and Westheimer


My post this week is going to be an extended comment to tom's blog, which you can find at http://tpm-fned346.blogspot.com/ I had to read Tom's blog a few times to understand where he was coming from. I feel that we agree on somethings but disagree on others. The way that he went about this article this week was a conservative way. He explained what the reading was about and talked about both service learning projects that were in the text. He also stated that the authors used a political view on the service learning projects too.


One part that i disagree with Tom is when he says that the authors "intended to attack conservative ideologies". I disagree because when I read the text, no where could I find a spot that they "attacked"  conservative ideologies. I felt that the text was explaining the different service learning projects and how they can be so different but also the same too.


On the other hand, I agree with Tom when he says that "It was like reading a power point presentation without the cheesy graphics". I wouldn't go that harsh on the authors but I did find parts of the article boring, which you could associate with powerpoint presentations. It was very informative and taught me a few new things. I also agree with him because the authors didn't show their expression and make it very enjoyable to read. If they went a little farther than just stating facts it would have been more fun to read.


At the end of Tom's blog post i was confused. In the beginning he said that "the authors intended to attack conservative ideologies". In the end he stated "To be clear, the authors never explicitly attacked conservative ideologies" So did or didn't the authors attack conservative ideologies?

Monday, October 10, 2011

Random post #1

So since we have been discussing about lesbian, gay and bisexual topics in class i thought this would be a perfect time to talk about it and how it connects to other classes. In my Theatre 240 class we are reading a play called Angels in America by Tony Kushner. It is about gay people in the 80's. Along with other things, gay people are stereotyped by every gay person in this play gets AIDS.


When my friend and I brought this up to our professor, he said that the play was written in the 1980's so people coming out and the AIDS epidemic was freshly new. This still upset my friend and I. One character was so against it, even though he was gay, and got AIDS, he told people and the doctor it was Cancer. He would have sex with all kinds of men but he wouldn't admit he was gay. I feel like this play is making it seem like being gay is bad and people shouldn't be gay.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Talking Points #4

Reflection: Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us
Author: Linda Christensen


I really enjoyed reading this article. It was interesting because it was about how cruel cartoons and disney movies are. Like most people, I do think it's wrong to not have a "disney princess" be a woman of color and not be a size 2. But, I don't think it is right for people to not watch these cartoons/movies anymore because of that reason. Of course everybody has their own opinion and mine is I am going to keep watching these movies and allow my children too, when I have kids.


Also, I saw that a girl in the authors class said she wasn't going to buy her niece and her nephew what they wanted (a Nintendo and a Barbie) for Christmas, instead she asked the clerk for a toy that wasn't sexist or racist. To be honest I don't think a Nintendo or a Barbie is sexist or racist. They have Nintendos for boy and girls and they have boy Barbies, girl Barbies and Barbies of all races.


I feel like people are taking things way out of proportion now a days. Everything someone says or does is racist. If people would focus on getting along with everyone of different sexes and races, then we could work on the media.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Talking Points #3

Hyperlinks: 2009 National School Climate Survey


To be honest, i don't know if i did this weeks reading correct. I went on the GLSEN website and picked an article under the research tab. Fingers are crossed, hopefully its okay!


Talking Points #3: 2009 National School Climate Survey: Nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT Students Experience Harassment in School:


The author Daryl Presgraves explains how many lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender students in the U.S. have been/are being bullied at school. "The 2009 survey of 7,261 middle and high school students found that at school nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT students experienced harassment at school in the past year and nearly two-thirds felt unsafe because of their sexual orientation". This is a horrible statistic and it should not be true, but it is. Many organizations have been formed to try and stop bullying such as this, but who knows if it will ever go away.


The U.S. Justice Department have been trying to come up with ways to stop this bullying. They went to a local high school in Maryland to show the students how they are trying to stop the bullying.
U.S. Justice Dept. trying to help bullying


Extremely sad story about 14-year old boy committing suicide I don't know about you, but I have been hearing too many stories about gay teens committing suicide because of harassment, but no one really does anything to stop them. In this article I posted above, it is a bout a 14-year old boy who was gay and was being harassed because of his status in school and then online. Other teens would tell him to kill himself because "it would make everyone WAY more happier!" so then he wrote about how he always tells people that he is being bullied but no one does anything, until it is too late.


These articles connect to each other because the U.S. government is saying that they will do anything to stop bullying to gay teens, but I haven't seen anything where they actually have. It is so sad when teens put online, in black and white writing that they are being bullied and are going to kill themselves, but no one does anything. The extremely sad part is that until WE; students, parents, the GOVERNMENT start listening to these teens and actually help them, it is going to continue. People will still be bullied everyday, and people will continue committing suicide, unless we decide to help them.

wow! very sad :(

16 year old cheerleader collapses on field and dies