Brown vs. Board of Education movies from Youtube

Oaks

Argument

Oaks states that tracking is bad because it causes children to stay in the path that the teacher feels is best for them. The kids in the lower tracks will be given less homework that is not as challenging. The focus would be on the upper track kids who are given the class work that would challenge them. This will not only cause in school tracking but also tracking in life. Oaks argues that the kids in the lower track will end up in the lower paying, blue-collar type jobs.

There are certain part that I agree with Oaks but I also believe that in the younger grades, tracking should be in place so that every child has a good foundation for the rest of their school career. I have see tracking at the elementry lever and it can be very chaotic but it is also very beneficial. Tracking should be done up until the 4th grade. I believe that at this point that many students have a good foundation for writing papers, doing math problems and writing a lab in science.

Kahne and Westheimer

Connections:

Community service has become a requirement for many teens to graduate high school. This has be come a problem because many teens see this as something that they are forced to do and not something that they want to do. The projects can also be anything from cleaning a local historical cemitary, to collecting food for the food pantry. Many teens will choose a project that will have little or no effort on their part to complete. I believe that the service learning project and the hours that go along with it are a great requirement for the school of ed. This way we have a way of working with students on a small scale and "get our feet wet" when it comes to teaching. Some see volunteering as a way to help the less fortunate. The less fortunate are portrayed as the social minorities in the area, this might be African-Americans and Hispanics and the more well off people are commonly portrayed as white. In 2010 there were 27.4% African American and 26.6% Hispanics in poverty; then 12.1% Asian and 9.9% White. I am sure that the have changed slightly but not enough to change the stereo type.

If you are a minority and you are poor, you are not smart, you do not service others, you are on drugs and have no morals. McIntosh states that there is white privilege in the world. This is one of the ways that privilege is being pushed to the for front. The white people are being shown volunteerism at the soup kitchens and the person eating the meal is a poor Hispanic. The media does a good job of propelling this idea forward. Like what Christenson says, children are learning that you service others. There have been so many times that I have been told, "Eat the rest of your food. The are starving people in Africa that would gladly eat it." It is weird looking back on this because the tone that underlines the white privilege that I have as a white American citizen. This propels the notion that Africans are poor there for African- Americans that I meet are all poor.

Unlearning the Myths that Blind Us ~ Christenson

Connections:

"The 'secret education,' as Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman dubs it, delivered by children's books and movies, instructs young people to accept the world as it is portrayed in these social blueprints. And often that world depicts the domination of one sex, race, one class, or one country over a weaker counterpart"

Currently on CBS there is a show called "Once Upon a Time." It is about all of your typical fairy tale charaters that are trapped in the real world. There is Snow White, Prince Charming, and the Evil Witch. All of the main charaters are white, and there are all heterosexual couples. Thought the writers attempted to modernize each story, the foundation of each is still stuck in the dark ages. Prince Charming is still the tall, brown haired, brown eyed man that we have learned is proper prince material from Disney. They began to break down the stereo type in 1998 with Mulan but really made an difference with the release of "Princess and the Frog" in 2009. Even then Disney still has a very long way to go.

GLSEN article

Comments on Shannon's blog

I totally agree with the solution that Shannon states. Education and example is the best way that anyone can defuse a bullying situation. There are only 14 states that have laws against bullying and cyber bullying that include sexual orientation and gender, and 3 states that protect people from being bullied because of sexual orientation. 15 states have laws against bullying but there are not specific categories. 4 states have school codes that have teachers address bulling that is because of sexual orientation. And 14 States have no laws or codes against bullying of any kind. This I find extreamly weird because there is an "epidemic" of bullying in schools across the nation. Teachers and parents should be responsible with what they see and to try and remedy the situation as soon as possible.

"White Privilege" by McIntosh ~ Argument

Before reading McIntosh, I never realized the white privilege that I have. After reading her list I can clearly relate to each point and identify it as having a better advantage. I live in a part of Rhode Island that has a white majority. I really didn't go to school with people of other races until I went to RIC. According to Infoworks there was a 98% white population in my school, only 2% was a minority. This was a Ponaganset High School for the year I graduated.

I have also begun to realize that for many white Americans, they place an emphasis on not being racist. Part of that is because there that undertone of white privilege is so strong that many people feel like they need to say that.

What I am unsure about is why is there a blanket over white privilege and not white upper class privilege. There was a quote that McIntosh said that, "I can swear, or dress in second-hand clothes, or not answer a letter without having people attribute these choices to bad morels, or poverty or the illiteracy of my race." Yes as a white person I do have those advantages, but there is also the class aspect to it. If I dress in second-hand clothes, ill fitting clothes, then I am a poor white American. From then on out my actions are being judged because I am classified as a poor white America, if I swear, I have poor morals. Over all McIntosh is right about privilege, but there is more to it than just race.

Reflecting on Aria by Richard Rodriguez

Rodriguez wrote this peice about being a bilingual student growing up in America. He explained how difficult it was growing into culture and changing himself along the way.
Despite living out in Glocester I have had some experience knowing bilingual students. One of my friends in elementry school and my two cousins are bilingual. My friend, Liz, from school was bilingual with spanish and english. Her grandparents came from Boliva and do not know much english. A few times when I went over I remember Liz introducing me to her grandparents in Spanish, they said hi to me in english to be polite but it was obisious that they were uncomfortable with it. Her mother, who was fluent in both english and spanish, was an spanish teacher at Bay View Acadamy. When Liz went into High School as one of her electives she took spanish. At the time I thought it was unfair because she had been exposed to it all her life an knew what most of her other class mates were trying to learn. Now, a few years later and after reading Rodriguez, I can see what a good decision it was; to better learn and maybe get back some of what was lost with her Spanish Heritage.

The other bilingual kids I know are my cousins. So its a little partial only because they are so small, and learning 2 langues is not so hard for them, but it was strange for the rest of us. My aunt is orgionally from the Phillipeans and Thiland. She married my uncle in 2001( maybe 2000) and lived in Pensylvana. When they came to visit there was always something new to learn, and most of it was in Thai, very few I remember today. The few words I remember is because when my cousins were born they would not know the english version of the word, only the Thai or Tagalog ( one of the many dialects in the Philippines). Theres tubig or water, and gatas is milk, and tsokolate gatas is chocolate milk. With out my cousins asking for that all the time I would not have learned what I did. They might not realize it now but they are very lucky to be learning Tagalog, the Spanish had a huge influence on the islands and there are a lot of similarities.

This brings me back to spanish. I do believe as Rodiguez that kids should not be taught bilingual. Not because I do not want them to learn but because it will open up so many doors for them. they should be in an els ramp up type of class so that they can learn the regular material in their native langue but also learn english and not be intimidated by the other children.