Social Justice Event

For my social justice event I went to hear Charles Cobb Jr. speak here on campus. Cobb had a bunch of achievements; he's written and published many books including No Easy Victories: African Liberation and American Activists over a Half Century, 1950-2000. He was a civil rights activist and is currently one of the big authors on an African news website, which is one of the worlds biggest information site on Africa. I was actually kind of dreading going to this because I waited last minute and this was pretty much my only option and I really hate listening to people talk to me for two hours straight about something that happened years ago. However this was totally different, this man was actually part of the civil rights movement and he was only 19 years old. He took a stand for what he believed in and told us all of the stories of his journeys throughout Mississippi and about the times he was jailed. He was a big member of SNCC (Students Non-violent Coordinating Committee) as well as the MFDP (Mississippi Free Democratic Party). It was really quite interesting to say the least. He even let the audience ask questions which allowed us to ask question about what we could do today to change.

I made a few connections to our class through Cobb. The first big one that came to my mind was definitely Johnson. He often said how no one wanted to talk about these problems and how no one wanted to even do anything just ignore them and hope that things would get better. However the whole point of SNCC was to address these problems and make them public so that they had to be dealt with. I also connected Cobb's stories to Delpit. Delpit often spoke about the codes of power and what not. Cobb and both groups he was an active member of (SNCC and MFDP) were going against the white power and the white culture and codes of power. My third connection is kind of a stretch but I figure it's relevant to our class even if it's not a connection. Someone asked what we as 19and 20 year olds could do today to fix society and his answer was education. He said we needed to fix the education system. He told us that a recent study showed that 76% of graduating seniors had and eighth grade (or lower)education level. It kind of reminded me of Anyon a little bit in the sense where she was the only who really talked about education in this sense. I kinda of think of what Cobb was talking about as tracking and how its doesnt work. Again it's a stretch but I think that it's defintely relevant.

Random post 2

We talked about tracking in the school systems and I was thinking that we "track" the kids at the studio. We separate them into groups based on skill, and hearing everyone's comments about tracking, I'm wondering if we are helping them or not. One one side, everyone knows who's in the good class and who is in the not so good classes. On the other side, its hard for the kids who are good to go over the old stuff over and over again. So we separate them. However we do put some groups together and certain routines. And then there is the production number where all of the kids are together. Other pros are that the students do have the opportunity to move up a level. I know that its not exactly the same as tracking in the schools, but I'm sure that the kids feel the same way when they see the "good" dancers always picked to show something, or to be in a routine together.

Random post 1

I had my first, "this class is ruining things for me" moment. Although I'm not so sure it was I was ruined. My roommate was watching some TV show (I'm not sure what it was) when I walked into the room. The character on the screen said something along the lines of, "I feel like such an outsider." To which my roommate replied, "Of course you do. You're gay, thus making you an outsider." (yes we talk to the TV on the reg). I was really taken aback by what she said. Normally I probably wouldn't have thought twice about her comment, but on this day I called her out on it. After I said something I was nervous that she would freak out at me, but she was really embarrassed at herself for saying something soo dumb. So I'm kind of glad the first time I spoke out was a success. Because to be honest, I'm not sure if I would say something (or what I would say) to a kid in the hallway.

Last Talking Points!!

1. "Students in empowering classes should be expected to develop skills and knowledge as well as high expectations for themselves, their education, and their futures."

I think that it's important that the students set goals for themselves and strive to achieve them. My classroom teacher is kind of doing this now. She teaches her kids to take control of their own learning. Things like this will make life easier for them when they are older.

2. "Dewey emphasized participation as the point at which democracy and learning meet in the classroom."

We kind of touched on this in the class; the different types of classroom styles. I picked this because I thought it was interesting that we kind of foreshadowed this. There are teachers who believe that participation is the best learning. I know that at Bay View they have "Senior Experience" and they go out into the 'real world' for a day and get some work experience. Although this is a little bit different from the participation it reminded me of it.

3. "In a participatory class where authority is mutual, s0meof the positive affects which support student learning include cooperativeness, curiosity, humor, hope, responsibility, respect, attentiveness, openness, and concern about society."

I think these are all great things and if these are things that can come out of the way you run the classroom then I think there is a lot to benefit from that. However, the article goes on to say that there also arise a few problems with the participatory classroom. But that is going to happen with any type of classroom that you have.


This article kind of dragged on. I'm getting to that point in school where i don't want to doo anything haha. But i was pretty exciting after reading and I realized that this was the last one. That being said, this was one of the readings that i enjoyed most. I like reading about different classroom styles and how they work and why and what the students do and dont get out of them. I have a few ideas of what I want to do from my own education, what worked, what didnt. But other than that i'm blank slate. So i enjoyed this article.

Talking Points #9 Kliewer Article

1. "Such acceptance is the aim when children with Down Syndrome join their non disabled peers in classrooms, and many schools and individual teachers have entered into this effort, which seeks and finds community value in all children."

I picked this quote because this 'aim' is exactly what we as a community need to strive for. If we gained acceptance of these kids, then we would have a lot less problems.

2. "Assessments of how well a student conforms to expectations tend to focus teacher attention on the child's adeptness at responding to classroom-based math and language tasks."

I picked this because I think it shows that sometimes assessments and take time away from the students learning. I think especially in the case of a special education classroom it's important to utilize as much classroom time as possible.

3. "If a misunderstanding emerges, its cause is not located in any individual but in the communicative web that connects all of us to one another."

This is soo important because it doesn't place the blame on any one student. So not only do the students not have to feel excluded or singled out, but they also get to work through it together as a community which is really important.


This week I had a lot of trouble reading the article, there was a birthday party going on downstairs so I was having a lot of trouble focusing. I think a lot of the problems mentioned in this article would have been what Johnson called unspoken. I think that talking about students with Down syndrome is another one of those tough subjects and I sometimes felt a little uncomfortable reading this article.

Post #7 - Gender and Education

It was really hard to find good information that didn't repeat itself or wasnt more than 20 years old, but here is some of the stuff that I found. I think that a lot of the 'stereotypes' and testing results from the nineties, still have some prevalence today.
This website has link that you can click on to view "who does better" at reading, writing, math and science. These results are based on testing done in a few different years. The results are separated by gender, race, ethnicity and grade. I only focused on the gender for this research, but the other stuff was kind of interesting too. Girls writing skills were better, while the boys excelled in science, and the math scores went half and half. This information dates as recently as 1990 soo obviously these don't relate to key issues of 2010, but its some good background information on the subject and it still sort of applies.

Most websites generalize that there are "boy subjects" (science and math) and "girl subjects" (English and history). While the results form the first website up above tend to support this theory, from personal experience I can say that this really isn't true.

In my high school girls were generally smarter than boys. Now this was just one school but I would like to assume that the results from my school are typical in a few others. Every year the top 10 students get to do an article in the local newspaper. My senior year out of the three Warwick high schools there were only 5 boys within the top ten of each school. So of the 30 smartest students in Warwick, 25 of them were girls. My school had no boys until number 13!! We used to joke around because our honors classes were full of girls with only 2 or 3 boys in them. One teacher used to always question why men run this country and this world, when we were living proof that women were more prevalent in high school honors classes. It seems to me that somewhere between high school and the real world, girls lose their ground.

Knowing this information, as well as not being able to find a lot about keyissues of 2010, I decided to look up the rates of women versus men that continue to college and then graduate.
One website shows that in 2008, about 71.5% of women were enrolled in college and only 65.9% of men were enrolled.
The graph on the left shows the degrees conferred by females versus males. The statistics start in 1971 and are projected up until 2017. As you can see is shows females are stepping up there game. I believe that these statistics are really catching up to our times and not the stereotypical information one usually comes up with. It just goes to show that a lot has changed over the years.




This site gives teachers tips and tricks to make sure that you, as a teacher, increase the equity between boys and girls in your classroom. This website says that in the 90's research made it clear that girls were 'shortchanged' in the classroom. A lot of times it seems that teachers unknowingly exhibit these 'gender biases' in their classroom, so here are a few tips to help prevent that from happening. Here are the most important tips.
1. Show fairness in the class room. Make sure that posters and signs around the room depict boys and girls engages in the same activities (NO STEREOTYPES). Make sure that you never pin boys and girls against each other, whether in a classroom competition, spelling bees, or even lining up. Make sure you call on boys and girls equally for answering questions. A good solution for this is some sort of lottery system. I remember when i was in sixth grade our teacher had a 'Magic Cup' and we each had our name on a piece of paper in the cup and she would pick out of the Magic Cup when putting us in groups, sending us on a errand, calling on us, or anything else. I never realized until now that this method was used as a gender equality exercise.

2. Select a variety of books. This reminds me of the King and King book we read in class. You might want to have books that show males and females doing equal tasks. Stories that have females doing stereotypical things may just "perpetuate the biases" in the classroom.
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3. Choose your words carefully. Avoid phrases like 'boys will be boys' as statements like these can allow the biases to continue. Make sure that you interchange he and she when giving examples in the class. When teaching subtraction you dont want to keep saying, "If Johnny has ___ apples and he takes _____ away, how many are left?" Make sure you use Sally or Susie or Jane; keep switching it up.

Talking Points #6 - Wise videos

In the first video Wise talks about how we as Americans have defeated what he calls racism 1.0 when we elected Obama as our president. However, he defines racism 2.0 as almost a double standard that we hold against people of color. His example is that in order to be "an acceptable person of color" you have to be just like Obama; you have to dress like him, act like him, have the same education as him etc. And in this sense, we as Americans really have not gotten much closer to racial equity.
In the second video, Wise points out that we have gotten rid of the overt racism towards people of color. However, what hasn't changed is the denial; the denial that there is a problem--just as Johnson points out. Wise said that if you asked white people today if people of color were treated equally in 1962 everyone would say that they were not treated equally--even the most conservative people. However, if you asked white people in 1962 if people of color were being treated equal, 2 out of 3 would say that they were being treated equal; 9 out of 10 said that black children had equal educational opportunities. He also says that we have to ask the "target people" if a problem is still a problem. Basically that we are oblivious to the problem: whites don't recognize that they are in the culture of power. He points that a lot of people think racism is gone but its not. He also points out that racism is not the only problem that people of color face, just as sexism isn't the only problem for women.
In the article about Brown v. Board of education, we learn that this case was a turning point for racism in American history. In 1954, "the Court stripped away constitutional sanctions for segregation by race, and made equal opportunity in education the law of the land. " Basically, the law made segregation illegal in the schools. And this case paved the ways of civil rights for people of color.
What Wise would say is that just because segregation is illegal doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist. Steps like this, or electing our first black president is great, but it is still just a Band-aid on a broken leg. I kind of think of it as just because you have to be 21 to drink alcohol, that doesn't mean that kids under 21 aren't going to party. Wise points out that the situation has gotten better since the times of Brown v. Board of Education but we still have a long way to go. Sticking with the Band-aid analogy, if you put enough Band-aids on a broken leg, over time it will eventually heal but only a little bit, and there will still always be scars.

Talking Points #5 - In the Service of What? by Kahne and Westheimer

1. "By finding and engaging in community service activities, Mr. Johnson explained, students would interact with those less fortunate than themselves and would experience the excitement and joy of learning while using the community as a classroom."

- I really related to Mr. Johnson's class's project, because this is exactly what we (or at least I) am doing when it comes to this class. We learn about how different groups of minorities (those not in SCWAAMP) learn and live and suffer, and then in some cases, we see it right in the classroom. So we are learning in two different classrooms.

2. "There are numerous ways in which a curriculum focused on giving provides opportunities for students to develop caring relationships, especially when compared to a tradition academic curriculum."

- I definitely agree with this point. It is basically saying that one of the benefits of service learning is that you kill two birds with one stone. The older students benefit because they are learning about the group they are helping. And the other students learn from the older kids, and get to develop relationships that may help them even once the service learning is over.

3. "Indeed, there is reason for concern that service experiences frequently fail to achieve either additive or transformative goals."

- This is probably the number one reason that all classes in all schools don't do service learning projects. There is the possbililty that the younger students don't benefit at all from having this extra help, in fact they may even have more trouble if they have many different people try to help in different ways. And there is also the possibility that the older students are learning anything, and just wasting their time trying to help.

I felt like this reading was somewhat repetitive. I don't know what it was about it, but nothing really grabbed me as a reader to pay attention. Normally I'll have some sort of an opinion when I'm done reading, but with this I was just glad I was done. Overall, the article talks about different kinds of service learning and why it is beneficial and why it may not be. I feel that it is a good thing in certain cases. For instance, something like what we are doing is beneficial to all parties involved. We are learning from it, the kids love it, and the teachers get a little break. However, for me when I'm older, as a high school math teacher, service learning probably wouldn't be too beneficial for all of the kids in my classroom. I think you just need to have the right atmosphere an the right ideas for the service learning to be effective.

Talking Points #4 Unlearning The Myths That Bind Us by Christensen

1. "'Look Ursula the sea witch is ugly and smart. Hey, she's kind of dark looking. The young pretty ones only want to hook their man; the old, pretty ones are mean because they are losing their looks.'"

- This quote was from one of the students after viewing some cartoons and trying to notice some of the obvious stereotypes. So many Disney movies have subliminal messaging such as this. And as this whole article pretty much says, these messages are all around us and we dont even know it--in the media, on TV, in school and as shown here, even in the cartoons that our kids watch on a day to day basis.

2. One of the girls wrote, "Have you ever seen a black person, an Asian, a Hispanic in a cartoon? Did they have a leading role or were they a servant?"

- This is extremely relevant because even if you think of Disney princesses the only Asian one is Mulan and that came out in 1998. And Disney just made the new movie this past year with the black princess because they realized that there wasn't one. As the girl later on says, "Women who aren't white begin to feel left out and ugly because they never get to play the princess." Some of our family friends have a black husband and a white wife and all three of the kids are each a different skin tone. The darkest little girl always complains that she always has to be Jasmine because she's dark and she doesn't even like Aladdin--and even that didn't come out until 1992. It's sad that Disney has to add movies to become for racially diverse.

3. "I realized these problems werent just in cartoons. They were in everything---every magazine I picked up, every television show I watched, every billboard I passed by on the street."

- This is so very true. Ideas such as sexism and racism aren't just in the cartoons and movies that kids watch, they are EVERYWHERE!! Magazines, commercials, books--things that are a part of you're everyday life. So naturally these negative ideas are just etched into these kids heads.

This article was really easy for me to read because I did a project in high school on subliminal messaging which is kind of along the same lines as this article. Kids, and even adults, are subjected to all sorts of subliminal messaging throughout all types of media. And quite frankly, it's not something a parent can just not let their kids see because it's absolutely everywhere. The entire article went along with Johnson's idea of obliviousness. Because unless you sit there and try to analyze everything that is going on in a simple cartoon or commercial you probably wont notice anything out of the ordinary. Especially if you're from the privileged group.

I went a little Youtube crazy looking for clips of subliminal messaging. This first video is a collection of Subliminal messaging, in the media and in Disney.



This next video shows how women are depicted in Disney films.



This last video is all clips from Spongebob that are all very suggesting. (There's also a part 1 and 3 and I'm sure you could find other things).

Talking Point #3 - Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community by Dennis Carlson

1. "At the level of state educational policy, it is noteworthy that no state currently recognizes gays and lesbians as legitimate minority or cultural groups to be considered in textbook adoption or to be included in multicultural education; and a number of states explicitly prohibit teaching about homosexuality."

- This quote is important because although these statistics are from 1997, it is for the most part still true. And as I think back to the books and literature that was assigned for me to read in high school and middle school, not one book dealt with homosexuality. And only occasionally did we touch upon it when it appeared in subjects such as history and Shakespeare. It was just something that we would brush over and try not to talk about.

2. "Among other things, it involves the constitution of a whole network of support services and organizations designed to help individuals "come out" in a supportive environment and participate in the gay community, including gay counseling services, drop-in centers, support groups, athletic leagues, choruses, and political organizations."

- I totally disagree with this statement. I think that creating this "network" would make matters worse. Yes, it would help gay individuals come out and realize their true identity, but I personally think that these gay community programs would just segregate them even more.

3. "Given the realities of being "out" in high school, this strategic closeting of one's gay identity unfortunately continues to be a safe response, even if it comes at the cost of lying about one's life."

- This quote screams Johnson at me because he said that we can't deal with a problem if we don't name it. And I think that we can't help kids be themselves (especially in high school) if they don't want to be themselves in front of everyone else. On a second glance, I also think of Rodriguez's article in this quote. I think of little Richard, secluded form the rest of his classmates, never expressing himself, and never being himself; all because he wasn't comfortable his own skin. Although who can blame them, among other statistics, 45% of gay males, and 20% of lesbians reported to have been harassed in high school because of their sexual orientation.

Overall I think this article was one of the more difficult to read. Out of all of the subjects we have talked about this article has made me feel the most uncomfortable. There were definitely many areas where I thought of Johnson, and Delpit as well as Rodriguez. These three were the most prominent in the article. There was a whole section where Carlson talked about "silent spaces" in the classroom. Which at the same time obviously speaks of Johnson who said that the more we didn't talk about a subject the harder it became to deal with.

Talking Points #2 - Aria by Richard Rodriguez

1. "I would have felt much less afraid. I would have trusted them and responding with ease."

- This quote is refering to when the author first walked into the classroom and how his teachers owuld always greet him in English, not Spanish his native language. First of all this shocked me, becuase something as simple as learning a Spanish greeting would have helped him feel more comfortable. It's so important for a student to feel comfortable in his or her own classroom, especially at a young age. This we help the child open up more and become more apt to learning. I know from experience, that if I'm in a class that I'm comfortable in, I'm more likely to raise my hand in class and thus gain more knowledge from the professor.

2. "Fortunately, my teachers were unsentimental about their responsibility. What they understood was that I needed to speak a public language."

- This quote really stood out to me because it really astounded me that his teachers went to his home adn told his parents that they needed to start speaking English. First of all that really shocked me that teachers would do that. I think it definitely would have benifited both the English and Spanish student to be imersed in one anothers languages. In fact, my entire senior project proved that it would be beneficial. They both would have eaasily picked up a good amount of the other language, which would have benifited them in the classroom and in life in gengeral.

3. "The family's quiet was partly due to the fact that, as we children learned more and more English, we shared fewer and fewer words with our parents. Sentences needed to be spoken slowly when a child addressed his mother or father....The young voice, frustrated, would end up saying, "Never mind"--the subject was closed. Dinners would be noisy with the clinking of knives and forks against dishes."

- I picked this quote because, as sad as it is, this is what pretty much happens in American society. When children are younger, they are learning the English language. So they talk and they talk and they talk. I dont think anybody is more chatty than a five or six year old. But as they get older, they learn the language and turn into pre-teens and teens and don't share anything with their parents anymore. Family dinners, if even existent, turn into nothing more than the noises of forks scratching the plates.


Overall I like this reading mostly because it was short. Also because as stated above it kind of circulated around the ideas of my senior project which made it pretty easy to read. It really shocked me that the nuns went to the boys house though, and told his parents to start speaking English around the house. Not only is that an invasion of privacy, but I think its wrong to tell a parent how to teach their kids. Now, Delpit says that teachers shouldn't assume that a child is learning something at home, but ehse two teachers take matters into their own hands and completely change this boy's lifestyle. As I said before, if the teachers had learned even a little bit of Spanish, the boy would have felt more comfortable and would have been able to open up more and learn more. Also, changing their home language to English, changed his entire way of life. He didn't know what to call his parents anymore, and worst of all, "the special feeling of closeness at home was diminshed." And for this reason, it made this reading a little sad for me.

Talking Points #1--Amazing Grace, by Jonathan Kozol

1. "'They're burning bodies there,; he says.
'What kind of bodies?'
'The bodies of people!' he says in a spooky voice, as if he enjoys the opportunity to terrify a grown-up." pg 7

- I picked this quote out of a few to id of show the life that Cliffie and his neighbors live. We later find out that Cliffie is actually referring to the incinerator that burns waste of local hospitals. I picked it because it shows that the authorities don't care what the people of this neighborhood think as they placed the incinerator here over the objections of neighborhood parents. I also picked it because I could remember telling my friends that the stone protruding from the ground at the beach was God's arm. And I loved seeing the looks on their faces, just as Cliffie did.

2. "She knew that the police would not arrest this man. She told me, 'I ain't waitin' for the law.' In less than 48 hours he was dead." pg 14

- This quote is referring to the grandmother avenging her daughters death and her granddaughter's rape. First of all this is really sad, because its so true. The legal system is so messed up that people can get off because of technicalities and loopholes in the system. It also reminds me of the book I'm reading where a mother/prosecutor shoots her child's rapist and uses every trick she's had used against her to get off, because she knew that the legal system would fail her and her son.

3. "'Somebody has power. Pretending that they don't so they don't need to use it to help people--that is my idea of evil.'" pg 23

- This quote really struck me because it relates to Delpit's idea that white people are the power of culture and we are unwilling to acknowledge that we have this power. It was also really sad because David goes on to talk about the addicts and prostitutes and how they are all colored in some way and that he fears what will become of his race. David also talks of how these people hate him because he is not in their condition, which is just so upsetting because it means that he really has no where to fit in.



Overall, I think this was the easiest read we had so far. I liked it best as well. I felt that a lot of the times I could relate in some small way, which for me, makes a reading sooo much easier (like the examples above). If i can see where they are coming from at least in some way, I can understand their situation a lot better. I also feel like the author wasn't yelling at me or telling me what to think so much as both Johnson and Delpit tended to do. Definitely there were a lot of pieces that fit into the other two reading that we have done so far. A lot of the time I thought of Delpit and her theory of the power of culture. But at the same time i also think Johnson and how we have to fix these problems. This reading was really sad in many ways, I found myself getting really torn up about the different people and just wanting to reach out to them. It's really terrible to think that people live this way everyday, in the South Bronx, and other meighborhoods and communities. And more and more people are being brought up this way and dying because of their lifestyle and lack of good opportunities. It's really opened my eyes (along with the other readings) about how privileged I really am. And how things I may think are the worst possible thing, really isn't that bad.

first post

My name's Molly, but most people call me Molls. I live on campus so when I'm not in class I'm probably hanging out in the dorm with my roomies. I like music, sports, summer and hanging out like any other college kid. I've done dance and gymnastics all my life and am continuing with my job at TTPAC dance studio, which I absolutely love. I'm pretty funny most of the time, especially when I'm around the people I love. I think this class is going to be pretty interesting and I hope to have a good semester :)