Crenshaw Connections

 Hello everyone, I'll be doing my response on connections to the Crenshaw video.

A. The Ted Talk was given by Kimberly Crenshaw on the subject of intersectionality. 

B. This talk heavily connected to the concept of silenced dialogue from previous readings. It explained the court case of a women named Emma who experienced intersectionality, but wasn't even allowed to properly speak on the matter to the court, never mind have any shot at justice. She had experienced discrimination at both the racism and sexism spheres, but went overlooked because her case fell into the "cross roads". It is sad to think that someone could be silenced so easily without even getting to hear the full case because it would give her an "extra shot" that everyone else does not have. A concept that is so very backhanded might I add. I think this video also connects to culturally responsive pedagogy in the sense that, we need to be better educated on matters occurring within different groups in order to help advocate and spread the stories of (for instance) the black women who had been unjustly killed in the video. If we properly educate on the differences between individuals from the point of the classroom, then we can effectively start creating a more tolerant society for the future to slowly but surely (we hope) eliminate the issue.

C. One point I'd like to throw out there is the sad fact that I did not know any of the names. I know this video is older so I may have heard the names back when the stories had first come out, but the fact I couldn't remember any is just sad and a testament to the truth of the video. Here is a link regarding the background and mission of the Say Her Name movement. 

Say Her Name

Kohn/Video Quotes

  A. Hey guys, I'll be doing a Quotes Analysis on Kohn's "What to Expect in a Classroom", and I’ll tie it into the Culturally Responsive Pedagogy video at the end.

B. Firstly, I'd like to just point out, boy does this chart put things into perspective on just how dull my high school was. I don't think I ever had a class with all categories in the "Good Signs" column, I'm gonna be honest. 

The first quote I want to mention is under the "Possible reasons to worry" section and its "Chairs all facing forward (even worse) desks all in rows". This really surprised me. 99% of my high school classes were either all students facing forward or students completely in rows. I never really thought about how detrimental/negative that arrangement could be until I saw it in the "bad" column of the chart. We really don't realize how having our seats in a group can help morale even if it is just the teacher talking. Rows with students all facing front now just feels so institutionalized. Some of my classes in college are like this too, I won't be able to look at it the same way.

The next quote I want to mention is also under the "bad" column, and that's on the location of the teacher being "front and center". I never realized how this could be a detriment to the classroom either. Having teachers floating around and helping kids honestly feels so rare to me having been in AP/Honors classes in high school. Honestly I couldn't tell you when a teacher spent at least 50% of the time milling around with students, never mind a majority of the time. 

The final quote I would like to mention is also from the same column, and it's on stuff in the classroom being "Textbooks, worksheets and other instructional materials predominate; sense of enforced orderliness' '. This is one thing I would like to refute, at least in my opinion as a student. A majority of my teachers had a lot of reference materials like this around their room. Although some did balance it out with decorations I was still appreciative of those with such materials as it made it easier to get help and extra practice. Granted the room may have looked a touch more dull, but the teachers normally would make up for it in other ways. Decorated classrooms are tough subjects because you have to find the line between too plain and too chaotic. 

Classrooms exhibiting these traits from the negative column lack the ability to appropriately utilize culturally responsive pedagogy, as discussed in the video. We really don’t realize all that we are missing when it comes to such stagnant classrooms. As the video stated, there is no such thing as “one size fits all” classrooms with how diverse people can be. Having classrooms following the negative column of Kohn, makes it so they cannot properly connect with the cultures of their students. 

C. One question I would like to ask is, can anyone confidently say they have had a class that fits the entire "good signs" column? If so please share because that is SO rare. I'm including an article on the benefits of decorating a classroom. 

https://www.learningandthebrain.com/blog/getting-the-principles-just-right-classroom-decoration/

Kozol - Extended Comments

A. Hey all! I'm doing extended comments on Jack's blog for Kozol...

B. Overall, I like the points that were made. In your first paragraph you mention the unaffordability of basic necessities, of which you are right. It's crazy to think of basic needs like heat and water. People really take for granted being able to y'know, wash your hands/flush your toilet/take a hot shower. I can't imagine what it would be like to live like that. Then you also mentioned the close proximity. It's really scary, my house is pretty small so I think living with my parents and my dog is a lot but I really can't imagine. 

After, you mention how the author learned directly from members of the community, I started thinking about how only if people were more well educated on matters such as those happening in this community. A lot of the topics brought up in this class really amount to needing to educate the ignorant in order to at MINIMUM have a basic understanding of the issues going on in neighborhoods not far out of our reach. Crime rates are a whole other issue. I like references works by Bryan Stevenson when talking about inequality in the justice system. I liked your last paragraph and personal statement as well. Like I said, it all amounts to ensuring people actual educate themselves on issues in order to actual start helping to alleviate the problems. 

C. One point I'd like to share is just that I find it so sad that we cannot live in a world where people take at least 2 minutes to sit and learn about world issues. It's a rough cycle of ignorance is what it is. The article I'm including is on the effects of concentrated poverty in certain schools. I think it's important to look at the issues posed in all of these articles from an education perspective. Concentrated Poverty

Reflection on Delpit/Lake

 Hello! I'm doing a reflection this week...

A) The reflection this week is on "An Indian Father's Plea" by Robert Lake and Delpit's "The Silenced Dialogue"

B) Both of these readings really made me think about the current education system in my hometown. Throughout school I was always considered one of the "smart kids" (how completely stupid by the way, I basically would never get extra help in class because "oh his grades are good he's fine" but like I hate math and not getting some extra support made me almost fail my sophomore year but I digress...) so I never really truly saw the backhandedness of the education system from my own eyes. Rather, I saw it through my peers and family, most specifically my cousin. This mostly relates to "An Indian Father's Plea". In that article, Wind-Wolf was being subject to unfair treatment and sent into a special education class. His parents obviously knew he didn't belong there and didn't need it so they fought for him so he wouldn't be separated/"over helped". My cousin was subject to the issue of being "under helped". He is on the autism spectrum, and struggled to focus in class and get work done. He wasn't a great test taker either (but neither was I to be fair). He is able to read/write/and speak, and thus was put into general educated classes aside a majority of the student population. A lot of the classes he had to take were pushing on his range of comprehension/outside of his specific interests. My uncle/his father fought every year for the 12+ years he was in the school system to get extra help, and outside support, but he never really got as much help as he needed. He greatly would have benefitted from having an extra support system in his classes; an assistant teacher who would work 1 on 1 with him for instance. He needed that 1 on 1 support but basically never got it because, at least in my opinion, the school thought he was "good enough" to focus their resources elsewhere. I don't know how the school gets to determine when a kid is "good enough" when he clearly is struggling; his father was advocating for him for a reason, but that's beyond me. When he would advocate to his teachers on his own, they weren't very helpful either (which is a whole other issue on silenced dialogue, but I'm already writing too much). During covid, he worked side by side with my grandmother in order to actually get the work done while virtual and start to improve his grades. She was such a blessing because he got that one on one support from her, and the turn around was crazy. He even gained some more skills in his work ethic for when we eventually went back in person because someone sat down with him to learn those skills. Only when he had one of those assistants/ 1 on 1 workers in his actual classrooms was he actually heard/helped enough to better his grades while in-person and in the end, managed to graduate on time with me. But, this story really just goes to show how upside down and backwards some systems are in terms of distribution of resources and help to students who actually need it. 

C) In terms of my question to pose to the class: I wonder what can be done to fix this hierarchical nonsense to actually fix schools systems to make the students the priority not just in word/mantra but in active change?

Here is an article regarding 1:1 aides and their work with autistic students. 

How 1:1 Aides Can Support/Hinder Autistic Students

Argument Regarding Johnson

   Hey y'all; I'll be arguing about Johnson's point in the article...

    A. The author of the article was Alan Johnson. The title was "Privilege, Power, and Difference..." 

    B. The author Johnson argues that society has minimized the extent of damage caused by privilege, power, and differences through sugar coated language and sheer lack of willingness to make a change by majority groups. Johnson's most significant points come when he includes anecdotes about himself regarding power, bias, etc. He explains how he himself is privileged in the very beginning of the article, as he is white and male, establishing clear background for the reader before diving into his interpretation of our current society. He talks about his experience of speaking on oppression while being unable to use vital language such as oppression, power, racism, sexism, etc... and how that made it difficult to get his points across. Not being able to use the proper language when talking about these issues leads to the feeling of individuals speaking to a brick wall; hence why minority groups and those effected by oppression make such little progress on their own. By including these little story bites, the reader doesn't just hear a blanket rant, they can see the points he is making in an actual, real-life context. His main point in all of this is seemingly to show just how complacent society has become in these issues. 

    C. A point/question I'd like to pose is "What situations have you all gone through, that can shed some more light on the complacency of society in discussions on oppression?" Obviously this would only be for those comfortable with sharing, but I think it would be beneficial to hear stories from other students in classroom not only to connect with the article, but connect with each other.

Here's an article regarding complacency in oppression discussions. It connects to SCWAAMP in that it discusses specifically a "feminist" view of these conversations targeting societies "preference to maleness: 

The Pitfalls of Becoming a Complacent Ally

https://everydayfeminism.com/2015/01/complacent-ally-pitfalls/

(Incase the hyperlink doesn't work)

Introductions

Hello!

I'm Rey! I'm a secondary education history major, who is also hoping to pick up a minor in public history (museums, archives, historic houses and all that jazz). Over break I mostly hung out with my boyfriend.

We took this a day or two before he went back to college

I also worked...as one does. I'm a teacher assistant at a daycare, and I'm also a tour guide on campus.

A craft we made for Thanksgiving

A photo from me at open house

When I'm not in class/a favorite hobby of mine is theater! I was in the run crew for Bat Boy which happened at RIC in November, and I will actually be playing the character Lennox in Macbeth at the end of February!

A photo of me while backstage at Bat Boy!

That's all from me! I can't wait to get to know the rest of you...