Literacy with an Attitude

Literacy with an Attitude
Patrick Finn

Reflection/ Quotes

This was probably one of the best readings we have done in this class.  Patrick Finn is such a great writer, and he goes so in depth in his work.  Patrick Finn writes about how children receive different education based on the social class that they are in or raised in.  Finn starts off in the Preface by saying..

"When rich children get empowering education nothing changes.  But when working-class children get empowering education you get literacy with an attitude." 

There are two types education:  empowering and domesticating education.  Empowering education "leads to powerful literacy, the kind of literacy that leads to positions of power and authority."  Domesticating education "leads to functional literacy, literacy that makes a person productive and dependable, but not troublesome."  Finn than goes on by describing the four different types of education and what each student is getting for education.  The four types of education are:  The working- class, the middle-class, the affluent professional, and the executive elite.  Each area learns and get taught a completely different way.  I feel as if each child in each type of school should be taught the same way and when they leave school, every child should have the same amount of knowledge as the other.

In the working- class, which are the "low ability students,"  they don't learn much.  The teachers barely want to be there and neither does the student.  Finn says, "In the working-class schools, knowledge was presented as fragmented fats isolated from wider bodies of meaning and from the lives and experience of the students."  Teachers are told by the principal,

 "Just do your best.  If they learn to add and subtract, that's a bonus.  If not, don't worry about it."  A teacher stated that the children where getting dumber every year.   

I believe that the working-class schools need extremely more work!  They need a better professional staff and a better school system in the first place.  These students are the ones that need it the most unlike the other students that get everything handed to them.  

In the middle-class schools there is kind of a better school system in place, but it could also need improvement.  Many students in the United States attend a middle-class school, but many town are pronounced as middle-class. Knowledge in these schools are

"'more conceptual' than in the working-class school.  It was less a matter of isolated facts and more a matter of gaining information and understanding from socially approved sources."

I went to a middle-class school, and it was what I see as normal.  Than I went to a poverty school, a working-class school, where you can see all of the difference.  My old school and this school where I do my Service Learning at is completely different and in one way I feel privileged because I was able to go to a school like that.  Yes, sometimes I wish I went to a different school, a better one with more money and high-tech technology; but I am glad that I went to the school that I did.

In affluent professional schools students set their goals to creativity and personal development.  Saint Johns is in Massachusetts, and I feel like that is what you call an affluent professional school.

"Teachers wanted students to think for themselves and to make sense of their own experience.  Discovery and experience were important."

I feel like many schools should have a mind-set like this, but in most cases this is not the matter.  Many schools revolve around the curriculum or what is placed in a textbook.  Many teachers don't let the students think outside the box and conceptualize the big picture in most cases.  Students at an affluent professional school would  ask "How should I do this?" and the teachers would answer with  "You decide" or "What makes sense to you?"  I feel like this is a better way for students to learn.  To really use what they know and apply it to everyday problems or use critical thinking to develop their answers.

The last kind of schooling was an executive elite school.  He writes:

"Knowledge in the executive elite school was academic, intellectual, and rigorous.  More was taught and more difficult concepts were taught.  Reasoning and problem solving were important.  The rationality and logic of mathematics were help up as the model for correct and ethical thinking." 

This kind of schooling I feel like is for the geniuses.  This schooling is ridiculous.  I would never want my kids to go here.  I like the mix between middle-class schools and affluent professional schools.  I feel as if a student could use what is being taught at a middle-class school and apply it with terms of an affluent professional school.  If they were combine both of the schools, that would be an ideal school for many students.  

Finn relates to Delpit's reading because it relates to Delpit's "Culture of Power."  A rich child is not going to go to a working-class school, and a poor child is not going to go to an elite school.  If a child was born and raised in a low poverty area, they are most likely going to go to a working-class school because their parents are not going to be able to afford a rich school.  AND a rich child will not go to a low poverty school because their parents will be able to afford a high end school.

Points to share:
What can we do to change this?  To change the fact that their are people "over" other people.  I feel like it will not change, ever.  There will always be the rich and always be the poor.  But is there a way to integrate the two types of people into one place?  It shouldn't be based on money.  And especially the teachers that teach at the lower schools, why do the teachers have to be "sucky"?  Why can't they be great teachers to help the students that are under privileged?

The Problem We Live In: Parts 1 &2

The Problems We Live In:
Parts one and two
By:  WBEZ

Connections/ Reflection 

Even though this reading was extremely long, it was a well- worthy read.  It touched upon parts that we have been discussing this whole semester.  The radio station relates to SCWAAMP.  White people have full advantage of school systems and of having a higher education.  Just by being black or Latino meant that you would have a lower education.

"... that black and Latino kids in segregated schools have the least qualified teachers, the least experienced teachers.  They also get the worst course offerings, the least access to AP and upper level courses, the worst facilities.  The other thing about most segregated black schools, Nikole says, is that they have high concentrations of children who grew up in poverty.  Those kids have greater educational needs.  They're more stressed out.  They have a bunch of disadvantages.  And when you put a lot of kids like that together in one classroom, studies show, it doesn't go well." 

Going along with SCWAAMP means being educated.  IF you are white, you are higher educated, but if you are black you are not well educated.  "Normandy School District:  Points for academic achievement in English, zero; math, zero; social studies, zero; science, zero, points for college placement, zero."  By being at lower poverty school, students are not accepting the need that they need to have a good education.  Just by being a person of color and living in this neighborhood, you don't have the opportunities to have a better life and you the higher up won't give you the opportunity that some of these students need.

This reading also goes along with Kristof's point of individual vs. institutions. Because of such bad school systems in the Normandy area, teachers did not care able the students.  All they cared about was the pay check that they'd get at the end of the week.  Teachers are supposed to be a second mother, someone who is going to be there when nobody else isn't.  "Mah'Ria usually brought home A's.  But when she got a C, Nedra asked the teacher why she had not been notified.  The teacher told her that she had too many kids in her class in call their parents."  The school and staff, the instituation, did not care about the students.  They didn't care that the students came from bad home lives, and the students aren't learning what they should be learning.

Personally, I feel like this is sad.  Especially because I want to be a teacher when I grow up.  I feel like the students that aren't getting what they should be getting for services should be able to.  They should be the first priority; they should be the students that the government should be focusing on, or even the district.  These students sometimes don't even graduate school, but when they do, it is a huge accomplishment. 

 Going along with all of our readings pretty much is that white people believe that they are higher then people of color.  White people are bias towards the people of color.

"... I want to k now where the metal detectors are going to be.  And I want to know where your drug-sniffing dogs are going to be... I deserve to not have to worry about my children getting stabbed, or taking a drug, or getting robbed because that's the issue." 

Why do white people have to be so critical.  Where I went to school, it was an all white school of middle-upper class students.  When I came to RIC, it was a completely different ball game!  My first class there was 15 people of color and 6 white people.  For me, I was stunned. But, now I understand it all; it doesn't worry me anymore.  Because I knew that going to this school it would be like that.  Some of my really good friends that I met at orientation and during my two semester here are people of color, and they are the nicest and kindest people I know.

It was said that people of color who go to a low poverty school and don't have the money to get out of the district will live and go to the low poverty school

During a court ruling, Hartford teachers "bad talked" their own district. "They described what it was like to teach a classroom of kids who came to school without coats in the winter.  They complained about instructional time lost because nearly every child in the class suffered severe emotional issues, or dental issues, or hadn't eaten.  They said their classrooms were overwhelmed by poverty."

The teachers notice the disadvantage these students have in this poor district.  It saddens me to even know that their are schools like this.  Schools are suppose to be safe and somewhere were everybody is welcomed.  

Herbert states, "... humiliating dancing around the perennially uncomfortable issue of race.  We pretend that no one's a racist anymore, but it's easier to talk about pornography in polite company than racial integration..."

Points to share/Questions:
Do you think that when we are teachers, there will still be issues in school about being a person of color?  Or being an middle class privileged child?  Do you think schools will improve before we are become teachers?  Or do you think they will get worse?

 

In the Service of What?

In the Service of What?
The Politics of Service Learning
By:  Joseph Kahne and Joel Westheimer

Extended Comments

For this week,  I have decide to do an extended comment blog on Kelsey Woods Blog.  I feel like she did a great job by pointing out two big impacted quotes.  I completely agree with Kelsey that it relates to Kristof's article and when Kristof talks about Rick Goff.

"... Educators and legislators alike maintain that service learning can improve the community and invigorate the classroom, providing educational experiences for students at all levels of schooling." 

 Students participating in a Service Learning Project can benefit from this experience tremendously.  Students that participate in this opportunity can benefit from it because these students are opening their eyes to different aspects that that probably never have.  Such as, "Mr. Johnson's class was able to pick where they wanted to do their service learning and be able to explore the different lifestyles than they are accustomed to" (Kelsey).  I can relate to this because especially during this class, FNED, I was able to experience teaching in a lower poverty school, which I never thought I would.

"... Promote students' self-esteem,...develop higher-order thinking skills, ... make use of multiple abilities, and ... provide authentic learning experiences."

I agree 100% with with this quote.  I feel like Service Learning Projects should be done in high schools, and also in colleges. I feel like these Service Learning Projects are a great opportunity for students to experience different areas that they have never done before.  For me especially, even though I have already worked in a school system and have put myself in front of other peers and have taught.  I still feel like the Service Learning Project that I am doing, I am opening my eyes to a new opportunity on how to teach different students that have a different life style than me.  A Service Learning Project should help students gain confidence and make sure that the student knows exactly what they want to do. 

When I was in high school, I had the opportunity to student teach for 2 hours every day.  During that experience, I knew that I wanted to be a Special Education Teacher, ABA, BCBA in an elementary school.  If I had never been able to do that experience, I would still be a freshman in school, not knowing what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.  

Points to Share:

There should be a way for students in high schools and colleges to be able to experience this opportunity.  It is a great way for students to get engaged with their community.  Even though it may be a pain to add another task to your to-do list, it is an amazing opportunity to help open your eyes and to help a student understand what they want to do in the future. 

Safe Spaces

Safe Spaces
Gerri August
Hyperlinks

Gerri August expresses his feelings about Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, and Transgender (LBGT) people and how they need to be accepted in school environments and also in the every day world.  August believes that people should be able to express themselves however they feel especially in schools. August states that school environments should be a safe place for students.  But, "the reality, of course, is much more complicated.  The walls are permeable:  students (and teachers) bring their personal experiences into the classroom and carry their classroom experiences with them when they leave" (83). 

Female transgender student suspended for using women’s bathroom 

"Central Piedmont Community College officials say they suspended Andraya Williams, 22, for not handing security officers her student identification and said she couldn't come back unless she used a gender-neutral bathroom." 

Andraya Williams was stopped by campus police when asked for her identification card.  The officer asked Andraya, while laughing, if she was a woman or man.   The officer called six backup officers to check the identification card.  Andraya claimed that she felt discriminated.  The next day she met with Mark Helms, the college Dean of Student Life who told her that she was suspended for not handing over the identification card to the officers when asked.  Williams tells WBTV-TV, "I'm not comfortable on that campus.  I don't feel like I'm safe from staff because nothing has been done about the situation." 

August claims in his article that all LGBT people should be accepted in and on school grounds.  It was clearly wrong that Williams was discriminated for being who she believes she is.  Nobody should be confronted by officials for being gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.  

 August points out the risks of making fun of or discriminating a person who is gay, lesbian, transgender, or bisexual.  August puts in his Introduction: "Aiyisha Hassan, Asher Brown, Seth Walsh, Raymond Chase, and Tyler Clementi are just a few of the LGBT youth who committed suicide in 2010... Youth who struggle with lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender identities, or who are bullied for the mere perception of being different, often feel as if they have nowhere to turn.  Death should never be an option."  Being LGBT should never have to commit suicide.

Risk Factors

(A website for helping students in classrooms and in school areas overcome the aspect of Bullying for LGBT students.)

Points to Share:

How can we help students overcome bullying?  This area is very close to my heart being three of my friends are LGBT, and it saddens me the things I hear people say to them/about them.  At first I didn't know who to react because I didn't want to be made fun of either.  But, after one year of gaining my confidence, I stuck up for them because they were to afraid to do it themselves.  

This reading relates to SCWAAMP and mostly all of the reading because of the power of culture and and the acceptance of societal normalities. 

Unlearning The Myths that Bind Us- Christensen

Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us
Linda Christensen
Reflection

Growing up as a kid I watched Disney movies everyday.  Growing up, your parents don't tell you that this movie is about racism and this movie is about sexism- obviously you watch the movie for entertainment.  Being 5, 6, 7 years old, all you want to do be like Cinderella or be like Barbie, but that never happens.  Children shoot for the stars to be like Disney princesses; they buy dresses to look like them and there are tiara's and heels that come in a package that the little girls buy.

But, have you ever noticed there has never been a Black princess before?  Has there ever been a person with cancer? No.  The Disney producers didn't make a Black princess until 2009  (The Princess and the Frog).  The first Princesses were all white, then came an Indian princess, Native American Princess, and then an Asian Princess.  Once people started to make a big deal out of the race of the princesses, the producers of Disney needed to come up with new princesses.

Cartoons:
Looney Tones- one of my favorite shows when I was a child.
     
 But after reading what Christensen piece said:

"Indians in 'Looney Tunes' are also depicted as inferior human beings.  These characters are stereotypical to the greatest degree, carrying tomahawks, painting their faces, and sending smoke signals as their only means of communication." 

People don't realize what the directors mean behind their characters.  Why did they make it this way?  All of the characters in pretty much every cartoon/ Disney movie is stereotyped.  All of the princesses are gorgeous and have a happy ending, the men in the Disney movies have huge muscles, the Spanish people are servants.  After realizing the stereotyped cartoons and movies I am disappointed of my childhood.  I grew up thinking that there was nothing wrong with non white princesses. [SCWAAMP- Whiteness & American-ness]

Points to Share in Class:
Did Disney producers do this on purpose or was it simply because of the way they portrayed all aspects of SCWAAMP?  Do you think there will ever be a princess with cancer?  Why are all the movies or cartoons stereotypical?

Aria

Aria
By: Richard Rodriguez
Reflection

February 16, 2016

Richard Rodriguez did a great job describing his life as a child.  He was definitely a man of difficulty living in a "white man's" world.  Rodriguez was a Hispanic boy who spoke Spanish as his first language.  He went to a Catholic School where he was required to learn English has his societal language.  He was at disadvantage being at this Catholic School because he was being taught in English where he didn't know a single English word. In today's world, ever cultural person who lives in the United States needs to be able to speak and understand English because even though that is not our country's primary language, white English speaking people take up a majority of the country.

Since the seventies, every school needs to teach a foreign language to help broaden the minds of the students.  Starting in Preschool, the teachers are required to intertwine Spanish into their curriculum because of the high population of Hispanics and Spanish speaking people.

For me, Every year since Preschool I was taught Spanish.  When I entered high school, Spanish wasn't a demand but every student needed to take it.  In my Spanish classrooms, it was strictly speaking Spanish- you were not allowed to speak any English.  It was hard for English speaking students to learn Spanish and get tested on it when there was not English being used.
^ Just like Richard who was Spanish speaking and needed to learn English.  It was hard for him to learn and understand English.  When the nuns went to Richard's home to speak to his parents, the parents went along with speaking English in their home.  But the result in the major life change was that Richard and his parents become distant towards each other.

This reading clearly relates to SCWAAMP.  It relates to American-ness, Whiteness, and Christianity- three aspects of Grinner's SCWAAMP.  American-ness because of the primary language of English; Whiteness because of the white nuns that are enforcing the rules and codes of power; Christianity because Richard went to a Catholic School.


Why did Richard go to a Catholic School, why couldn't he have gone to a public school?  Going to this English speaking Catholic School, Richard struggled tremendously due to the way that English was the primary language that all cultural students had to learn. If English is not spoken at home and there is no outside help, the Spanish speaking child that is trying to learn English will not have the full opportunity and support that they should have.
 

Questions/Comments/Points to share:
Even though English is not the primary language in the United States, everybody needs to learn how to speak, white, and understand English.  For English speaking people though, they need to learn Spanish because there has been a high population of Hispanic and Spanish speaking people in the United States over the past years.  But why?  If we were going to connect to SCWAAMP, why do white English people have to learn the minority language?

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

White Privilege:  Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
By:  Peggy McIntosh
Quotes

February 4, 2016

As Peggy McIntosh says, "I was taught to see racism only individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group."  Every child is taught about racism and what it means.  But, does a "white" parent teach their "white" child that we are a race also?  Many white people go unannounced as to where the racism is performed.  Many white people are the ones isolating black people or Spanish people out of areas where there is a high population of white people.  Why do we do this?

McIntosh talks about "white privilege" and the disturbance of it.  A lot of white people don't understand that white people have a say over black people or that white people have inevitable white power over other races.

"I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege... White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, code books, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks" (McIntosh). 

White people have privileges that are unacknowledged and in which white people do not know of.  If a white person was to speak at a conference in front of a minority of blacks; whatever the white person says will be more acknowledged than of what the black person announces.  White children are taught in school "that blacks are bad, Hispanics are dangerous." Well, the "white" teachers are who are enforcing this kind of behavior, and in result the white children will grow up thinking that "blacks are bad, Hispanics are dangerous."  

"If these things are true, this not such a free country; one's life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own" (McIntosh). 

White privilege is "valued" in the United States.  An everyday person can look around that see white people everywhere - earlier presidents, teachers, people of the government.  Many people believe that just because someone is black or of a different race it limits their opportunity in the world; yes, it is true in some cases- which is completely depressing.  Many children grow up in multicultural schools; and because of this the students who are of the minority feel like they are not as good as the "white privileged" children.  

"Many, perhaps most, of our white students in the United States think that racism doesn't affect them because they are not people of color, they do not see 'whiteness' as a racial identity" (McIntosh). 

White people are oblivious to their privileges that are unacknowledged. Such as: a white person can shop by themselves without feeling harassed, white people can find other people to help them through problems, white people have a better success rate in schools and in finding a job. Black people are likely to be questioned and/or have harder time in a "white man's" world.  

McIntosh and Grinner relate in many aspects of work.  Grinner talks about the "Whiteness" and how it is one symbol of the United States.  Some areas that go unannounced when it comes to whiteness are:  "nude" colored band aids, white wedding dresses, pure/good, the face of our leaders.  White privilege is throughout the whole country even if people do not recognize it.   In some ways whiteness seems more harsh than what most people would aspect.  

Questions/Comments/Points to share:

Can you think of ways whiteness is privileged in the United States or around this world?  Whiteness is sometimes taken for granted due to its beginning in the United States formed by the Founding Fathers.  Have you ever been part of a time where you felt like the "leader" because there were other races around you?  If children weren't taught in school to feel like white was better than every other race, the world would be completely different. Can you even imagine that?