Rodriguez: Sacrificing private identity for public identity- Revisited

            The main Idea from Rodriguez's piece Aria, is summed up by his quote, "Children lose a degree of individuality assimilated into public society"(38), as this piece is about a boy who had to reform to the American way by speaking English. He had lost connection with his culture and more importantly family. The quotes that I felt were the most important were the ones that show the importance of family life and school life and how they should to an extent be separated, as the quotes I looked at show how the "Familiar setting of home" had changed which is sad.

 

"From the doorway of another room, spying the visitors, I noted the incongruity-the clash of two worlds, the faces and voices of school intruding upon the familiar setting of home" (35)

 

"The special feeling of closeness at home was diminished by then. Gone was the desperate, urgent, intense feeling of being home; rare was the experience of feeling myself individualized by family intimates. We remained a loving family, but one greatly changed. No longer so close; no longer bound tight by the pleasing and troubling knowledge of our public separateness" (36)

 

"My mother! My father! After English became my primary language, I no longer knew what words to use in addressing my parents. The old Spanish words(those tender accents of sound) I had used earlier-mama and papa-I couldn't use any more. They would have been too painful reminders of how much had changed my life" (37)

 

"But my father was not shy. I realized, when I'd watch him speaking Spanish with relatives. Using Spanish, he was quickly effusive. Especially when talking with other men, his voice would spark, flicker, flare alive with sounds. In Spanish, he expressed ideas and feelings he rarely revealed in English. With firm Spanish sounds, he conveyed confidence and authority English would never allow him" (37-38)

 

"I would have been happier about my public success had I not sometimes recalled what it had been like earlier, when my family had conveyed its intimacy through a set of conveniently private sounds" (38)

 

Coming from other students blogs in the class that helped me find the main idea of this article:

 

1.) From Erika's

 blog, I really liked  her Connection she used;

I remember on my first day of first grade, I was seated next to an unfamiliar face. I looked at the boy's name tag on his desk and saw that his name was Achille. As I tried to speak to him and get to know him better, I realized that he became overwhelmed and began to cry. I later in the day found out that he was a new student from France and that he knew no English. As the year went on, he became more familiar with the English language, he accounted it to the fact that his parents also made an effort to speak English at home. Within a couple years of being at our school he became fluent in English and even admitted to not remembering a lot of French. It was apparent, that that much like Rodriguez that even though he knew that he needed to speak English to be successful in America, he passionately missed his French roots.

 

 

2.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=zbcRQYMRqD0

 (Karissa's Blog )

 

3.)  "bilingual educators say that children lose a degree of 'individuality' by becoming assimilated into public society. But the bilinguists simplisticlaly scorn the value and necessity of assmilation. They do that seem to realize that there are two ways a person is individualized. So they do that realize that while one suffers a diminished sense of private individuality by becoming assimilated into public society, such assimilation makes possible the achievement of public individuality." (Rodriguez, 39)
(Lindsey's Blog )

 

4.)  "Without question, it would have pleased me to hear my teachers address me in Spanish when I entered the classroom. I would have felt much less afraid. I would have trusted them and responded with ease."(34) (Anthony's Blog )

 

5.) "Those gringo sounds they uttered startled me. Pushed me away. In that moment of trivial misunderstanding and profound insight, I felt my throat twisted by unsounded grief”. (35) (Gianna's blog )

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In The Service of What? The Politics of Service Learning, Joseph Kahne and Joel Westheimer- Reflection

         

    This weeks reading, “In the Service of What? The Politics of Service Learning” by Joseph Kahne and Joel Westheimer looked at the benefits and affects the service learning projects have on a society and how important it is for students to get an opportunity to experience service learning, which I completely agree with. Service learning gives you a whole new outlook and breaks down the perceived stereotypes that are initially there.   Here is a list of some great service project ideas created by educators. This list varies from working with animals, to helping the environment to tutoring children and working with people of a different race and poverty (Which is the focus of our own service learning project for this class). This list shows there is something for any student to do and they have options!

                When I was in ninth grade a requirement was a community service learning project. I chose to volunteer at a soup kitchen once a week.  I remember being super into it and I wasn’t just doing it for a grade after as I continued doing it until Junior year. I feel like I learned  a lot about who I was helping as I got to know some of the regulars who would go every time this meal was offered.  

                This weeks article had an example of Middle School Class Service Learning Project where they volunteered at a school in a “poor neighborhood”. I am curious as to what type of neighborhood these students were working at. Is it like the neighborhoods we see from our service learning projects or  could it have been to the extreme as to the neighborhoods that Jonathan Kozol has described which is how the kids made it seem when they said, they were expecting the worse, “horrifying children running around on a dirty campus." They had expected them to be "rude, tough, noisy, and very unfriendly," and they even thought they would be "mean, gang-related blacks". What is worse is they got these ideas from their parents. Although their parents played a big role in their thoughts I bet the media did too because that is where the stereotype comes from these days. Last weeks reading proved that Disney cartoons even had these messages so even at a young age they get that idea in their head. After the visit the middle school students were shocked how well behaved and friendly  which is one of the over all goals for any service learning project. In the end you break down those stereotypes that have been put on them! 

Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us, Linda Christensen-Hyperlinks

Linda Christensen's "Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us" article focuses on today's society and how children aren't getting the right messages from cartoons. Christensen claims that Disney shows many stereotypes including ethnicity, race, gender and image especially with Disney Princesses. 

In one time or another every little girl has wished to be a Disney Princess but these are the messages that little kids are getting from Disney Princessess and even Prince's! This article starts out by saying, "I was nourished on the milk of American Culture" Which made me think back to S.C.W.A.A.M.P and these princesses in the image above focus on the pretty and white categories that the little kids want and have. Yes there are Disney Princesses but like the article said those are newer ones. The princesses in the image above are the older ones and the classic Disney princesses who are still around today. I think that it's interesting that Christensen's student makes the connection after that, "Women who aren't white begin to feel left out and ugly because they never get to play the princess".

"If you ever wonder why disney tales all end in lies" This gives you a whole different look on Disney movies and makes you realize it isn't really a happy ending. It makes me question should Disney send out these messages to kids instead of the the messages in the pictures posted above?  

An issue I had with this article, and in order to get a man you need to be pretty and skinny. Just recently Frozen came out where you see the message that no man needed to save them. Although most disney Princesses send the message that getting a Prince is the goal, this video shows us "you don't need a man" 

 But today girls still think they need to find that man, here is an article I found on traits women look for in a man. Even though they know Prince Charming Doesn't exist they still have a little bit of hope!

Gerri August,Safe places-reflection

 More so then the other articles we have read thus far into class, this weeks article really exposed me to a new perspective, as the topic of the LGBT community is something that people try to avoid talking about especially in the school setting. I remember the first time I was exposed to a gay couple was when I was in high school and these two girls were kissing in the hall. I remember staring out of curiosity because it was something I wasn’t exposed to before. I found this article really interesting and it gave a powerful message on why we need to integrate LGBT into society.

To help break down the article I used the reflection questions and thought about experiences in my own life and other articles that we have looked at. So for this weeks blog post I thought I would share some of my answers to the reflection questions.

1.)  What messages did you receive about the LGBT community when you were in school? Which messages were explicit, which were implied?

We talked a lot about privilege in class, and one of the privileges that gives you all the power is being heterosexual, so that is the “norm”. This goes back to SCWAAMP. I think teachers just assume that everyone is straight and they try and avoid talking about same sex couples. Until reading this article it didn’t come to my mind just how unrecognized the LGBT community was. One of the after school clubs at my high school was LGBT, but it was barley recognized. In the morning announcements, there would be updates for every other club but never anything about the LGBT club. It also never got a page in the high school year book. Although there was a club for the LGBT community it went unrecognized by everyone else. Like in the article how students had to hide their sexuality from their professors.

2.)  As an educator, can you identify opportunities to incorporate LGBT voices into your curriculum? What would you need to take this step?

This article, as well as the Aria article showed me how teachers play a big role in influencing students about their choices. It was shown in the Aria article when his teacher came to his house to tell his parents him to speak English and then again shown in this article when a Spanish professor marked an answer wrong because it wasn’t masculine form and also the professor who ignored a student. Do educators have the right to ignore them, do you think they even know they are doing it? I don’t like how these students are getting bullied by their peers and in a way their teachers too.  My friend showed me about this article here which was about a teacher who told a student who was being bullied to “act less gay”. This made me mad as a future intended educator! As an educator I definatley want to incorporate LGBT voices. I liked the ideas the article gave about using different books and as a teacher I would talk about it positively! Especially little kids they have questions about people with two moms or two dads and especially during this time it should be acceptable to bring up in class. I would use props, like the flag and talk about differences in people.