Blog #10

 What stands out at meaningful

1. Class discussions- There were a bunch of classroom discussions that were impactful such as feedback from other students when someone was talking about how their service learning experience was going. I think the classroom discussions were important for us in order to hear other perspectives and for people to build on topics that other people brought up. 

2. Midterm letter- This is meaningful to me because in all my years of school I have never had a teacher assign his/her students to write a letter telling the teacher what they like and/or dislike about the course and their opinion on the teaching style. It made me feel like professor Bogad cares about how her class is constructed and wants everyone to be on the same page. To add, it made me feel like my opinion on the course, the assigned work, and how it was provided to us mattered. 

3. Introduction (moo-in)- The moo in at first I thought was a bit childish but then thinking about it, I believe it was a good way to get us talking in the morning and to feel more comfortable with each other. I think we all learned something from this about one another and it was a nice thing to hear every ones voice at the beginning of class as a sort of kick start to the class. 

Blog #8 Ending Ableism in Education

 Ending Ableism in Education

Thomas Hehir

Hyperlinks

To sum up the reading from Hehir, he talks about experiences that people have had to due with the reality and the views that people get from being/having a disabled child. People who are disabled or have disabled children are usually pitied in society. The expectations of people with disabilities are lowered and those people are held at a lower standard than students who do not have disabilities. Most often it is the case that disabled students are sent to alternative schools where they are supposed to be provided a better environment and this consists of grouping disabled children together. They do not get the same education as students who are not disabled and the bar for disabled children is set extremely low basically setting them up to not become successful as well as putting financial damage on the family. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gscAjUlKc7Y&ab_channel=TEDxTalks

This YouTube video of a physically disabled man touches on this matter. His quote at 5:26 reads, "Don't make decisions about students or individuals with disabilities without input from individuals with disabilities." In this case, instead of schools turning their heads to students with disabilities and refusing to give them the education that they may want, the student who has disabilities or the parents of the student should be the ones to make the choice if they want to be in an educational environment that provides the normal education and has the same standards for everyone. He goes on to say that students with disabilities are typically neglected and excluded from certain education. The point he is trying to get across is that we, as a society should normalize the idea and concept of disability in society. Students with disabilities should be included instead of excluded. Disabled students typically get a  stereotype that they cannot be successful, which is not true in every case. Teachers, administrators, and even parents, need to see that the decisions being made about disabled students can and do harm them and can have a negative effect on their future. 

Blog #7 Aria

 Aria - Richard Rodriguez 

Argument

The author of this writing is sharing his experience trying to learn English in order to be able to speak it at school while living in a house that speaks Spanish only. Richard writes about being shy and how it was frustrating to have to have speak two languages. He considered Spanish to be his private language and considered languages like English and French to be a public language. Richard first questions why cant other students learn another language instead of him trying to learn and speak another language. He says that it would be a pleasure for his teachers to one day greet him and speak to him in Spanish. The reason that he was pushed to learn English was so he would be more understood in class and could participate more. While learning English he realizes that there are essentially two different worlds when it comes to the topic of learning another language other than what is spoken in your house. There is a language at school that you must learn, which would be more of a formal and structural approach, and then there is language at home, in this case would be Spanish and not as structured as a school setting. Richard eventually begins to start speaking English then notices that conversation between him and is parents is beginning to diminish. He realized that the more he spoke English, the more disconnected he was from his home values and family. Richard is saying that when you force someone to learn a different language than what is spoken at their own home, it starts to tear at the relationships inside that home, because it is not possible to collide parts of your private language to your public language.

https://youtu.be/6ETgSEj-hEI?si=kbp0Hvqv6seMeoCc 

 

Video Analysis

 

Blog #5

 Still Separate, Still Unequal (NY Times)

-A lot of school are still unequal although racial segregation in public education have been illegal for 65 years

-According to a recent Times article, “More than half of the nation’s schoolchildren are in racially concentrated districts, where over 75 percent of students are either white or nonwhite.”

-It is often found that schools are segregating students between white students and students of color

-Students do learn about segregation as a past part of history but schools are largely neglecting to teach them about the current status of segregation that is happening today

-A large sum of research shows that integration is an effective tool we have for achieving racial equity

-(segregation)On a map showing where segregation is low and high is shown in the article and it appears that starting from Maryland and going down south as well as Nevada and California there is a high level of segregation between black and white students

-(opportunity)When talking about opportunity and students being placed in higher advanced classes, from Virginia and down south from Virginia, including some of Texas, white students have better opportunities than black students 

-(achievement gap) There is a huge problem in the eastern southern states when it comes to black students falling behind in classes compared to white students starting from Maryland and working down towards the rest of the eastern southern states

-(discipline) Looking at the map, it is evident that students of color are more likely to face discipline in their schools compared to white students which covers the majority of the United States, unlike some other categories which are certain parts of the region/specific states 

-(segregation)When it comes to Hispanic students, states where you will find more medium-high uneven distribution between hispanic and white students are the eastern southern states, Maryland, scattered parts of Texas, California, Nevada, Utah, Southern Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico

-(achievement gap) For hispanics, the problem of grade gap is highest in states such as Arizona, Utah, Colorado, California and Nevada, North Carolina and Maryland

-(discipline) States such as Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania seem to be more likely to discipline hispanic students more than white students

-(opportunity)  Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina and Texas are the states where you will see that white children are placed in more advanced classes than hispanic students

-One reason for segregation in public education systems can be from the amount of money they receive in funding. Schools that consist of predominantly students of color received $23 billion less than mostly white school districts in 2016

-A way mentioned to get schools to be better for children is to take the state to court

-Some parents and students are finding that some children are more comfortable and prefer segregated schools when it comes to black children. Some parents like the idea of sending their black children to an all-black school instead of an integrated school 

I think that students and others should know that segregation is still alive today in schools. Although it is illegal for public education to be segregated, there are still things that get in the way of integration. all throughout the United States there are equality issues within the disciplinary parts of schools, opportunity issues for black and hispanic students compared to white students, and the achievement gap in education (black and Hispanic children falling behind in grades). The text focuses on what issues come with segregation in schools but what could be a shock to some people is that some black students prefer to be in an all-black school for a variety of reasons. A big issue that I found while reading the article was that students today do not learn about how segregation is still alive because in school it is not talked about as a present problem, but it is brushed over as a past problem of history. I believe it should be talked about and taught more in schools today. 

Blog #4

 Intersectionality (Crenshaw)

Hyperlink 

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/01/company-diversity-efforts-to-support-black-women-fall-short.html 

The text from Crenshaw explains that black woman specifically face an extreme measure of bias in not just the workplace but different areas of life compared to all other genders and race. Crenshaw came up with a word which references black women being both racial and gender discrimination. That word would be intersectionality. The word intersect in the name refers to the intersection of being discriminated against for more than one thing, but is a common word relating to race and your gender, but as the word progressed and became more popular, it now goes further can just race and gender. The past event that Crenshaw uses as an example of intersectionality is when General Motors was sued for giving men all the same jobs (any race of men) and giving other jobs to specifically white woman and men of any race. It was clear that black woman were victims to intersectionality therefore not being able to keep their jobs or simply not getting hired for a certain position. The CNBC article link I have attached connect to the piece written by Crenshaw. It mentions how there is an uprising problem occurring in workplaces dealing with intersectionality is a real issue and black women are the ones dealing with it the most. "Women in the workplace have been very vocal about the inequities and discrimination they face on the job, from gender pay gaps to a lack of child-care support. Black women in particular experience specific challenges at the intersection of racial and gender discrimination." The CNBC article mentions that workplaces are not coming up with solutions to help those that fall victim to intersectionality because they do not believe it is necessary since nothing is being done about it, and a prime example of this is the court dismissing the lawsuit against General Motors because they did not believe that woman should be able to combine their gender and race under one discrimination type. 

Blog #3.5

 Alfie Kohn and Introduction to Culturally Relevant Pedagogy video

Quotes:

1. "Culture can be grouped into two different categories, visible culture and non-visible culture or tangible and intangible...but I think the more important are the intangible, and these are values, beliefs, feelings, opinions, perspectives, assumptions." (0:41-1:07) 

The woman in the Culturally Relevant Pedagogy video is expressing that the intangibles we gather from cultural pedagogy are more important for the future of children than the tangible things that education brings which she mentions include arts, the technology, crafts and music

2. Good signs of furniture in a classroom can include "Chairs around tables to facilitate interaction, comfortable areas for learning, including multiple activity centers, and open space for gathering." 

These are all great signs of what you should see when you go into classrooms for younger children. I have experience with all of these things listed going back to when I was in second grade. These are just the little things that can make the children feel welcomed and comfortable when they enter the classroom. 

3. "Culturally responsive teaching then says that rather than always insisting that the students adapt to the culture of the school, the school needs to adapt and modify some of its sending messages - its sending mechanisms." (2:44-2:55)

This quote from the video is stating that the way the cultural pedagogy used to be is for the children to try to learn and adapt to the culture of the school and the way things are being taught. But instead, now it is a bit different with now the cultural pedagogy being that maybe teachers and the school board should be the ones trying to find out ways to become more familiar with the child's culture.