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. 

Blog #3

 Amazing Grace

Jonathan Kozol

Argument

The author of Amazing Grace, by Jonathan Kozol portrays the ugliness of reality that people living in the Mott Haven (South Bronx) part of New York go through. Kozol argues that the poor conditions these people live in are stemmed from systematic racism. Reasons for this can include unfair opportunities, bias, and unfair treatment. His point is that grouping extremely poor people together in the same community can result in drug addiction, lack of cleanliness, lack of providing for the youth, it opens children's eyes to things they should not see, and allows sicknesses such as AIDS to become uncontrollable in that area.  The main point is that these conditions are alive and well because of injustices and inequality. I would like to add that I undeniably agree with the author that it is not right that places such as Mott Haven exist because it is not just bad for the people living in that environment but it is also bad for people that are closely related to that environment as well as the state. 

  

Blog #2 - Lisa Delpit: The Silenced Dialogue

 The Silenced Dialogue 

Lisa Delpit 

Reflection/Personal Connection

Reading through this, I made multiple connections and relations to several points of the five aspects of power. I took and extra dive into the five aspects because I did not fully understand some of them the first time reading. I believe some of the wording as well as explanations can be a little confusing so I read carefully and rephrased some of them so they are more understanding to me personally. The first aspect being a basic type of power which is teacher over students, the power that the authors of the textbooks have over what curriculums and information is provided to determine the view of the world presented to students, and the power the state of which you are in has on enforcing state laws that relate to school. I can reflect on this first aspect and I believe many others can as well because there have been times in the past that I have been in trouble and given a punishment by a teacher or have been verbally told my wrong doings. This is an example of the teacher being in a position that possesses more power than me and showcasing that for a reason. The second aspect is codes and rules for participating in power. When you go to school, you are participating in a culture of power, they have the power and say of what you can wear, what you can write about, what you can say and how interacting in that environment goes. My connection to this aspect is in the past wearing a shirt from the gun club my father is a member of to school and being told that I could not wear that shirt and if I refused then I would not be allowed back to class. The fourth aspect is if you are new to a culture of power then it is best if you are explicitly told the rules of that culture. For example, I have a friend that used to live in Silver Lake in Providence, I as a white person was not used to being around that many Hispanic people and Hispanic owned businesses, and I do not think that they were used to having a white kid being around them a bunch. My friend was friendly with most of them and whatnot so when I was with him they sort of accepted me but when I got to his house he said that I would meet a lot of people and that some of them usually do not get along with white people or they just do not care to be friendly. His advice to me was just be cool and do not try to be friends with everyone that you run in to because there is a chance that they might not want to be friendly with me. I was happy that he had given me that advice because he knows I was not familiar with that culture of power. 

One thing that I would comment on is that I do think that these five aspects of power are real and a lot of people can relate to all of these. I just thought that some of the authors explanations were a little confusing and that I did have to reread a couple of times to understand and take my time with it. I tried to put some of her writing in my own words to make it easier and I hope that my rephrasing related to the point of her aspects she wrote down.