FNED 346

"People-first"

Language

Phil:

"Do you understand what I am asking you to do?" Dr. Lesley Bogad

• As the educator one must make sure everyone understands what they are being asked to do.
• I have heard this all semester and will carry this with me throughout my career.

DIRECT SPEECH

The educator holds the power by using direct speech.

Direct speech: Using direct speech teaches the code of power in the school setting.

Direct speech also is effective in teaching children/students to use language in a direct way to convey what one is trying to say.

Using direct speech can also show power or gain power.

FNED 346

McIntosh

Tyler

Putting the dimension of privelage into discussions of gender race and sexuality

The End!

One of the kids in my class that is victiminize and he barley spoke any english. When he did it was broken and it was very hard to understand him because he only relaly new how to respond with one word. So i thik this automatically gives him a disadvatange to the class because there is nothing they do to help this kid. I mean the teacher always tries and helps him but he always gets frustrated and then gets mad at himself and talkes himself out of the lesson. So in the future I think this could lead to him not liking school and possibly not finishing school. I htink that this is one way that shows McIntoshs arguement.

Sexual Orientation

GLSEN

Collier

Phil

Wise

Lauren

Wise

• Racism is still very prominent today. How many times have you been in the mall and the security guards trail a group of young black/ Hispanic males or females and sometimes a mixed group of both? This scene is all too familiar to me.

• Even in my class room there are specs of racism here and there. As stated beforehand, there are no white students in my class. Two young boys had gotten into an altercation about one of the boys (who is black) had taken the other boy (who is Hispanic and Native American)’s pencil case. The boys whose case was stolen yelled out “You’re just like rest of the black people I know. You all have sticky fingers!” The teacher took both the boys into the hallway and later and explained dhow what both boys did was wrong and why it was wrong.

• Most people think that racism is purely white vs. black or white vs. Hispanic but the fact of the matter is that racism now is prominent through all nationalities. For such accusations to be said at such a young age does not stem from the classroom and are rooted at home. If a child at that age says such things to another child his age, his parents must make comments and instill those ideas inside their child’s head even though it may not be intentional.

Phil

Lauren

Kozol:

• My school placement is a not a place where Hispanic and black children are a minority. In my class, the teacher and I are the only white people in the room. This in and of itself is Kozol. Every teacher that I have seen in that school is either a white male but even more so tying in to Johnson is a female. When these children look at who is teaching them and who has a good life style with nice clothes and a new high-tech cell phone they see their white counterparts.

Anthony

Kozol:

Poverty and racism are about the institutional neglect and not individual choices

• In this reading I feel that it’s a product of your environment type setting, Kozol believes that due to the power set up, the poor people remain poor, and the rich remain richer. That people who are poor only have a limited amount of options and the rich have unlimited. In my service learning I realized that some of these kids actually believe that, some of the students when I asked what they would like to do when they grow up or what they see themselves doing, none of them really had any crazy dreams, a few of the kids said they would be music artist or construction workers, or own a business. None of the kids had real dreams outside of the box like become a doctor, a lawyer, a politican, a professional athlete. I feel that some of the kids at such a young age already realize due to society that they may only be able to go so far in life. This is what Kozol is talking about and its unfortunate because the kids can do whatever they want.

• A specific example of a Kozol event would be when a student in the class crumpled up his paper packed his backpack and put his head down on the desk. It was not the end of the day where everyone was packing up, it was directly after I had passed out the worksheet for them to learn how to search the dictionary using the guide words. I went to him and asked him what was going on and his reply was

“It’s stupid. No one in my family graduated and neither will I so it’s stupid for me to even try. It’s not like I’m ever going to get out of here anyways so what’s the point?”

• This reply was shocking to me. With this type of frame work, if this child is not helped, he will fall victim to that mindset. Mind you, he is a young black male. He has three older siblings and both his parents living with him. That same week I went back to the school, and the student had a burn from a cigarette lighter in his forehead.

Kozol

Kliewer

Phil

In my class i have two student whom are labeled as disabled.

One is hearing impaired and the other has one arm. My first

thought was man this is going to be tough. The fact that

these two are in the class room with thier peers is the

reason why we as the educators did not have to adapt any

lesson for the students that are "disabled." Even in the

Pysical Ed environment these two not only hung in, they

excelled in areas. I don't think this would be possilbe if they

were not included into the "normal" classroom setting.

"Competition is the means by which to succeed"

Tyler

Rodriguez- argues that teachers should embrace the students first culture, not act like everybody is the same.

The teacher has a tendency to act like all the students were all fluent in enligsh, when a lot of them had broken accents .

• The students thats couldnt speak well never really spoke up in class or raised their hand or anything. It was alwyas the same kids raising their hands and answering questions because they all could speak prettty good first grad english.

• Another story is when i had my group that usually comes they all started speaking spanish and i had no idea none of them could even talk spanish and i asked them how come they never talked spanish in class? and they all siad they only talk spanish at home because they cannot talk it at school, ( i wasnt sure if it was cause the teacher was not spanish and the kids didnt feel comfortable, or they would get yelled at if they did.)

..

Rodriguez:

"Sacrificing private identity for public identity”

• When a persons home culture and school/work culture become different in order to please a certain party, whether it be your family or workplace. I feel that Rodriguez was was trying to make the point that sometimes people will adjust their lifestyles and who they are as people and culture in order to please other people and be able to fit into society and the lifestyle other people are living. He mentions that personal identity is more important than pleasing the people around you. Keeping true to yourself and your morals and values is far more important and you shouldn’t change that for someone else to fit into society. In my learning service project I noticed this with a Spanish student who talked fluently Spanish because sometimes he would speak it to his other Spanish friend when they were together, but whenever they were in a group of other students, they would never speak Spanish, they always talked English and I feel this is because they wanted to feel “normal” and fit in with everyone else and fit into society, they probably are mixing their language of English and Spanish back home with them and this can cause conflict in the family life.

Anthony

Rodriguez

Lauren

Delpit

• My teacher constantly uses the phrase “Because I’m the teacher and you’re the student” whenever a student challenges her authority. This rule and code of power teaches children to never question anything that a person in a position of power tells them. The classroom that I was assigned is set up in the traditional style of “banking education” where the teacher forces the information to the kids and they are then forced to spit it back out on to a test. Delpit argues that this style of teaching is most effective and that there should be a chain of command in the classroom and in society in general.

The student who challenges her on a constant basis is an 11 year old Hispanic male. He spends most of the class ignoring directions and aggravating the teacher until she eventually gives up or yells at him and forces him into a corner by himself looking away from the entire class. After the class had split up into our small groups to work on our reading comprehension, I ask the student what is going on to have him act out in this way.

His answer is most often times than not a lack of attention at home. Therefore forcing him to try to gain the attention the only way he knows how. If the chain of command was broken in the slightest bit by the teacher to break him down and ask a reason for his behavior, his acts of “disrespect” could be brought down to a minimal.

Anthony

Our Schools'...

Harry Kiriziran

• 44% Hispanic
• 36% African American
• 20% White

Phil

Broad Street Elementary

• 91% of students on subsidized lunch programs

• 61% Hispanic
• 23% White
• 13% African American
• 3% Asian

Tyler & Chris

Asa Messer Elementary School at Bridgham Street

• 89% Get free lunch
• 11% Do not get free lunch
• 65% Hispanic
• 21% African American
• 9% Asian
• 6% White

Lauren

George J West Elementary

• 82% Get free lunch
• 58% Hispanic
• 24% African American
• 14% White
• 3% Asian

Johnson

Johnson says that our world is based on gender, race and how privilege and power effect our society.

• A prime example of this is how every child in my class is used to having a white female teacher that teaches them the rules and codes of power, The areas they live in and what they see on a daily and nightly basis is unnerving. Also their mindset at only 11 years of age is astounding.

• When they look at all the people who are in charge of them they see white females. What does this teach them? It teaches them that only white upper/middle class females and some males make it far enough to go to college and then get a well paying job. They do not see any people that look like them in those types of jobs living in that lifestyle. I asked a student who happened to be half black half Puerto Rican what her mom and dad do for work, she responded with

" Well my mom doesn't work because she's only 25 and she has me and my two brothers. My dad works in a factory downtown moving boxes."

I then asked her do you have cell phones or cable TV? She answered no to the first question and yes to the second. After this I asked what kind of car her father drives and she said an old beat up piece of crap.

This example shows that black and Hispanic families in this neighborhood do not live the life style as most white families in western Cranston do. If this mold is never broken and the rules and codes of power that Delpit talks about are never broken, the cycle will never end and white supremacy will continue as well as the gap between the impoverished and the middle and upper classes.

Social Class

Gender

Phil

Gender

• Teachers line up students in boy/girl lines
• There are two class helpers whom are both white males
• Males are called on in class more often than females
• In P.E. males are asked to demonstrate activities/objectives more often than thier female peers

Lauren

Tyler

• The students eat breakfast and then each day a boy went around with a trash bag and collected the trash at each table.

• A boy might ask to go to the bnathrrom and the teacher will say no then 2 minuites later a girl would ask and she could go then she'd tell the boy to wait for the girl to come back

“We must learn to say the words”

To me the Allan Johnson article relates to, that we as people we're all different but the same in some ways.

• We come from different backgrounds, gender, race etc but we all pretty much have a common same goal, good health, family, happiness and fortunate in my mind.
• We as society can only change so much, some things are set in stone unfortunately. For example, it seems that people in poverty, will be looked upon as people with no education, and no steady job and that’s just the way it is unfortunately.
• Whites tend to be looked upon as more wealthier and educated compared to Spanish or African Americans and that’s just the way society has molded us. Talking about race
• Some of the students would say I’m Hispanic, I’m African, etc. and they would talk about where they’re families are from. The students never really got upset over it was just a “well my culture is this way and yours is different” type deal.
• Gender: The boys would often argue with the girls over gender, the boys would say how much more important they are in the world and how much better they are and the girls would go back and forth like cats and dogs over gender.
• I have seen all the kids from different backgrounds and ethics and it all seemed that they all wanted a few common goals in the classroom and life, the common goal I thought was to do good and get the answers right, no matter what color or race/gender the child was, they all wanted to do good on the tests and get all the answers right when the teacher called on them. This relates to Johnson because from what I got out of the reading is that were all different but at the same time were all the same to some extend. Whenever, the teacher asked a question on a test all the students wanted to get the right answer, a mutual goal.

Chris

Anthony