Talking Points #6

A Particularly Cheap White Whine: Racism, Scholarships and the Manufacturing of White Victimhood." 

By: Tim Wise

Quote 1:
"Oh, and then there is this: in spite of the above-mentioned events, the President of the College Republicans at Boston University, announces that race-based scholarships for people of color are
the worst form of bigotry confronting America today," demonstrating the desperate need for BU to require a course in "Getting Some Perspective, 101," for all incoming first- year students" 

Comments #1: 
The events mentioned in the first paragraph are crazy and I don't know why all of a sudden race is a big issue. I agree with the fact that the race-based scholarships may make people feel less important or be a sense of prejudice towards them which is unfair. If there are race based scholarships for people of color then there should be race based scholarships for less fortunate whites as well. This relates to s.c.h.w.a.m.p because the white race is superior. 




Quote #2: 
"Fact is, there are plenty of scholarships that
have nothing to do with merit per se, but about which conservatives say nothing: scholarships for people who are left-handed, or kids whose parents sell Tupperware, or the children of horse-
breeders, or descendants of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, among many thousands of such awards (3). Apparently, it's OK to ensure opportunity for members of these groups, despite the fact that none of them have faced systemic oppression before, but it's the height of immorality to do the same for students of color, who have indeed faced explicitly racial obstacles in their lives. "This seems out of hang when comparing how much a family can cover of their school cost. I believe it should be somewhat equal because students who can afford school shouldn't be given scholarships based on random acts, instead that money should be given to students who can't afford any school and instead are working instead of attending school. I belive if the student is well qualified then they should be able to attend school and financially be assisted as well. 
Comments #2:

I think its crazy how they give scholarships for those type of children but they don't give opprutunities to children with nothing to offer or not a lot of money. Instead they would rather give scholarships to people who truely don't need them or are given them for strange reasons. They would be helping out students of color who have had a rough past and could in a sense give them a sense of belonging and offering them a scholarship because they truely need it.

Quote #3:

"On average, black student's families are only able to
cover about forty-two percent of the cost of college at the nation's most selective schools, while white families are able to cover, on average, roughly seventy-four percent of the total cost."

Comments  #3:

I find this shocking how black families are only able to cover 42 percent where white families cover 74. These numbers I believe should be about equal, where as they should try and give scholarships to students who actually need the help. I also believe that as stated above how they give scholarships for random things instead of actually giving them to the people who need them the most. 

Talking Points #5

The Politics of Service Learning 
Joseph Kahne and Joel Westheimer 


Quote 1:
"Educators and legislators alike maintain that service learning can improve the community and invigorate the classroom, providing rich educational experiences for students at all levels of schooling. Service learning makes students active participants in service projects that aim to respond to the needs of the community while furthering the academic goals of the students."

Comments: 
I believe this statement is true in the fact that not only am i helping the students at the elementary school with a new approach to learning they are also providing me with feedback and helping me with the learning process as well. I analyze and watch the children in the classroom and they have goals that they want to complete and when I work with them I also want them to do the best that they can. It helps the students and myself to learn different approaches to the situations and the things they are learning and will also help me in the future.

Quote 2: 
"Similarly, many contemporary scholars focus on change over charity and argue that the lack of connection between individual rights and communal obligations within our culture has left us with a bankrupt sense of citizenship. Like the programs Hanna criticized more than 50 years ago, many current service activities emphasize altruism and charity and fail to call into question current notions of individualism or to encourage the type of political participation that furthers democracy."

Comment:
I believe this to be false in the sense that when you believe you are doing "charity" work you are actually improving and changing an individuals life. When doing service activities it isn't considered charity you are helping the less fortunate and encouraging different behavior which wouldn't be a bankrupt sense of citizenship in fact it would be helping the community in an overall sense. They are teaching less fortunate others to think on their own and make decisions that they wouldn't normally make and it isn't charity if they enjoy doing and helping these others.

Quote 3: 
"Efforts to integrate service learning activities into the curriculum have great potential and deserve the support they are now receiving. To date, however, little attention has been given to sorting out the goals and motivations that underlie the spectrum of service learning projects emerging in schools throughout the country."

Comment: 
Without a doubt there should be more service learning activities in school curriculums. This is the first class that I have been asked to do a service learning project and already I see a different approach that I have to school and see different point of views on how i'd like to teach in the future. Maybe it's not the exact location or place that I want to be in the future but it gives me a sense of what I am getting myself into before starting the program.

Video about Stereotypes in Media

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nIXUjzyMe0

Talking Points #4

"Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us" 


Quote 1: 
"Both young women wanted the race of actors changed, but they didn't challenge the class or underlying gender inequities that also characterize the lives of cinderella, Ariel the mermaid, and Snow White. Kenya's and Sabrina's anger justified. There should be more women of color who play the leads in these white-on-white wedding cake tales."

Comment: 
I don't agree with this these cartoons came out a long time ago and are meant for the enjoyment by children and parents buy them for their children's enjoyment. While watching these shows the children aren't thinking about race of the ethnicity of the actors and cartoons they are just thinking about pure enjoyment. It is the people that worry about the culture that get wrapped up in all of the ethnicity and drama.

Quote 2:
"I start by showing students old cartoons because the stereotypes are so blatant. We look at the roles of women, men, people of color, and poor people play in the cartoons."

Comment:
There are significant stereotypes in the cartoons but do you really think that when students are watching the cartoons they put two and two together about what ethnicity and race are playing the lead cast, the baffoon, and the servants. I think this is more to adults who notice these problems with the cartoons but when children watch them they don't think anything of the stereotypes.

Quote 3:
"Many students don't want to believe that they have been manipulated by children's media or advertising.  No one wants to admit they have been "handled" by the media."

Comment:
People say they haven't been affected by the media or never listen to what the media has to say when it comes in from all angles. You get media from the television, radio, schools, and everywhere. There is media everywhere and everybody follows the media I know whenever I hear "everybody runs on dunkin" that I always want dunkin. Whenever you think media doesn't affect you it always will where you buy you food where you hand out, shop is all affected by the media and you don't even know it.

Talking Points #3

"Gayness, Multiculturalism, and Community"-Carlson


Quote 1:
"One thing we can conclude about they emerging shape of community in America is that because it is more fragmented, it is becoming more difficult to construct a "public" curriculum that has a broad-based support. This represents a problem for both democratic progressive and neoconservative or the new right forces."

Comment: 
Fragmented meaning that the country is separated broken off or detached into small groups makes it difficult to appeal to one group of people so there cannot be one curriculum that can support every community or group. Every community in America is different some by race, culture, and gender, or just simply by common interests that vary among states. With all of the social movements and changes it is every hard for there to be a strong democratic decision on a certain curriculum.

Quote 2: 
"But there are more specific cultural and historical linkages between identity as struggles as well. When we examine gayness, for example, we are inevitably drawn into examination of gender, and thus "maleness" and "femaleness" as well, for the historical treatment and representation of women and gays has been very similar in this culture and may be related to a common patriarchal worldview."

Comment: 
I believe this to not be true I don't believe that linkages between identity struggles come from historical linkages. I believe that identity struggles come from the world we live in today and everybody trying to conform to what everybody else is doing. The gayness of the world is just becoming more and more accepted and just recently there have been gay marriages allowed in some states this would have never been linked to history this most likely wouldn't have been accepted. Some people still don't accept this.

Quote 3: 
"Throughout much of this century, the dominant idea of community in America was represented by what I will call the normalizing community. Within normalizing communities, some individuals and subject positions get privileged and represented as "normal" which other individuals and subject positions are disempowered and represented as deviant."

Comment: 
I agree with this quote because it states how white, middle class, make, heterosexuals are privileged and considered normal and black, working class, female, and homosexuals are considered deviant. This is still true in some societies today when white people view another race they still think some of these things are normal and don't consider them equal to themselves. However, I don't consider myself different from anybody else except that I am considered part of the deviant group because I am a female.

Talking Points #2

"Why Can't She Remember That?"


Quote: 
"Through countless question-and-answer interactions with adults in which they are rewarded for answering correctly, young children come to feel and enormous sense of satisfaction and pride in knowing the right answer to the teacher's questions about the text. Book knowledge becomes, in essence, part of these children's sense of identity int he world."

Comment:
I strongly agree with this statement and agree that when children get questions right they are in fact satisfied with themselves and carry themselves better. If you reward children when they get the correct answer they have something to look forward too. This also goes hand in hand with when you get older and when you get something right you get rewarded with good grades and good salaries as well. When you get something wrong however you shouldn't get punished however just redirected.

Quote: 
"Despite such culturally influenced differences, however, the finding of this body of research clearly underscore the fact that children from every linguistic community learn to use language in ways that are highly complex and that provide a strong linguistic foundation for the teachers to build on in literacy instruction."

Comment: 
I also agree with this because there are teachers and students that if they cannot directly understand the linguistic community then they start to learn and comprehend what they are trying to say. They children also start off with their other language and that forms a solid background and the teachers use that to then branch off and teach them the new language. This tends to be a problem but can easily be fixed with the teachers help, however they take longer than most students.

"Aria" 


Quote: 
"Because I wrongly imagined that English was intrinsically a public language and Spanish an intrinsically private one, I easily noted the difference between classroom language and the language at home."

Comment:
This is something that I strongly agree with but didn't see much of growing up but can now see it in college and at the elementary school that I volunteer at. Some of the children speak spanish but are quickly switched back over to english by the teacher, this is right I believe for in the classroom they should be redirected instead of completely shut down. However, Spanish is most likely their primary language at home and their sense of communication with their parents.

Talking Points 1- Kozol Amazing Grace

1.) "The Number 6 train from Manhattan to the South Bronx makes nine stops in the 18-minute ride between East 59th Street and Brook Avenue. When you enter the train, you are in the seventh richest congressional district in the nation. When you leave you are in the poorest.....In 1991, the median household income of the area, according to the New York Times, was $7,600."

This whole first paragraph was tough to read because there is an 18 minute ride between these two areas, when they are in the same state and you can have that diverse amount of wealth distributed between one state. How the median household income could be as low at 7,600 dollars. This is probably families that need to support themselves and children and they are only making that amount of money. The 7th richest district in the nation and they cannot do anything to help out with the 18 minute distance of their fellow poor community.

2.) "Next to another vacant lot, where someone has dumped a heap of auto tires and some rusted auto parts he points to a hypodermic needle in the tangled grass and to the bright-colored caps of crack containers, then for no reason that I can discern, starts puffing up his cheeks and blowing out the air."

I believe that he was puffing up his cheeks and blowing out the air in distaste of what the world is coming turning to. How the poor community instead of reaching out for help is turning to these substances and other methods to cope with. In a vacant lot they are finding the needles in with old auto tires. This is out in the public for children to get ahold of. This is why there are problems in the poor area because this crack is available to anybody.


3.) "If poor people behaved rationally, says Lawrence Mead, a professor of political science at New York University, they would seldom be poor for long in the first place, many social scientists today appear to hold this point of view and argue that the largest portion of the suffering poor people undergo has to be blamed upon their own behaviors a word they tend to pluralize."

I believe this is true in some ways but if they were given the help they needed by some of the richer citizens they would be better off. Instead they downgrade themselves because they have nobody to turn to in some cases and instead of getting jobs and taking care of their children they resort to drugs and other things. If they made a case for themselves and stood up for themselves they would have a better stand on things instead of just letting all of this happen over their heads and do nothing about it.