kozol chapter 9

Johnson explains that there are many things that we can do to change privilege. As he explains in this chapter he believes that changing privilege is a process and it will not be changed in his lifetime or more lifetime. On page 129 Johnson was talking about male privilege and he says the only way to change male privilege is "bit by bit, moment by moment." Johnson explains that in order for us to see ourselves as part of the change we can not use the human life span as a significant standard to measure process. Johnson says how male privilege has been around for seven thousand years and white privilege has been around for hundreds of years. Privilege can not be erased in a single life span; it is a process and it takes time. What I did really like about this chapter is that Johnson gave us many ways in which we can change privilege. The example that I liked the most is the one that is on the bottom of page 151 which says one way we can change privilege is by speaking out. Johnson explains how speaking out is risky because receiving privilege depends on being accepted by other members of the privileged group. It is funny that he mentioned this because something like this happened to me at work this weekend. I work at a banquet restaurant and this weekend there was a party and the majority of the people were gay. Some of the other workers were making jokes and saying how they hate gay people. Normally I would be quiet and not say anything to fit into the norm, but on this particular night I did not. I was not laughing and I asked them what is the big deal if they are gay or not. When I said this they stopped making fun of them, but only for a short time. Like Johnson says bit by bit and I hope that I had made a little bit of a difference by speaking out for gay people.

talking points #9 on Orenstein

Premise:

• gender
• equity
• teaching
• sexual harassment
• hidden curriculum
• dominant sex
• sexist
• stereotypes
• school

Argument:

Orenstein argues that men are the dominant sex and the curriculum in school only focus on men as heroes. Orenstein believes that that the curriculum should accommodate both males and females because women are are people too. Also she says that boys are resistant to studying women. Finally she argues that kids learns from the hidden curriculum and it teaches girls how to act.

Evidence:

1. "It disturbed me that although girls were willing to see men as heroes, none of those boys could see women that way." This shows how boys are resistant to studying girls.
2. "Because I include women, I'm seen as extreme. If I took those lessons out and concentrated only as men's experience for a whole year that would be normal." This shows how men are the dominant culture and to focus a class on women is extreme.
3. "She began requiring two reports,, one from the perspective of a man and one presented as a woman. This goes along with her argument saying that the curriculum should accommodate boys and girls.

Questions/comments/points to share:

I really liked this article because it was different than anything we read this semester. The teacher in this article is great and I love the way she teaches. For a project she makes every student do two reports; one from the perspective of a man and one presented as a woman. The reason I think that she is great because she is treating the boys and the girls equitable. The boys in her class thinks she is sexist, but she is not at all. We live in a male dominated culture and when Ms. Logan teaches about women being equitable to men people think that she is sexist.

Ms. Logan then talks about the hidden curriculum. I really liked this because no teacher wants to admit that there is a hidden curriculum. The reasons the boys in this article chose men as their heroes is because of the hidden curriculum. Like Ms. Logan says the hidden curriculum tells girls how to act and what not to do, to avoid being sexually harassed. I think what Ms. Logan is saying towards the end of the article is that the hidden curriculum oppresses women. It tells them how to act so they are not a threat to the men. I think that Ms. Logan is great and she has made me think much more highly of women.

talking points # 8 on Kliewer

Premise:

• citizenship


• school


• teachers


• down syndrome


• segregated


• "special ed"


• disabilities


• stereotypes


• individualism


• dominant culture


• community


• learning


• segregation


• uniqueness


• ineducable


• "normal"
• perceptions
• equality

Author's Argument:

Kliewer argues that children with disabilities can learn and that teachers must accommodate all children. There is community value in all children and we must get rid of segregated classes. Students with disabilities should be placed in the same classes as everyone else because each child contributes a unique value to the class.

Evidence:

1. Shane argued "that each student contributed a unique and potential valuable dimension to the web of relationships that formed a school community."
2. "The class would not be half what it is if any one of those kids got segregated." This quote shows that kids with disabilities are valuable in "normal" classes and how they should not be segregated.
3. "In classrooms that recognize all children as citizens, teachers and peers have rejected the image of community burden attached to Down syndrome."This quote shows that all children should be recognized as citizens.

Questions/Comments/Points to share:

I really liked this article because it mad a good argument to why children with disabilities should be accepted into the community. It also showed me that kids with disabilities are not burdens they are stimulates to the class. Even though the author makes a valid argument, I still do not know where I stand on this argument. Should kids with disabilities be segregated or mixed with mainstream students. In one sense I think they should because I believe in equal opportunity to every student. I think that all students are deserving of the same education. In another sense I say no because students with disabilities may distract the other kids in the class. I am not staying this to be disrespectful, I just think that they may be distracting students without them knowing it. As you can see I am in the middle on this issue and I do not know if they should have special-ed classes or not.

A quote form this article reminded me of the article written by Johnson. In this article there was a quote that say "Lee is, in a sense, in a way he's branded. People see him. They see Down Syndrome." In the second chapter of Johnson's book he talks about how people with disabilities are seen only for their disabilities. This is very true the person becomes the disability and nothing else. This is sad that people are only seen as deaf or crippled and not for their personality. When you talk about the person you say "yeah the deaf kid" or something like that. People do not even call them by their name, they call them by their disability. We need to become more sensitive and treat people with a little more kindness.

Movie "Brown eye's, Blue eye's"

The movie that we watched in class was very powerful and a showed me and all of the students in the movie how racism affects people of color. I think that the lady in the movie is a hero because she is trying to stop discrimination a little at a time. In the movie she shows how people of color are signaled out by making all of the students without brown eyes sit in the middle of the room while the students with the brown eyes are faced towards them. She treated the kids without brown eyes terrible because that is unfortunately how people of color are treated. The girl that left the seminar crying seen how people of color are treated on a daily basis, but she had the opportunity to leave. Jane Elliot explains how people of color do not have an opportunity to leave, they must stay and take the abuse. This is a very interesting style of teaching how racism and segregation affect people of color. It showed me how hard it is to be a person of color. I know if I was treated like the "blue eyes" were everyday I would think that I was inferior and would want to be more like the "brown eyes." Jane reiterated that whites are treated differently because of privilege and no matter what the "blue eyes" did they would not be seen as equal to the "brown eyes." The "blue eyes" were treated differently because they did not have brown eyes and that is the only reason why they were treated differently.

continuation on Lawrence

Tuesday's class was very helpful and I feel like I understand Lawrence much better now. I just want to talk about some things that we discussed in class. At first I thought Brown vs. Board of Education was a great thing, but now I can see that things have not changed much. Schools are still segregated, but schools are no longer segregated by law. We obviously have not come that far since the decision of Brown. Like you said in class not all schools are integrated. The school I go to, William D'abate it is made up of about 96% of students of color. Even in high school, the school was not integrated. At West Warwick high school the school was made up of about 95% white. Brown did not work because areas are segregated which makes the schools segregated. The only way for schools to become more integrated is for the areas in cities and towns to become more integrated.

talking points #7 on Lawrence

Premise:

• equality
• whites
• African American
• segregation
• children
• schooling
• racism
• inferior
• superior
• separate
• education
• desegregation
• unconstitutional
• oppression
• society
• power
• privilege
• self-interest
• discrimination
• Americans
• courts

Author's Argument:

Lawrence argues that Brown vs. Board of education was a failure and that the court's lack of recognizing the true nature of racial segregation was not intentional and the lack of recognition affects Blacks today. The Brown decision denies the reality of race in America and it did not do enough to make blacks feel equal.

Evidence:

1. "If the state discriminates by continuing to participate in labeling blacks "not fit to live with," it is surely beside the point that it is not an active participant in particular acts labeling Blacks not fit to go to school with." This shows how Blacks are inferior and shows how Brown did not recognize the true nature of segregation.
2. "Once it is understood that segregation achieves its purpose by labeling blacks as inferior, it becomes clear that segregation is firmly entrenched when the label of inferiority is reflected in societal attitudes; moreover, once the label is firmly affixed, it will not be removed or alleviated by a mere discontinuance of official name calling. " This shows how Brown's decision denied the reality of race and how it affects Blacks today.
3. "The real resistance to the true desegregation of society comes from fear of competition in a society where opportunities are limited." This is another example of how Brown did not recognize the true nature of racial segregation and how it has affected blacks today.

Questions/Comments/Points to share:

I really had a tough time understanding this article. I am not sure what I have written down is the author's argument because I was very confused reading this. I did understand that the author did not like the decision in Brown and I do see how the decision affects Blacks today. We leaned about Brown vs. Board of education in Political science and I thought that it was great how schools that were separate were no longer considered equal. Also, I thought it was great how schools had to be desegregated in the south, but this article shows some repercussions in the Brown decision.

There is a part in this aritcle that caught my attention. It said that "white high school dropouts have lower unemployment rates than black young people with some college education, or that the economic gap between Blacks and whites is widening, despite growing numbers of Blacks in higher education." This is very upseting because this shows me that blacks are seen as inferior even to this day. This shows me that racial segregation has affected blacks today and has made them seem inferior.

talking points #6 on Oakes

Premise:

• grouping
• tracking
• ability
• teachers
• stereotypes
• poor
• minorities
• students
• low-ability
• high-quality
• uneven opportunities
• success
• privilege
• achievement
• learning
• performance
• schooling

Author's Argument:

Oakes argues schools must get rid of grouping and all students must get the same high-quality education that is essential to success because it is not fair that some students get better educations than others.

Evidence:

1. "School professionals and parents oppose tracking because they believe it locks most students into classes where they are stereotyped as "less able" and where they have fewer opportunities to learn."
2. "Students who are placed in high-ability groups have access to far richer schooling experiences than other students."
3. Children in the low level classes are more often interrupted by problems and arguing while students in high level classes are more involved in their classwork.

Questions/comments/points to share:

I liked this article because it was so true. In high school I was in mostly honors classes and like Oakes said the students in these classes provide the best teachers, a concentration of the most successful students and may have smaller class sizes. In high school I had the best teachers and the majority of them were department heads and had been teaching for thirty years. The kids in my class were very smart and most of them were ranked in the top five percent in the class. The average size of the honors classes were about fifteen students. All of these factors contributed to me getting a better education.

On the other hand, I had friends in the "low-ability" classes and he explained the class to me as useless and crazy. He said that they really did not learn anything the whole year and the other students in the class were so ill behaved the teacher yelled at them the whole class. The reason why I did take the honors classes is to avoid these terrible classes. I do believe though if they got rid of honors classes and mixed the classes up every student would be able to get the same education. I believe that every student should get the same education and schools should get rid of tracking.