Talking Points III-Carlson

The article that I read by carlson about gayness, the community and culture of homosexuality really made me think about how the society reacts to this topic in today's world. Carlson shares with us about how gayness is represented in our culture and how we see a lot more of it in public schools. He also tells us stories about teachers, not just students, who are gay and their reactions to gay people.

For example, Carlson reports of a book, "Growing Up in the Gay South" was about a high school English teacher who was harassed becuase he was gay and of the way he taught. He reacted to the student by saying..."you know i just don;t know if they are mature enough for this..." I mean really if your in high school you must be 15-18 years old. It'se to act like an adult and not start laughing at someone or say stupid jokes because their not of the same sexual orientaion as you. I think that that showed immaturity by the student(s) and it's pretty aweful to make an english teacher feel that way.

As far as past experiences, I havent grown up around as many gay people when I was in elementary to even middle school. It was more or less towards high school that I started to see these changes in the way people acted. I will have to admit that yes I was the one to use the term "fag" all the time and I did use it in public when I shouldn;t have. Last semester in Human Sexuality I learned where that term came from and from then on I try really hard not to say it to people becuase the story hit me in a way that I realized a..."what was I thinking saying that word" type of thing. I learned that gay people or lesibian or both whichever you are, I've learned to accept they are as individuals and that they are just like straight people. They should be treated the same and given the same rights as well so that goes for marriage equality too.I think that is also what Carlson's trying to say as well as his main idea.

Talking Points II "Aria" by Richard Rodriguez

The article I read was from Richard Rodriguez explaining how hard it is to fit into a public society where you don't speak the language of others really well. Rodriguez's main language was Spanish and Spanish alone. Bilingualism isn't an easy task to do, but knowing that his main message to all the people was that throughout "learning the great lesson of school, he had a public identity." For example, in the article, teachers would distinctly pick on him and put him on the spot to speak in the language (English) that he's suppose to speak in this country. His reaction to that was embarrassing, diffident, and afraid. I would feel the same way if I was in his position as well. As he grew up, he became more involved with learning English since his siblings started to speak it. He became a much smarter person and could hear in on what people were saying throughout the locker room halls in their conversations. In addition to that he felt as though when he learned this language more and more his family bonding weakened. To me, a family doesn't need to break away from each other just because they're learning something that their not accustomed to.

I found the author's claims very convincing and one of them is public individuality vs. private individuality. Rodriguez says that "they don't seem to realize that there are two ways a person is individualized. So they do not realize that while one suffers a diminished sense of private individuality by becoming assimilated into public society, such assimilation makes possible the achievement of public individuality." (Rodriguez) I think that this argument can help other cultures out because by helping each other with getting to know a language or just a person in general their private language the public can learn and blend into the public for others to know as well. I like to call it immigration and the melting pot in the late 1800's to early 1900's.Yes were all different, but each of us can learn alot from the other.

That's how I also feel on public schools in America. These public schools need to encourage more cultures so that public vs. private individuality are not against one another. Kid's need to interact with other kid's to find out what each other is like and it's all part of growing up to me. Teacher's can spend time on this topic and even make it a Unit in history or whatever to teach. I think it's important to know where each one of us comes from.

Talking Points #1 Goldberg vs. Klozer

The first story I read which was called "110 People Who are Screwing Up America" was about kids not appreciating their heritage and where they came from and the schools they attended which made me really upset that as a citizen of America, you can't accept your heritage the way that it is. I do agree with the fact that Goldberg said most schools are breaking down in education for the kids becuase they are not interested in learning anymore and thats why many kids fail out of school or have trouble moving on in their lives as far as education.

The second story I read was one by Kozol called "Amazing Grace" which is about people who live between the South Bronx and Manhattan, NY who have very little in their lives. They are people who live horrible lives where they as well as other children are surrounded by violence, drugs, sex, etc. and anything else possible you could ever imagine.Is this the kind of world we want our kids to grow up in? Do we want them living and going to an education al school where teachers don;t care and students do drugs and are barely making it through school? Absolutely not and I think that these two stories have that in common. Kids don;t want to do well or have a lack in school because of their surroundings and the way they grew up. To me, we need to change that and get our public schools cleaned up more and back on track educationally.

All in all, they were great stories to read and they definitely caught my attention. It made me realize how important of where I grew up and the kids I grew up around are important to me becuase they've impacted my life by becoming a better person. By hanging out and growing up with the right kind of people is the best thing to me.