Talking Post VII-Anita Hill Is A Boy by Peggy Orenstein

In Peggy Orenstien's story named "Anita Hill is a Boy" she tell us of a story about a 6th grade teacher by the name of Ms. Logan and how she wanted to make a difference in woman's lives about how they should be portrayed as themselves and as to men. She uses different examples to her studnets and makes them participate in various activities to try and show them what it's really like to be a woman and how they are treated. Another aspect they discussed that was important were the rules of sexual harassment. Ms. Logan's overall opinion was just to try and educate to ALL of her students the importance and equality of both men and women.


Examples from the story that I really enjoyed reading was when Ms. Logan asked the boys about how girls are portrayed. "It's like how boys are learn to see girls. Once you turn on MTV Spring Break and there's these stupid girls with huge breasts and the tiniest bathing suits dancing around like pieces of meat, and all these boys going crazy in the audience makes me feel totaly degraded." I think that some men in this country are very over obsessive when it comes to women and I think that they need to be more respectful around them and they are not just some trophy. They need to be treated just like men and like human beings.


Another example I found was when the students were talking about being comfortable in front of gay people or are men ok with gay, lesbian, bi's, etc. I think that whoever you are you should be comfortable with yourself. You shouldn't judge other people for what their sexual orientation is becuase it doesn't have any affect on you at all. They don't bother you so you shouldn't bother them. It's as simple as that.

I really did enjoy this article and I thought that Orenstien had some pretty intersting points to make. I think her argument is that women should never be judged for what they do. They need to be equally treated as they are to men.

Talking Points VI- Brown vs. Board of Education

I found this article very confusing for me. I think this because it got so into detail and big words that none of it was making real sense. I remember learning this in high school history during our civil war unit. The basic understanding of Brown vs. Board of Education is to try and integrate the school systems and not have them be segregated blacks from whites.

One example that I really liked was the part where the 7th grade teacher gave the same speech after an exam saying that they all had talent at "whatever whether it was woodworking, auto mechanics, there would always be a place for you in this society." I really liked this because that's how teacher's should have thought in that time. It doesn't matter the color that you are, you always have talent that will get you somewhere at some point in your life.

I also liked the example in 1954 we believed that we could integrate blacks and whites together by sports in Bear Bryant football team. Speaking of football that also reminded me of Remember the Titans and how the whites were forced to play with the blacks, learn to get to know each others names and about themselves. The point was that they needed to become family and they did. I believe that whites and whites don't need to work together to succeed which says that people of the same race and color don;t always work hand in hand. Sometimes it takes the opposite to work together and thats ok.

In the end I believe that the Brown vs. Board of Ed. has changed the way we think about segregation from then till now, however, there will always be racism and parts of segregation in this country. I know many people try to seek the good and not think this, but we live in a society where alot of people are greedy and all about themselves. With saying that, that can take affect how these certain people treat others regardless if your black, white, etc. We will always still have "one more river to cross" and fighting for segregation to be fully solved.

Talking Points V-"In the Service of What?"

In the article by Kahne and Westheimer I thought it was very hard to understand the argument they were trying to make, even after reading it twice over. I got out of the article that the more experiences you go through by doing service learning projects or community service the better off of a teacher you'll be to teach your future students. Having your students make them do community service in order to graduate is the best way to get kids out into the real world and have them face reality I think. As the students grow older they will be able to take initiative on their own and help out for a cause, charity, or whatever the community servuce might be.

For example, one of the teacher's Mr. Johnson, had his students do community service at a local senior center to help out with the elderly and one girl had so much fun that she had volunteered on her own to go and help out on Thanksgiving with her mother. Most studnets in high school don't do much anyways exept athletes who are always busy with sports. It helps with students who don't have much going on and are looking for things to do within their community.

I would definietly strive for my students to do community service and fully support the school that I'm in to go forth with it. I myself needed to do 25 hours of community service in order to graduate from my high school and at the same time add that too 25 more hours in order to make my confirmation. It definitely taught me to be more considerate for others and I think that in helping the community it makes you become a better person and people see you differently.

Talking Points IV- Christiansen

I believe that Christiansen's argument is that when we are teachers and we are in the classroom teaching, we tend to not teach "everything" the students need to know. We tend to hide them from the media and what other adults (mostly) say. That's what I think Christiansen means by the "secret education" In my opinion you can't keep important information about our society from our students. They're going to learn some day about sex, racism, etc. so why not teach them early? Don't be afraid to tell them becuase it's ok. Another point that Christainsen argues is that does society really show us how to live? Or does it not show us how to live and we figure out how we live on our own type of thing? There's something called in our history called the "melting pot" and immigration. People from Europe and other continents came over here to America to try and teach themselves and others how to live and that's how I think it is today and should be. We can't "accept" the way the world is portrayed like she said. We should live our own life yes,but also teaching one another things is important and there's always room for change.

I liked how she portrayed the "Black Cinderella" and showed her students what kind of society we live in. It really made them think when they had to write their own essay. It made them express their own feelings. One students said "I'm not taking my kid to any Disney movie unless they have a black woman playing the leading role." That goes to show the other students and the teacher in the class how they feel about racism and black people in our society. It's just not in Disney's Cinderella, mostly all of Walt Disney's movies were about racism as they were made in the 1940's-present.

Another example that Christiansen portrayed really well was having the students look at and depicture cartoons such as Daffy Duck and Elmer Fud. It tried to show that men were the dominant one more than women. We live in a society where we are all created equal. It's good to teach students that one doesn;t have more control over than the other one even if thy're female. We see that even women can be dominate sometimes. I know I have definitely seen it over the years.

To me, living in our society is all about learning for yourself, figuring things out on your own, and being independent. There's nothing wrong with needing help sometimes. If you fall down, pick yourself up, and dust yourself off. We shouldn;t live by the way society tells us to. We need to be our own person and we need to not keep "secret information" from our children.