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.

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.

Hello

Hello Dr. Bogad and classmates!


I'm Mike I'm from small town called Plainville, CT about 2 hours away from here. My major is Physical Education with a concentration in adaptive PE. I'm very athletic and like to play alot of sports, go to the gym, run, etc. My favorite sports are baseball and football. I'm looking forward to learning alot in this class about teaching in a democratic society! To everyone good luck this semester and have fun!