Brown v. Board of Education & Tim Wise

The Brown v. Board of Education and the time leading up to that decision was one of the most important times in our country. It put equality to education, one of the most valuable things in any persons life. But after the decision was made it took many years later until it was actually held in every city and state. But like it said on the Smithsonian website:

"Brown v. Board of Education did not by itself transform American society. Changing laws does not always change minds. But today, thanks in part to the victorious struggle in the Brown case, most Americans believe that a racially integrated, ethnically diverse educational system is a worthy goal, though they may disagree deeply about how to achieve it."

This quote really resonated with me because I feel it is so true. There are so many laws that are made and changing them doesn't mean that people will change there minds along with them. This is shown in the aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education when there were still many people in the country who believed that everything should be segregated - including schools.

I found the Tim Wise interview to be the most interesting, his idea of enlightened exceptionalism, or racism 2.0 intrigued me. This meant that people supported Obama because they viewed him as transcending race and that he was different from the "black or brown norm" - putting black or brown norm in a negative light and this is not really moving away from racism. Wise said that many people of color are just as bright and educated as Obama but with a different style. That people do not need to be just like Obama in order to be successful.

One of the things that Tim Wise said really affected me; he said that the "proof of racial equity will be the day that people of color can be as mediocre as white folks and still get hired." To me this quote was shocking because I never really saw racial equity as this. I thought things were equal if any person of race or color had the same school, job, or living opportunities. I never thought of it as racial equity was when anyone could be just as mediocre as the other - and this is so true. Until we can really prove that we have this in society we won't have reached anything.

The last thing that I found the most shocking from Tim Wise's interview was some of the stereotypes that 6/10 whites still (as of early 2000s) acknowledge and continue to make the stereotypes. They were: "1) Blacks are generally less intelligent, 2) Blacks are more aggressive and prone to criminality, 3) They are less patriotic, 4) They are less hardworking, 5) All blacks just want to live on welfare and not work." I found this the most shocking that people to this day still believe these stereotypes. After learning about this I feel like we really haven't made any progress at all over the years. It was very sad.

Condemnation for effigy of Obama at CF High School

This weekend I was watching the news and a report about this article came on. After looking up some more information about the issue I was shocked about the, in my opinion, ridiculousness of it. A teacher at Central Falls high school hung an Obama doll by its feet with a sign that said "Fire CF Teachers"(see article for a picture of the doll in the classroom). He said it was just there as a joke and in response to Obama's support of Supt. Gallo's plan to fire all faculty and staff at the high school at the end of the school year. Supt. Gallo called the State Police and with the Attorney General they decided that this was not a hate crime. It was shocking to me that it could have even been considered a hate crime and not as a political statement that to me it so obviously was. The local members of the NAACP are saying that this effigy represents the lynching of a black man and that this teacher was demeaning the president and he should be charged with a hate crime.

The thing that bothered me most about this article is that the sole reason people are up in arms about this effigy is solely because President Obama is African American and are making this into something bigger than it actually was. I am not saying that the teacher should have done this in his classroom and it was tasteless but if he had done this two years ago with a doll of President Bush I feel it wouldn't even have made the news. At the same time I'm not sure if I agree with the teacher pushing his feelings on his students, yes they are older and less impressionable but the teacher should have maybe gone about it in a different way. I feel this article is really important to all of our discussions in class because it revolves around education, a school where over 50% of the students are minorities, and what some may consider a race issue. But maybe I'm just biased on this issue since it took place in my hometown, what are your opinions? Do you think this was a hate crime? Was it wrong for the teacher to show his students his political feelings? Or do you think this was an acceptable display for high school students?

Click here for information about the firings of all the faculty and staff of Central Falls high school.

"In the Service of What? The Politics of Service Learning" - Kahne & Westheimer

In this article by Joseph Kahne and Joel Westheimer it discusses the different domains of service learning and the challenges for the participants and advocates. I found this article to be pretty interesting because I have been involved in community service since I was 9 years old and I think that service learning is very important for anyone to learn about. Here's a site that has some lesson plans to use when broaching service learning with students. Some quotes that were important to this article are...

1. "Those who focus primarily on charity believe that, to be properly educated in democracy, students must undergo experiences that demonstrate the value of altruism and the dangers of exclusive self-interest. They stress the importance of civic duty and the need for responsive citizens. Volunteerism and compassion for the less fortunate are the undergirding conceptions of political socialization associated with this vision." - Page 5

   This is under the political domain where service learning should be based on what it means to be a citizen. I really agree with this quote because I feel like in a perfect world everyone would hold these qualities. I don't necessarily agree that this has to be politically involved though.

2. "In the intellectual domain, a service learning curriculum can further a number of goals. The ability of a service learning curriculum to foster authentic, experience-based learning opportunities, to motivate students, to help students engage in higher-order thinking in contextually varied environments, and to promote interdisciplinary studies" - Page 6

   This helped show a different side towards service learning and it not only being based on emphasising the need to do community service for altrusitic reasons but for different learning opportunities. If students actually get involved and see the differences in the world out there it would make it easier for them to learn about it in the future.

3. "Moreover, it is important to acknowledge that the choice of service learning activities - like the choice of any curricular activity - has political dimensions. Currently, the most broadly supported (and therefore most politically tenable) goal for service learning activities is to convey to students the importance of charity." - Page 12

   Before reading this article if someone had asked me if service learning activities were political I would have said no, but after reading this and thinking about it a little I began to realize that it was true. The activities that you choose to do say something about you as a person and it can say something about your politics, whether it says it obviously or not. Right now charity is something that as a country we consider very important and things in our everyday life proves this. Telethons for Haiti, the Jimmy Fund, and many more.

Linda Christiansen - Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us"

1. "Children's cartoons, movies, and literature are perhaps the most influential genre 'read'. Young people, unprotected by any intellectual armor, hear or watch these stories again and again, often from the warmth of their mother's or father's lap. The messages, or 'secret education,' linked with the security of their homes, underscore the power these texts deliver. As Tatum's research suggests, the stereotypes and worldview embedded in the stories become accepted knowledge." - page 127

   I found this quote to be kind of shocking. Put in this way the idea of cartoons and etc being influential to young people can be reasoned to be true. Children may not consciously say to themselves, oh Cinderella told me that all girls want to get a husband but ugly girls will never get a husband, but when they think things like this it just may be an unconscious thought. The fact that these fictitious stories become accepted knowledge is pretty frightening, it makes you wonder exactly what else children take as accepted knowledge.

2. "Many students don't want to believe that they have been manipulated by children's media or advertising. No one wants to admit that they've been 'handled' by the media. They assure me that they make their own choices and the media has no power over them - as they sit with Fubu, Nike, Timberlands or whatever the latest fashion rage might be." - page 128

   I can understand this feeling by the students, it is difficult to be truthful and say that you might have been manipulated, people always want to think that they are their own person and no one helps them make their own decisions. I can actually find it to be more realistic that a person is manipulated by advertising and media over children's media, but maybe I am looking at it from an adult point of view. I guess children are a lot more susceptible to being handled, and more likely to thinking things in cartoons can also be taken as things in real life.

3. "Students have also said that what they now see in cartoons, they also see in advertising, on prime-time TV, on the news, in school. Turning off the cartoons doesn't stop the sexism and racism. They can't escape, and now that they've started analyzing cartoons, they can't stop analyzing the rest of the world." - page 134

   This seemed like the most real thing that was sad, that these stereotypes happen everywhere and not just cartoons. It is also the case that when someone tells you about things you may not have seen before that it is all you see whenever you look at it again. We basically live in a world where stereotypes, racism, and sexism is always going to be a factor.

I found this article to have some pretty interesting information but it wasn't really shocking to me. I mean, we all have heard about these subtle ways that media and advertising gets to consumers and I've heard plenty of times about the stereotypes that Disney uses. Even after all of this it still doesn't really bother me, I don't know if that makes me a bad person or whatever but I kind of don't see it as that big of a deal, I grew up on these things and I don't think that and Arab person will cut my ear off if they don't like my face (for those of you that don't remember thats from the opening song of Aladdin). Christensen would probably say this is because I'm still in denial about the effects that these things ultimately have on children, but I feel like if children can only base their beliefs about society based on cartoons, literature, and commercials than we might have something more to worry about. I feel like if parents, teachers, and the community is proactive about showing and helping children to see the realities of life than they should still be able to enjoy growing up with Cinderella or Aladdin....

Here are two videos that I found to be pretty interesting about some of the views of sexism and male & female stereotypes that Disney seems to portray a lot.