pecha kacha

Here is mine and Arionna's pecha kacha!

Social Justice Event

For my social justice event requirement, Ana had found this show on the RIC website and thought it would be something interesting to go see and also fulfill another check off of our list of things to do before the end of the semester. Last Thursday night we went together to go see "La Negrita Revival" in Providence. Going in I pictured in my head a comedy about race and the culture of power and actors on a stage but we walk into the location and the show is in a room where its a black floor, black walls, and about 60 black folding chairs placed in a rectangular layout like in class. Walking in I was really nervous because it wasn't what I had expected at all, regardless we stayed. At first I was really confused but once it started going further along in the show I understood more of it. There was a black girl who was in a mental institution for an unknown reason but she kept saying it was because of the whites.La Negrita was the first friend came to visit was another black college student who attended college at the university of the triple K (KKK). She grew up believing that white is right and that whites are powerful and how she wanted to dress like white girls. The friend in the institution was very upset the La Negrita felt this was and she continued to have a tangent how whites are bad and how she was naive but she will learn someday when a white person treats her bad. At first I connected this to the culture of power because it showed how La Negrita felt like she was not good enough because she wasn't white but then SCWAAMP whiteness factor really had the main theme through out the whole play. There were other roles of college students who were a group of friends who represent all different cultures and identities, staging stereotypes. A Spanish girl who was bisexual but a true friend, a white male who was gay and was loyal, two white males that were jocks one more sensitive than the other, and a white female who wanted to be black and she was promiscuous. La Negrita was connected to each of these characters in some way. She was best friends what the white male that was gay and the Spanish female that was bisexual and the tough black girl in the institution. They were her main supporters, She fell in love with the white male jock that was ashamed to be with her and tried to get her to act white and told her she needed to work on it. He later abused her and took advantage of her. Where I also connected this to SCWAAMP's maleness and how society portrays him as more powerful and can do whatever he wants because he is a white male. La Negrita then became scornful of white people and psychology thought that she wasn't good for anything other than sex. She was so sick of the hurt and the pain that she just wanted to feel numb. Her friends could not understand her actions but then when they found out what happened to her gave her the help that she needed. She then met another guy at school and he was the other white jock but he was portrayed as nerdy. He really liked La Negrita and thought that she was beautiful for her and didn't understand why she had to make everything about race. But it was because she was so broken down from what happened before that she felt she knew her place in society was at the bottom. He showed her what love really is and how to love herself for who she is. Overall even though this was nothing that I had expected it to be, it was really interesting and I'm glad I went especially with Ana.

Empowering education

I'm so glad that this is our last blog post! I just need this semester to be over with. For Ira Shor's Reading I will write a reflection.  Ira Shor defines empowering education as " A critical democratic pedagogy herself and social change; it is a student centered program for multicultural democracy in school in society. It approaches individual growth as an active, cooperative, and social process, because the self and society create each other" (pg 13).  Shor argues that students and teachers need to collaborate and create a curriculum that will benefit the students. He feels that curriculums need to provide the students an opportunity to ask questions to further their own knowledge. This can be connected to Delpit because Shor feels that a student's education is a connection to how a student learns how to be citizen of society and the development of the students values outside of their home life. I did like this article because I connected it to a lot of other readings we did the semester and this reading not only good the problem of education also gave the solution.By creating a curriculum where students are able to ask the teacher why they are learning a subject and teachers can give them a valid answer where they are going to make use of a school in the future and also outside of the classroom helps students become better critical thinkers and also gives students necessary qualities that will make them create their own values by what they believe in and not only what their parents believe in.

Citizenship in School: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome

Sorry my post is late, this awesome weather is totally getting to me and making me lazy! For this blog post I will choose three quotes.

"Acknowledging students with Down syndrome as thoughtful, creative, and interested learners with personal identities that distinguish them from all other people suggests an individual value that enhances any context containing the child. In classrooms that recognize all children as citizens, teachers and peers have rejected the image of community burden attached to Down syndrome. Rather, the student is recognized as a participating member of the group."(pg 87)

I really liked this quote because it really is true the people tend to categorize others when they think those people are different which isn't true at all. All semester we discussed how others learn differently and this is the same case. Just because a person is labeled with Down Syndrome doesn't mean that anything is wrong with them they just learn differently then others and I think the description above is perfect.

"School citizenship requires that students not be categorized and separated based on presumed defect. The phenomenon of categorization at the expense of individual value has been described as a "disability spread" in which we extrapolate the characteristics we associate with the notion of disability to the particular individuals we meet. These perceptions are often based on stereotypes and what we think we know about a particular disability. They are expressed in predictable ways. For example,"All people with Down syndrome are happy." (pg 85)

 As mentioned above I do believe that society has shaped some people to place them in categories that they "fit into". This also has to do with stereotyping and we also talked a lot about stereotyping in this class and as future teachers what we need to do to stay away from labeling our students.

" School citizenship rejects the idea of a gap between normality and Down syndrome, In the movement toward classroom membership, "diversity is viewed as normal, people are considered of equal worth, relationships are of mutual benefit, and belonging is a central societal theme." (pg 95)

I really liked this quote and it stuck out to me because I agree and in future strive to be an authority that rejects the idea of a gap between the "norm" and another disability.

Update on Pechakucha

So far on my Pechakucha I have a good understanding of the outline and the information I'm going to provide. My partner is Arionna and we both had a good understanding of the project and what we want to say and do. We both have stories from our service learning experience and also we both work in daycares and have background information from that. My only concern for this is not providing enough information or just not providing what is asked. I'm kind of stressed about it just becuase its a final project and there is a lot of things coming up in my other classes as well so I think that is more where my anxiety is steaming from, just feeling overwhelmed.