"In Service of What?" Kahne and Westheimer

This article talks a lot about the difference between charity and change. Teachers and educators who have their students participate in service learning projects take two different approaches. There are the teachers like, Mr. Johnson who was an example given in the reading, who take the approach of charity. His goal for his students was to help those in need. On the other hand, there was Ms. Adams who advocated change. Mr. Johnson's students were required to do things like volunteer work, and help those who were less fortunate. Ms. Adam's students did a lot more analyzing of the issue. They chose to focus on homelessness and they had class discussions, and really focused on the issue rather than focusing on just helping the issue. There is a table in the article that describes the difference in the two. It is shown here.

 

 

 

 

I completely agree with the over all idea that service goes hand in hand with learning. I think a lot of times students just get put in a classroom and are expected to learn the material by sitting and listening to a teacher talk. I don't think that's a realistic way to learn because we all need to do hands on activities and have a better understanding of life outside of the classroom. I've definitely taken a lot more out of a class when there was something that was required in the means of service outside of the classroom. I felt like I learned more about things of importance than I would have just sitting and listening to a teacher.

  

Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us

"Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us" is an article written by Linda Christensen. She discusses how our society teaches us how to "act, live, and dream" through cartoons, Disney movies, and movies that we see as children. She argues that we have been manipulated by children's media and advertising. She focuses on the movie Cinderella and how we are taught as women to believe that our main goal in life is to get a man. In the version Cinderella as well as Cindy Elle, the girls compete with their sisters to achieve it.

 

 She asked her students to generalize what they got from stereotypes in cartoons, and some of them were as follows: "Look, Ursula the sea witch is ugly and smart. Hey, she's kind of dark looking. The young, pretty ones only want to hook their man; the old, pretty ones are mean because they are losing their looks." Another student noticed, "People of color and poor people are either absent or servants to the rich, white, pretty people."

 

I've thought a lot about all of these things since reading this article. I definitely think that these ideas that we have put in to our heads as young children mold the way we are as adults. A lot of children connect so much with characters in Disney movies, or any other cartoon for that matter. If children are connecting with characters who are only searching for men, or stories that teach us that only pretty and rich people are successful, then what does that set them up to believe as adults? Parents spend so much time trying to teach their children the right lessons in life. We're taught that we should always be confident, and as women we're taught that we don't need to depend on anyone besides ourselves. How can these lessons really be learned if we're being poisoned with false ideas of happiness and success from such a young age? We can't. It's not realistic. These movies disguise these anti-feminist values through makings it's viewers identify with these so called protagonists.

Speaking The Unspeakable

After reading the article "Speaking The Unspeakable", I spent a lot of time thinking about what it was like growing up in a public school system when someone chose to openly come out as gay. This article talked a lot about how schools are set up for heterosexuals, and that's very much true. Homosexuality was always something that wasn't really talked about, or it was considered taboo. People acted shocked when someone they grew up with, and had known for most of their childhood, finally admitted that they were a homosexual. It's sad, but truthfully, we live in a society where if people aren't the exact same as us, or part of what we consider "normal" then they're judged. Just because they aren't a part of this cookie cutter idea that we're all supposed to be the same, they get made fun of, bullied, and are told that they're wrong becasue they're different.  In this interview of Rayven-Symone, she openly talks about being gay, and not wanting to be labeled for anything that she is:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXAho8vlmAI

 

She says, "I don't want to be labeled gay. I want to be labeled a human who loves human."

 

 

The reading for this blog entry is "Hunger of Memory". It's an autobiography by Richard Rodriguez who came to the United States as a child, who only spoke Spanish. The autobiography takes you through his life, and his development. Initially, he thinks of the way his family speaks in Spanish at home as a type of intimacy. Over the course of the reading, as they all learn to speak English more fluently, his family life changes. They go from a family who only felt they could communicate freely at home, to being a family who is connected to the outside world. It changes the dynamic of their relationships. Towards the end of the reading, he reaches a point where he doesn't even really feel comfortable speaking Spanish at all. He uses the example of his grandmother however, who only spoke Spanish to prove that their intimacy didn't depend on language. He understood Spanish, so he would just listen to her and nod a lot of the time, but they still had an intimate relationship. He argues, "Bilingual enthusiasts, moreover, sin against intimacy." These are the people who argue that people should keep their family language. He claims that these people credit their language to what they should credit to their family members. It’s the people who depend upon their language and think that that's what keeps their family intimate. He disagrees, because he feels like intimacy isn't about language. I think it's interesting because he's someone who comes from Spanish as his first language and had to go through a lot of difficulty in order to speak English, and he still doesn't agree with it. It wasn't what I was expecting to come out of the reading, especially with how it started out as him really appreciating that his home life had a different language than most of the people around them. He felt that it bought them closer. His argument shows both sides, because as a child, he seems to be a bilingual enthusiast. However, as he grows up, his perspective changes.