Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us- Linda Christensen
ARGUMENT

The first thing I analyzed was the title that Christensen decided to use for her piece. Before even reading I wanted to think about what I thought the piece was going to be about. I had an understanding for how media has influenced people and their actions but my eyes were opened to the multiple ways media could be used. I had always learned it was from television commercials or advertisements in magazines but it began when I was much younger as well. Christensen discusses the many stereotypes that exist in the world of Disney and one student wrote about the gender role issues that are secretly embedded in the Little Mermaid. I had not noticed that until reading this article and it made me realize how many hidden stereotypes there are in Disney movies and how those myths influenced me as a child. These are the myths that have bound me together and persuaded the way I think about certain situations.
Christensen's argument is that "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 own homes, underscore the power these texts deliver. As Tatum's research suggests, the stereotypes and worldview embedded in the stories become accepted knowledge" (127). Her argument relates directly to the title she chose, the myths we grew up to accept became our knowledge and this knowledge is all we know so it does keep us together, or bind us, and we have to condition ourselves to unlearn it as we grow up because we learn that the information or stereotypes we learned to be true are actually untrue.
Comments to make in class: When I was younger there were no worries about whether I would be influenced by a movie or show, there was no paranoia that I would want to be somebody on television because I was taught right from wrong and I learned to be myself no matter what other people did or said. I enjoyed watching Disney movies, not for the stereotypes that were hidden but for the jokes and love stories and awesome characters and animation. Now we are so paranoid with what is being put into children's mind that we forget that it is not just the media that has an influence on children. So show them a Disney movie or a cartoon or read a book then explain to them the fictitious parts of it and let them enjoy the fantasy about it. This image shows the multiple influences on children and how closely related they are and how closely they affect children.

Speaking the Unspeakable: Sex Education
ARGUMENT
This writer states many valid and arguable points in this piece discussing the issues of gender identities in schools and places outside of school and how these places connect. The ideas of place and space, public and private and the combination of these is quite confusing because of the many topics that can relate to any of them. In this piece the argument was that place is neither a unitary experience nor a neutral stage upon which social relations are enacted. This means that the idea of place is always changing and it is based on the social relations that surround it. The argument is then reiterated at the end of the piece, "the public and private boundary appears to have a permeability that challenges the notion that sexuality is necessarily contained in one sphere or another, and the notion that there is indeed such a boundary despite the fact that our own perceived ‘private’ spaces can come to take on a material existence that we truly believe in, spaces can never really be fixed, for their boundaries are always open to continuous struggle and they are continually being made and remade through social relations". The process of bringing young children to the light of reality is not an easy process and there are many things that need to be taken into consideration before teachers begin forming lessons around those ideas and plans. Many teachers decided to come out to their children in the hope of making them more comfortable discussing it in the classroom and in turn discussing it at home as well. This is proof that the public space of school and the discussions that are based in school meld over into the private places of the students homes. Both public and private spaces go hand in hand and affect the other. This piece reminds me of the video we watched in class about the teachers introducing a day in the school that is dedicated to teaching children about the differences in sexuality. It was then melded into their home lives because they would ask their parents many questions about what the teacher had taught them in school. This can create controversy because the parents may not want the child to grow up thinking a certain way. The most amazing thing in the video was a little girl who was sitting with her two mothers looking so happy and comfortable in the classroom environment. This combines the home and school lives, public and private.

Points to bring up in class:
In the piece there was a lot of discussion about the staff room and how it becomes a more private place for the teachers to discuss issues but they are in a public place, the school still. I wonder, as a future teacher how I will react to such an environment and if I will face these decisions one day also. I would also like to talk to the parents in the classroom about how they plan, if they haven't already, to talk to their kids about gender identities in the public and private spaces.

I found an article describing a disorder that is Gender Dysphoria:
http://psychcentral.com/disorders/gender-dysphoria-symptoms/

Hunger of Memory: Richard Rodriguez
HYPERLINKS

This piece, being an autobiography was more moving than other pieces we have read in class because it is not a person writing about or referring to another person but every experience was a first hand one and what he experienced as a child and even as an adult is truly eye opening. I think everybody can relate to his situation in some way, maybe not experiencing the same situations but knowing somebody who has. We all have grown accustomed to certain societal beliefs about immigrants and how and why they travel to the United States. We have forgotten the purposes of them being here and why it is so crucial to help them adapt and help them channel their heritages to add to our "melting pot" or "salad bowl" of a country.
I related this piece to another class I am taking right now, CEP 315 and in this class we have recently been discussing language barriers in schools and how programs are being created to help those who are not native English speakers. Rodriguez talks a lot about his home life and how comfortable he felt inside his home, despite it being in the US but it was because of the language that was being spoken that made him feel so at home. His parents and three other siblings always addressed him in Spanish and this was his norm. On his first day of school his teacher addressed him as Richard instead of Ricardo and every student in the class were native English speakers. There is a program that is developed in the D.C area that is about incorporating the English and Spanish languages every day in the classroom. In our CEP 315 class we watched a video about the program. After reading this piece I began to think about if the program existed when Rodriguez was in school if it would have made a difference for him.
There is second video I posted that discusses the status of education programs and how bilingual education programs are becoming more popular throughout the country. The history of immigrant flow and the relation that this has to the current issue is extremely relevant. The number of immigrant children affects whether or not programs like the Dual Language Program will work.

Personal thoughts/comments:
I believe it will benefit all children, those who speak English as a first language and those who do not, to have multiple language programs in schools. I think we start learning another language way too late in life and miss the opportunity to actually understand and comprehend what it means to learn another language. It was very moving to read about the experiences a young child had in school and relating that to their home life as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6PwrSSZ3co

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tIppleeIjk

An Indian Father's Plea- Robert Lake (Medicine Grizzlybear)
CONNECTIONS

I have decided to choose the topic of connections for this blog post because I have realized that everything we have discusses in class is connected, from SCWAMP to Delpit's "Will it Help the Sheep?" and the piece titled "White Privilege" Discussing SCWAMP, this letter mainly relates to the whiteness (W) because the school that Wind-Wolf is attending is all white people and the authorities use this fact to their advantage when dealing with people who are culturally different than themselves. In Delpit's "Will it Help the Sheep?" the main point that was made was if changes in the education system will actually help the children or are the changes just for the authorities. This is the same point that is a underlying issue in the letter to the teacher in the school which Wind-Wolf would be attending. It is one thing to think about how the teachers will help him but all the teachers are thinking about is if Wind-Wolf would benefit them. I feel most decisions are made with this type of attitude and this is why the education system is as corrupt as it is. The people in charge are not thinking about the interests of the child but mostly of their own interests.

Other than the authorities not doing the right thing when it come to their students, there is the other issue of racism and this relates to the "White Privilege" piece. The list of the daily affects of white privilege that McIntosh writes is completely eye opening and I think it is very relevant to the letter that Wind-Wolf's father wrote. The administration, as well as the students in the school judge his child because he is not like them. He is a different color, has a different hair style and different customs but this does not make him different. We are all human. This is the main fact that everybody forgets. Humans are all equal. We all have human rights. The human rights are extremely violated in this case and in many cases that we have read about. It was brave of McIntosh to write about how she is involved with the point of White Privilege and as I read over these points it made me realize how many times I experience the same things every day. The same braveness was used when the father wrote the letter to the teacher, he was patient and calm and sounded very well educated and not very angry at all. This proves that he is educated and is the bigger person in this situation.

Points to discuss: HUMAN RIGHTS!
I had a class last year that was focused on human rights, which I had no idea actually existed. There are many articles that state are freedoms as HUMANS. Not as, white, rich men but just for living and existing on this beautiful planet we are born with rights. I added a link to the Human Rights page, listing every article and a Venn Diagram depicting how Human rights are violated.

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

Johnathon Kozol: Amazing Grace
Quotes.
Kozol writes about his experience in New York, more specifically from Manhattan and the South Bronx. He rides the train from one of the wealthiest towns to one of the poorest towns in New York. He speaks with a particular family about what they have been through while living in what was described as "one of the largest racially segregated concentrations of poor people in the nation" (3). 
There were a few pieces of information that resonated quite strongly with me in this piece. One of them belonging from a child's perspective, one whom lives with his mother in a cockroach infested apartment. 
"'I saw a boy shot in the head right over there,' he says a moment later, in a voice that does not sound particularly sad, then looks up at me and asks politely, 'would you like a chocolate chip cookie?' 'No thank you,' I say (6). This quote stood out in the article because it surprised me how casually Cliffie, the boy whom Kozol was speaking with, he could talk about such serious matters that he had experienced somebody getting shot in a public area. His confidence and positive attitude is what surprised me the most about the whole interview. He did not shy away from sharing such personal information about the events that occurred in his neighborhood and nearby streets. A main topic that was discussed in this article was the astounding amount of people with AIDS and how they cannot be treated because of the amount of people that occupy the hospitals. This was another point that I was shocked by because I personally do not know anybody with AIDS and the people speaking in the article seemed nonchalant about the issue. "I ask how many people in the building now have AIDS. 'In this building? Including the children, maybe 27 people. That's just in this section. In the other building over there, there's maybe 20 more. Then there's lots of other people have it but don't know, afraid to know, and don't want to be tested. We're livin in a bad time. What can I say?'" (13). Kozol is speaking with a nurse who visits a tenant in an apartment once every month. The fear of finding out whether someone has AIDS must be the scariest part of living in the neighborhood, other than the fear of getting shot outside the doorway of course. I have never feared of a disease so serious before and realizing people have that fear everyday makes me appreciate my health and the town I grew up in. Granted, I was sheltered and even being exposed to situations that occur in these neighborhoods is extremely eye opening for me. I had to read these facts over a few times to make sure I read them correctly because I was so shocked. Kozol wanted to reiterate these important points because something has to be done about the health and well being of the people in these places. There was a brief point at the end of the article that relates to the diseases and terrible habits that people develop, "'If poor people behaved rationally,' says Lawrence Mead, a professor of political science at New York University, 'they would seldom be poor for long in the first place.' Many social scientists today appear to hold this point of view and argue that the largest portion of the suffering poor people undergo has to be blamed upon their own "behaviors" a word they tend to pluralize" (21). This is the same point I have heard all my life, whether or not it is right to give homeless people money or never to keep the doors unlocked on my house. Now I understand the real fear. There are situations I believe that people could have prevented if they were to make more righteous decisions but there are also different people who just happened to fall into bad luck and awful timing. As the economy gets worse, there is no hope for anybody in the area whether it was their fault or not they all need help.  

Point/Question to share: I have always been told, never judge a book by it's covers or never judge someone on their appearance. I never understood why until I listened to everybody's stories in my life. There is no way to know what someone has been through just by the way they look. The strength these people have is unbelievable and the hope that Cliffe has for the future is not just seeing life through a child's eye but knowing that just because bad things are happening around you, it does not make the world a bad place. My questions relate to what happens to them in the future, where Cliffe ends up living or if he ends up being another burning body? I also wanted to share a link to an organization in Harlem, New York. It is a non profit program that helps children and gives them opportunities to participate in sports year round with other children. There are many organizations similar to this one and without these there would hardly be any hope for future generations. 

https://www.harlemrbi.org/About/who-we-are.html

Hi there! My name is Vicky Alves and I commute from Cumberland where I live with my dad and will soon be getting my own apartment yay. I love to write but more often than not do not write in complete sentences. I am from Narragansett, RI and that is where I try and spend my weekends if I do not have work. I work at Angelo's Palace Pizza in Cumberland as a take out/cashier, come in and try the pizza it's delish! I am loving this class already, I love discussion based classes because I am very opinionated and sarcastic. The blogging part of the class and posting on blackboard is a bit confusing but I think I'm getting the hang of it. I'm counting down the days until winter break because I will be going to Florida for a week, by then my tan will be faded :( I am going for Elementary Ed witch a concentration in special ed and hope to travel the world some day. I've made it to many states in the US and Mexico and Spain. I have also considered speech pathology as a career but for now I'm just trying to make it through my classes! :) ...I think I wrote too much...did I mention I talk a lot?