FNED VIDEO!!! --please dont watch unless you already saw it in class

hello all. just wanted to post this on my blog now, before everything was due. but if you havent seen our video in class yet, please wait till them. i promise its amazing and you will be happy to see it tomorrow!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ONXdx5MAqw&amp%3Bfeature=youtube_gdata_player

guess my last post didnt work sorry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJyAZLx2yIA

fantasy sports in the class room

just found this and thought it was interesting.

getting students to learn math by incorporating fantasy sports!

think-pair-share-jigsaw!!! --Shor

So after reading the article and doing the activity in class, I found that the activity really helped to understand it. My section for the activity was "education is not and cannot be neutral". This is very true, from what we have learned from this semester. Education teaches us to be naturally curious, and to ask questions, and like what Johnson says, we must talk about stuff. In our group we had a comparison of if someone from Brown university and RIC were taught the same thing, the person from Brown would be looked at as higher than the person who came from RIC. And this is because education is NOT neutral. Here in our FNED class our class is not neutral, we are asked to think, and talk about stuff that shows us how education isn’t neutral. In our group we were able to find three authors that we could make connections to, 1.) Delpit.- if education was neutral we would be enforcing the cultural of power. 2.) Finn and Oakes.- critical thinking (outcomes-Brown student vs. RIC student) 3.) Johnson.- must talk about things and get them out in the open.

--if education was neutral, you would just float their and then the cultural of power would eventually sweep you away down the river.

Greek life at RIC!!!

Hello all!!!

I’m not sure how many of you know that RIC actually has Greek life on its campus. There are 3 sororities and 1 active fraternity and 1 almost active fraternity. Greek life here is very low key, to those who don’t look for it, but to me it’s about all I think about half the time. I am a part of a sorority called lambda chi and we are an animal rights sorority. We have many events that involve helping the community around us and also the RIC community. We are involved with some local animal shelters and we also are involved in helping out the campus clean up days.
Recently the Greeks have gotten together and we are now planning an event for the school. It probably won’t happen till next semester sometime. But the reason to why I’m writing about this is because my sorority just initiated out new Gamma class last night and I’m just so happy!!!  :-D. Our sorority is still small (only 22 members) but we are growing every semester! So if you are interested check us out next semester! :)

Citizenship in school

As I was reading, I found myself really getting into the article. I found myself really wanting to hug all the children in the world, who just want to be in a normal classroom with their peers, and they can’t because they have a disability, and people don’t think they can do it. When I was in the second grade, I was put into a special Ed room, because they said I had a learning disability. I would only be allowed in my classroom with my peers for a few hours each day, and the rest of my day was spent in another room with other children with disabilities. My brother who is four years older than me was also labeled as a kid who had a learning disability, and our middle brother Greg, was the only “normal one” in our family, or this is how me and my brother Steve called him. All my life I have been jealous of Greg, he got good grades and he never had to go to the special Ed room. A quote from the reading is also how I felt, “I started to notice that I didn't like the classes I was taking called special education. Had to go through special Ed.  almost all my life. I wanted to take other classes that interested me. I had never felt so mad, I wanted to cry”. (Peterson, 1994, p. 6)

When I finally started to get this feeling I felt the need to prove everyone wrong about me, I didn’t like to be separated from my friends and peers, I know I was definitely looked down upon by my teachers. They themselves never wanted to help me, if I got upset or really confused they would just send me away to the special Ed room, and have that teacher deal with me. Finally around the 4^th grade I was in my classroom more often, but I wasn’t alone. They sent with me an aid, and wherever I went she was there. She was always on my back about, did you write this down? are you listening?, did you just hear what she said?. Ughh I couldn’t stand it!! I think that was even worse than going to the special Ed room, this was the kids actually could see for themselves on how different I was at school. At least in the special Ed room, nobody was watching me, my peers maybe had theories but they never saw me getting the extra help.

Then the summer to 5^th grade was when my family moved to Rhode Island, and I was going into the 5^th grade. I thought this was a good chance to start all over again. When I finally started school, I was put in a special Ed room but for only 2 hours out of the day. So I got to spend much more time in my classroom and I really liked the special Ed teacher. In 6^th grade I did the same routine as I did in 5^th.  Then when I finally went to 7^th grade I was in all skills classes but I was able here to start proving people wrong about me, I got straight A’s!!!! :-D. So all my teachers placed me in CP classes for my 8^th grade year. I did awesome here to. I got mostly A’s and B’s. And being in CP classes lasted all the way up until my junior year when I moved up into honors classes. My grades went down a little but I was defiantly a solid B student.

I really want to help advocate for others that I think it is extremely important for students with disabilities to be in a classroom with their peers. I think it helped teach me how they learn and do things for themselves. And I think even me being in the room by myself they could see that I’m not as different as they are. [Community] requires a willingness to see people as they are-different perhaps in their minds and in their bodies, but not different in their spirits or in their willingness and ability to contribute to the mosaic of society. It requires the "helper" to have the humility to listen for what the person says he or she needs. Also, the "helper" must see that the interaction "helps" both ways. (p. 12)

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/oct/23/students-learning-disabilities-succeed-regular-cla/

http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content2/Including.Students.html

fin and Oakes, based off Caiti's blog

                My blog of fin and Oakes is based off of Caiti’s blog post.  When I started to read what she said, “Why would we only have the students who are doing well getting special attention and better classes and resources?  Who came up with this idea? The "less abled" kids are expecting to do badly. If you are expected to do badly, then why not do badly.  If your teachers believe you are "less abled" and give you non- challenging work and just expect less in general you are going to behave just that way.” These few sentences really made me think, and it made me think about a movie that I watched today on ABC.  The movie was called, “Freedom Writers” directed by, Richard LaGravenese.  It reminded me of this one specific scene in the movie, where the teacher is talking to the librarian who gives out copies of the books to the teachers and the students. But the librarian said that she would not give out the copies of the good books to the teachers who had certain students because they won’t take care of the books and they only deserve the books that are ripped and are not the same version as the better books. I can’t find the clip off of youtube but I have attached a clip of the movie trailer. Also what Caiti said was why we are only giving students who are doing well, more attention and better resources.  In the beginning of the movie it showed the teacher of the freedom writers walk down the hall and see the classrooms of the smarter students and they were decorated and clean and neat, and when she got to her room the walls were bare and the room was dirty. The outlook at the school amongst the teachers and staff is that why waste your time in trying to give certain students an education if they don’t want one.

                The next quote from Caiti’s blog was, "rich get richer and poor get poorer." This isn’t the first time I hear this quote this weekend. I actually heard it at the Promising Practices conference.  It was in my second session where we were talking about the routine of things and how nothing seems like its ever going to change the system.  The professor that I had mentioned to us that it seems as if the rich or going to keep getting richer and the poor are going to keep getter poorer.

Conference

                When I first walked into the doors of Donovan I was nervous, I wasn’t really sure what to expect and where to go. Quickly I figured out where to go and what line to stand in for registration, and I felt better once I saw a member of our class also standing in line to register.  I got my folder and scouted out where the class was sitting and I made my way over to them. We talked about what sessions we were all in and nobody at the table were going to be in the same class sessions with me.  We were then told to go to our first session I was excited.  I got to my classroom, and sat down and was waiting for the thing to start. The lady, who was presenting her presentation to us, had some type of African music playing and she was wearing some type of African clothing.  She started off her presentation with how her whole presentation is about un- bias education.  She had us write out a list of our social identities, she wanted to open our eyes to what describes us a person.  She had us sit in groups and go over our lists with one another.  Some of the things that were on my list were,

                                                -white

                                                -German

                                                -English

                                                -Presbyterians

                                                -Brian Tumor Survivor

                                                -am originally from Ohio

This is just a small list of things that were on my list that describes me, and who I am. My teacher that I had also mentioned the reading of McIntosh, and white privileges.  She just mentioned it as a really good reading to have read if you want to become an educator.  This session really opened my eyes to what other people are like and how we are all looked down upon by society, by some part of our identity.  For example I am looked down upon by society in Rhode Island because I am not a native Rhode Islander.

                My second session was about Black slavery, and how slavery still exists today in our world.  The guy in the lecture read us neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. This was the basis of our conversation; it says that only people who have been convicted of a crime can be subjected to “slavery”.  This session was also really interesting and I think opened everyone’s eyes to, it’s not that we don’t know how to change the system and fix it, but its do the people who can change it, really want to? 

13th amendment

Social identities

schools today are still segregated

Gender and Education --book--

Gender Bias in Education

While I was browsing the web, I found a lot of interesting sites, but I decided to narrow it down to the two websites that I have posted. The first website is just a description of a book that is titled Gender and Education. The second website talks about the Gender Bias in Education.

The reason why I liked the second web site so much was because it fascinated me that gender bias really exists in education.

One quote that I really liked from the second website was this,

"Teachers socialize girls towards a feminine ideal. Girls are praised for being neat, quiet, and calm, whereas boys are encouraged to think independently, be active and speak up. Girls are socialized in schools to recognize popularity as being important, and learn that educational performance and ability are not as important. "Girls in grades six and seven rate being popular and well-liked as more important than being perceived as competent or independent. Boys, on the other hand, are more likely to rank independence and competence as more important." (Bailey, 1992)

I never really thought much about gender and education before because it never really affected me but I’m sometimes in subliminal ways it does. Girls are known to be a bit neater and quieter than boys, I remember when I was working at the YMCA over the summer I would always hope to get more girls than boys because the girls in my option are quieter and listen better to directions. I know this may not always be true but I’m my experience it is.

Between Barack and a hard place

Tim Wise mentiond a lot of interesting things in his interview when he was discussing his book "Between Barack and a hard place". He made me take a step back and think; I concluded that he was right. Wise   argues that just beacuse we have a Black president, the subject of racial bias isn't totally gone. Just because Barack Obama is Black and is our president, it doesnt give Blacks more rights and doesn't take away the inequalities that still exist.

The main point that Wise was making was that until we stop talking about race, it will always be an issue. When civil rights are referred to as Black rights or as Gay rights or (insert word here) rights, it's creating a sense of exclusion. When people say "My president is half black...", I always think that he's also half white. Why is race the primary focus? Many people went out and only voted for President Obama because he is Black. Since when is that the best reason to vote for some one? I thought voting for our President would consist of looking at their politics and not their skin color.

Wise makes it clear that yes, President Obama is qualified for his position, but if he was a white man would the same result occur? This again reinforces the idea that it is actually a race issue. When it comes down to it, our own local elections are looking the same way. In Providence, Angel Taveras might be the first Hispanic elected into the position of Mayor. The word Hispanic is always the focus. Many people who fit into the minority category just voted for Angel Taveras because of his race. Once we stop looking for the categories a person fits in, we will be able to overcome the issue of discrimination on any level.


The link that I provided just talks about Between Barack in a hard place. I wasn’t sure what to find so I figured it doesn’t hurt to just look at more of Tim Wise's speeches.

Kahne and Westhimer **CALAIS MAINE**

 I really liked this article about service learning because I think it’s really important!!! I feel that everyone should do some sort of community service project at least once in their life. I feel that a real hand’s on experience is best. You get to see what’s going on personally. It definitely changes a person’s outlook on situations and life.  



About 3 years ago, I went to a small town called Calais Maine with a group from my church. We went with a group called youth works, and the point of the program is to get the youth out working for people who need the extra help. They may need help around their house or in a food pantry or even extra help at a day care. I was a part of the group that went to people’s houses and helped them re-paint the outside of them. Most of the people that live in this town are older and can’t do as much to keep the place looking beautiful. For the week that I was there I helped re-paint an elderly mans house, help a man clean up a camp that he has going for youth in the town. We went to the food pantry and cleaned everyyythhiinngg!!!!! And lately we went to a nursing home and spent some time with the people there.

This experience I had going to Calais really stuck with me and I’ve learned a lot about what the real world is like. I absolutely love helping other out; it just gives me that warm and fuzzy feeling that I’m doing something great! I try and share my experience of Maine with pretty much everyone so if you ever want to know more just ask!! Here are some pictures of my experience.

Video on the hidden secrests of Disney

i know this might not really have much to do with what i was talking about but i found a youtube video of Disney secrets and the theme park.


Disney youtube video!

Unlearning the myths that bind us

-- Omar wrote: "When we read children's books, we aren't just reading cute little stories, we are discovering the tools with which a young society is manipulated."

            --I feel this is a very strong quote. It really gets you thinking about your own childhood and what you remember about the stories you were told. The stories I was told was Cinderella and beauty and the beast and little mermaid. They are all stories about princesses and they are all white. That right their already makes younger children believe that all princesses are white. Not until recently did they add another Disney princess to the mix. Her name is Tiana and she is from New Orleans. I think it is a little stereo-typical that the one black princess is from the south.

But this quote just reinforces that its true and the media does try to manipulate us at a very early age and it enforces stereo types in us.

-- Brazilian educator Paulo Freire wrote that instead of wrestling with words and ideas, too often students "walk on the words."

        --This quote I didn’t fully understand.  I wanted to bring it up in my blog because I was hoping someone could shed some light on this for me.

I think that It could mean that student don’t take on what people say and what is being said to them and look at what’s being said here, but instead they just let it go in one ear and out the other. They almost pretend that they never heard or saw it. (I’m not sure if I’m on the right track but if anyone feels it means something completely different, let me know!)

--"True death equals a generation living by rules and attitudes they never questioned and producing more children who do the same."

            --I agree 100% with this statement. Everyone is made differently so why do we all have to act the same way? We live in an age where we all need to be active questioners and be ourselves.

If we continue to follow the same rules and have the same attitudes and never question anything, we will live in a world of gray. A gray world has nothing exciting about it. and I don’t know about you but this quote really has me thinking and I want to help try to make a change. J

Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community, extended comments from Alicia's blog

When I was reading the article I didn’t really follow it, I sort of wouldn’t get it for the fact I would zone out. But not until I read Alicia’s blog was I able to follow and understand it. She pointed out Carlson’s arguments right away which helped a lot.

Alicia said that the argument Carlson was making was, "that schools use their power of influence to keep gayness 'hidden', 'in its place', and not to be part of the 'normal' that is accepted in our society. He feels that it is a major problem for these children that are in fact homosexual, to go through school feeling they need to hide or stay 'in the closet' to be a 'regular part' of their educational journey. It begins in the schools, and remains in the eyes of the society, especially in the earlier years, to be socially wrong and unacceptable."

Then she goes into explaining how gayness really isn’t accepted in our schools. I never really thought about that before. I didn’t realize that it was that hidden back then. I wasn’t unaware that it was kept a big secrete from everyone, because it could financially hurt a person because no one would want to hire them if they knew they were gay. A quote from Alicia’s blog. “They were like the so called 'witches ‘of the past, treated like they had a plague or disease". Really helps show how these people were treated.

I really like how Alicia pointed out how Carlson argues that there are three main ways that our schools contribute to the 'invisible presence' of homosexuality.

1-the erasure of gayness in the curriculum
2-the "closeting" and "witch hunting" of gay teachers
3-verbal and physical intimidation of gay teachers and students

--this is very true and unfortunate.

Alicia even mentions how it’s still rarely discussed in today’s schools. Thinking back to my own high school experience I guess it’s true. The only time the word gay was ever spoken by a teacher, it was almost always when we were in health class and the subject wasn’t dragged on forever, usually it was a small blurb and then we moved on. In my high school we were fortunate enough to have a group called the gay straight alliance, so people did have some place to go and be open about that kind of stuff and not feel like they have to hide in the dark forever.

Richard Rodriguez "Aria"

After reading “Aria” by Richard Rodriguez, I really had to think. I had no idea that when people learn English and leave their other language, that a person could feel this way. I’ve never spoke any language other than English, and everyone in my family always spoke English at home and everywhere we went so I have never had to experience a loss of who I was. Someone’s identity covers a lot, and one part is their language that they speak. Their first language is what they identify with first. It comforted them; it helped them feel at home. That’s how Richard was when he had to learn English. He felt he was losing a part of his and his family’s identity.  The way Richard said that, “I considered Spanish to be a private language”.  You could see that he connected with it and nobody ever knew what he was saying to he felt safe in a way, to say what he wanted and only his sister and brother and his parents would understand.

                Back when Richard was in school, the schools would just ignore the kids and have them figure it out on their own. They wanted them to just get what’s going on and what’s expected of them and nobody ever cared about the emotional stuff that goes on in the process of that. Richard didn’t know what to do, or how to feel confident in himself so that’s why he went quiet for about a year.  I found a YouTube video that talks about bilingual education in the schools and what’s going on, and why it was started and when it was started.

Kozol and McIntosh

When I was reading the Kozol piece I could relate more to the man that was observing the family. He couldn’t really relate but he observed and watched and saw how difficult life was for the people that loved there. I’ve never seen poverty that bad before and I think that’s awful that it is that bad in some places. It’s unfortunate that to see kids have to grow up so fast and have to see the horrible things that are out in this world. The boy in the article was able to understand his father or it was his mother when they were talking about how there is no way for anyone to get out of this trap. They can’t grow and branch off into something new and great, the boy was able to understand that he is stuck just like his parents and probably doesn’t have an easy life ahead of him.

The Kozol piece relates to the McIntosh piece because it talk about white privilege, and how just being “white” can make someone’s life so much easier.  The man that was observing the family in the Kozol piece realized that he had so much more privileges and it was mostly due to that he was white.  In the Mcintosh piece it says that, “whites were carefully taught not to recognize that they have white power”. I agree with this statement, when McIntosh wrote down the list of things that show that there is white privilege in the world and we don’t always recognize it as white privilege. That proved to me that we have been secretly taught not to recognize white privilege that go on in this world.

In the Muwakkil article it says that, “Many Americans still believe that race still no longer affects personal prospects of success or failure”.  Obviously race does still affect success or failure, just read the Kozol piece.  Their might still be people or companies out there that don’t agree and say they hire people based on their education and experience in the field, but there are still the ones who feel “safer” I guess with only white people working for them.  Personally I believe that people should not be based on the color of their skin and should be based on if they are qualified for the job they are applying for, but I’m not naive and I know that racism in the work place does happen.  In the parker poem it talks about how all black people don’t share the same feelings and don’t say no offense or I’m sorry if someone else does something wrong or upsets you and them just so happen to be a person of color. Just because one person or a group of people do something wrong doesn’t mean it should bring down the entire race of the people that did something wrong.  In the beginning of the poem he starts off and says, “Forget that I am black”. Then in the next line it says, “Second, you must never forget that I’m black”.  Parker wants people to not see him as a man of color and see him as the man he is, but he also doesn’t want you to forget who he really is, and being black is a part of who he is.

In class I want to hear about other people’s thoughts and opinions on what they thought of the pieces.  I want to talk more about the parker poem, and the first two lines of it. I’m not sure if I may have understood it fully.

ALL ABOUT ME!!

Well to start off my name is Sarah Tolson, and I am a sophomore at Rhode Island College. As most of you I am an elementary education major and specializing in special Ed.  I have lived here in Rhode Island for about 10 years now, but I was originally born and raised in Cincinnati Ohio. Ohio is where all my family lives and I miss it terribly. I will always have a mid-west attitude. If you don’t really know what that means, it means that I just go with the flow, and always put others before myself, and avoid confrontation as much as possible.  I loved living in Cincinnati, but my dad works for Hasbro Toy Company and he was asked to transfer to Rhode Island before they closed down the shop in Ohio. Being the kid of a man who works at Hasbro is amazing!! My brothers and I always got free toys. I remember back to when I was in the third grade and when Pokémon was big, Hasbro was putting on a Pokémon school for the employee's kids. So my dad enrolled me and my brother Greg and we had to study the different Pokémon and the different things they transformed into, in the end we had a big graduation ceremony and we all became Pokémon trainers. That’s just one a many different things that I got to do, because my dad worked for Hasbro.
I am also apart of a sorority here at Rhode Island College and I absolutely love it. The organization is called Lambda Chi, and we have an animal rights and welfare based philanthropy. We are only currently at 13 active members but we are now in our rush and are getting ready to select our gamma class. This sorority is what really helped me get through my freshmen year at college, I now have 15 new best friends and that number continues to grow every semester. :)