Aria Rodriguez: Why Can't She Remember That?

"Supporters of bilingual education today imply that students like me miss a great deal by not being taught in thier family's language. What they seem not to recognize is that, as a socially disadvantaged child, I considered Spanish to e a private language. What I need to learn in school was that I had the right-and the obligation-to speak the public language of los gringos."pg17

"My mother! My father! After English became my primary language, I no longer knew what words to use in addressing my parents. The old Spanish words(thoes tender accents of sound) I had used earlier-mam and papa-I couldn't use anymore.They would have been too painful reminders of how much had changed in my life."pg23

"Behind this screen there gleams an astonishing promise: One can become a public person while still remaining a private person. At the very same time one can be both. There need be no tension between the self in the crowd and the self apart from the crowd."


COMMENT

I believe personally that when someone speaks another language how amazing it is. To me its almost like playing instruments or sports, some times it comes natural and someone can be good at a lot of things. During my High School years I took Spanish and catched on quickly then started to struggle. I am somewhat of an average student and if I struggled with learning another language which is a fairly easy language to learn, Can you imagine the difficult of learning English;One of the hardest languages to learn.Being brought up one way and being forced to do something because of society must be a challenge. In my service learning I havent seen any of the kids speak another language.

Dennis Carlson:Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community

"At the level of state educational policy, it is noteworthy that no state currently recognizes gays and lesbians as legitimate minority or cultural groups to be considered in textbook adoption or to be included in multicultural education ; and a number of states explicitly prohibit teaching about homosexuality. In 1993, for example the gay rights movement claimed a major victory in the signing into law of a Minnesota bill that makes it illegal to discrimiate against lesbians and gay men in employment and housing."pg 236

"To the extent that gayness is recognized in the curriculum, it is likely to be in the health curriculum, where it is associated with disease."pg 237

"Second, homosexual teachers were presumed to be lecherous and develop "ridiculous crushes" on students." pg 237

"The official policy in most school districs is in fact identical to that of the U.S. military, namely: "Don't ask, don't tell." pg238

"In Sears study, one young man remember: "When I was changing classes I had all the books in my hands looking down and walking up. I'd hear someone mutter "Faggot and have my books knocked down. People were walking over me as I am trying to gather my books."pg 239


COMMENTS

In so many ways is the treatment of gay and lesbians unexeptable. There have been countless suicides due to topic. Whether people are gay or straight doesn't matter, the U.S. of all things to be considered is the fact that our founding fathers set up to the system in which we have now and one major contribution to their train of thought was everything they hated while being under Britains rule. Not everyone thinks alike or dresses the same, everyone is entitled to THEIR own brain.
What one wishes to do is not our problem, we are all individuals thinking for ourselves not for others. The mere confusion among being gay and a rapest/creep is nothing less than a stereotype. Why one person/teacher can be accused of something because of their sexuality is beyond me. In terms of giving these children the knowledge of gay/straight, I say that is the parents job not necessarily the school. This is such a controversial topic it boggles my mind.Bullying is completely unexceptable, how would you feel spending a day in that child or adults life? School should be a place to make friends learn and just have fun; Not be a place where you rather run away or kill yourself.  

Kozol: Still Separate, Still Unequal: America's Education Apartheid

 "It really does come down to that-if the rich continue to hoard wealth and abuse the other 95% of society then they continually make themselves superfluous. By doing so, they recieve the same treatment that they dole out to the less unfortunate. This effect is clearly seen throughout the US presently as life as we know it is disintegrating before our eyes and chaos increasingly rules." pg1

"All people are due equal education and everything else that goes along with maintaining a healthy society. "pg 2 

"In Chicago, by the academic year 2002-2003, 87 percent of public school enrollment was black or Hispanic; less than 10 percent of children in the schools were white. In Washington D.C., 94 percent of children were black or Hispanic, less than 5 percent were white. In St. Louis, 82 percent of the student population were black or Hispanic; In Philadelphia and Cleveland, 79 percent; in Los Angeles, 84 percent, in Detroit, 96 percent; in Baltimore, 89 percdent. In New York City, nearly three quarters of the students were black or Hispanic."

"Its more like being hidden,''said a fifiteen year old girl named Isabel I met some years ago in Harlem, in attempting to explain to me the ways in which she and her classmates understood the racial segregation of their neighborhoods and schools. "It's as if you have been put in a garage where, if they don't have room for something but arent sure if they should throw it out, they put it there where they don't need to think of it again."

"I wish that this school was the most beautiful school in the whole why world."

"If you close your eyes to the changing racial composition of the schools and look only at budget actions and political events, says Noreen Connell, the director of the nonprofit Educational Priorities Panel in New York, "you're missing the assumptions that are underlying these decisions." When minority parents ask for something better for their kids, she says, "the assumption is that these are parents who can be discounted. These are kids who just don't count-children we dont' value."

"This then is the accusation that Alliyah and her classmates send our way:"You have. . . .We do not have." Are they right or are they wrong? Is this a case of naive and simplistic juvenile exaggeration? What does a third grader know about these bigtime questions of fairness and justice? Physical appeareances apart, how in any case do you begin to measure something so diffuse and vast and seemingly abstract as having more, or having less, or not having at all?"


COMMENTS

We have made such a huge issue over the desegregation of our schools in the past but yet to return to a period in time where we are almost completely 360 in the Brown vs. Board of Ed. decision.I believe the statistics to be louder than anything, the numbers just go on and on and continue to astonish me. In terms of the last 2 quotes I chose, I believe that a lot of the children don't recognize of having more or having less or nothing at all.
We need to honestly give the children of our future equal opportunities for education. How can we send children to these prestigious schools and then sit back and ignore the fact that other children are at an extreme disadvantage. Standardized testing is a huge problem. These teachers and school districts are "doing" what they have to in regards to their occupation.
To stand out and go beyond the educational necessities of these children would be an outlaw. I think we need to reconsider what is in the childrens best interest; and by making them take these monotonous stardized tests repeatively just so we can see the "progression" or is it "retrogression" of these kids. Stop wasteing time and money on something that isn't for the benefit of these kids, because its clearly not working and not only is it making it harder on the teachers and parents but most importantly the students.

An Indian Fathers Plea

This reading made me realize how serious it is in term of Education, that we do not treat children like objects of a grocery store. This reading has broaden my awareness of the problems with "labeling" children. Every child no matter what there background or culture has something to bring to the community and classroom. Just because one is brought up a certain way doesn't necessarily make them slow or special in a bad way but makes them more culturally aware. I believe Wind-Wolf to have a clear advantage into the understanding of nature and many other different teaching that the Native Americans probably taught him since he was a infant.

Delpit The Silenced Dialogue:Power Pedagogy in Educating other Peoples Children

"How can such complete communication blocks exist when both parties truly believe they have the same aims? How can the bitterness and resentment expressed by the educators of color be drained so that the sores can heal? What can be done?"pg23

"I want the same thing for everyone elses's children as I want for mine." "To provide schooling for everyone's children that reflects liberal,middle-class values and aspirations is to ensure the mainenance of the status quo, to ensure that power, the culture of power, remains in the hands of those who already have it."pg 28

"I didn't feel she was teaching us anything. She wanted us to correct each other's papers and we were there to learn from her. She didn't teach anything,absolutely nothing.
Maybe they're trying to learn what black folks knew all the time. We understand how to improvise, how to express ourselves creatively. When I'm in a classroom, I'm not looking for that, I'm looking for structure, the more formal language.
Now my buddy was in [a] black teacher's class. And that lady was very good. She went through and explained and defined each part of the structure. This [white] teacher didn't get along with that black teacher. She said that she din't agree with her methods. But I  don't think that white teacher had any methods. pg 31-32


COMMENTS

When first reading this controversial article I was a little overwhelmed by the introduction statements into given by people and the way they felt about this cultural topic. The first quote or questions rather, I chose because these are questions I was quite curious about myself. She answers these by saying "I believe the answer to these questions lies in ethnographic analyis, that is, in identifying and giving voice to alternative worldviews." By making ALL views prominent it would end the confusion between cultures. Is this the best answer?
 The excerpt from the student who had a white teacher and black teacher and had experiences from both of them. I really think this is a lot more powerful then we might realize, not only is this the view of many more people like this student but it happens both ways. A white teacher could have a black teacher and could resent them. How can people treat and view people like this? If a teacher is good or bad has absolutely nothing to do with their skin color nor where they came from it. It is peoples individuality that makes them the person they are whether educator,engineer,scientist,student, parent or whatever the case may be.

The five aspects of power as Lisa Delpit would put it:

1.Issues of power are enacted in classrooms

2.There are codes or rules for participating in power; that is, there is a "culture of power."

3. The rules of the culture of power are a reflection of the rules of the culture of those who have power.

4.If you are not already a participant in the culture of power, being told explicitly the rules of that culture makes acquiring power easier.

5.Those with power are frequently least aware of-or least willing to acknowledge-its existence. Those with less power are often most aware of its existence.