Journal Entry #5.

1. Coming to terms with Peggy McIntosh's paper, White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences Through Work in Women's Studies, it really makes me step back and take a look at who I am and where I come from. I wouldn't consider myself white, yet in McIntosh's essay, I receive all the benefits one would under "white privilege". She really describes and paints you a picture of really all that white privilege entails from not getting followed in the store to not having to worry that I won't get a job because of my skin color. Now, it makes me really sad and I find it eye opening to think that although racism may seem to be gone, it's really just covered up and less prevalent in our society. This raises the point that really in our culture and being white, we are raised up to be blissfully ignorant of important issues going on around us. With her talking about white privilege and brining up key concepts I really look at myself and see the completely unnoticed benefits that I am able to have that are due to my skin tone, and until really reading this essay and reflecting on my own life, I was completely unaware. Peggy McIntosh also goes into detail about men's privilege and really I believe that in order to look and criticize men's privilege and to minimize sexism, we need to largely look at ourselves and make an effort to reduce the racism that white privilege brings. No one should be judged on the color of their skin and it's really disappointing that after the Civil Rights Movement in the 60's I'm able to say racism still exists and is an every day part of our society. I think that it's important to take a look at our own lives and really reflect and think critically about what McIntosh is saying here and try to make a point to be aware and educate others.

2. Questions:

In order to really try and minimize the "white privilege" that is so prevalent still in our society in this day and age, what can we do besides educate others and raise awareness?

I'm concerned that people with white privilege or even men won't be prepared to listen and reflect at their lives, what can we do to help them see our point of view while not being offensive and instead offering insight to the views of some of the minority groups? (i.e. Women and minority races in this case)

McIntosh brings up 46 points that she really sees white privilege in her daily life, what could be some steps to allowing everyone to feel the same "privileges" that white people or men do?

Journal Entry #4.

1. Conscious, willed refusal of schooling for political or cultural reasons is not acknowledged as an appropriate response to oppressive education. (Kohn 5).

I thought a lot about the two quotes that I picked. They are similarly linked and it really gets me thinking about the way our education system is set up. We really have an education system that is focused on a certain race of people, whites. Now it’s important to get a well-rounded education focusing on all different groups and really, students are being exposed to a very closed mind education system and really by refusing to learn it’s trying to turn the tides and really force the school system to look at the root of the problem.

2. However, not learning is a healthy though frequently dysfunctional response to racism, sexism, and other forms of bias. In times of social movements for justice, such refusal is often turned to more positive mass protest and demonstration, and the development of alternative learning situations. (Kohn 5).

This really brings up what is going on in Arizona right now. Students are being forced to learn a certain criteria and really in order to try and get a more culturally rounded education system students protest by ways of not learning. They are rebelling against the teachers and really the criteria and this has happened a lot and is a way to peacefully protest.

I really am thinking about this concept a lot and what is going on in Arizona right now and both of these quotes have relevance to it in the sense that it’s really a way of silent, peaceful student protests against, like the quote stated, “racism, sexism, and other forms of bias.”(Kohn 5). A lot of these students whose Ethnic Studies classes are being taken away don’t really have ways of protesting and I think this way is something that they could do, to prevent racism, or if not prevent it but to open the eyes of teachers and leaders to see what is going on. Many of the students used this as a method before the Ethnic studies classes were brought in to show that really, the education they were receiving was very closed minded, directed for mainly “white” students in a sense that the education and criteria that was being taught was specifically for white students and didn’t quite share the history of other cultures and minority groups. Through the bringing in of the ethnic studies classes the graduation rate of Latinos/as has increased and students had found that passion of learning once again and let go of the “not-learning” state of mind. Once again their education is being threatened again I won’t be surprised if these students go back to protesting in the way they started hopefully opening the eyes of bystanders to really gain the support of others.

Essay #2.

Diversifying Education

In this essay I will be looking at the importance creativity and the importance of switching up methods of teaching in the public education system. I will be using Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk along with Gatto’s essay Against School. I’m going to be taking concepts from both of these works. Gatto describes in his essay how “…public education cripples our kids…” (Gatto 1) and why the teaching methods we have currently in our education system our hindering students. Sir Ken Robinson’s talk explains how important creativity is in our school system and how lacking it actually is. I’m going to using key points from both of these works to really support my theory of the importance that the arts and different teaching methods pose.

In our current education system our methods of teaching really have remained the same although I’m sure efforts have been made to diversify the methods. Students are able to learn more through different methods of teaching. Not all students are able to learn from a professor standing at the front of the class for fifty minutes in fact in a study it was said that students only have a twenty-minute attention span. In order to have the most effective teaching methods, we need to diversify the methods our teachers use and one way we could do this is by adding more arts into the system. Sir Ken Robinson really touches base with this in his TED talk and explains the following:

We now three things about intelligence. One, it’s diverse. We think about the world in all the ways that we experience it. We think visually, we think in sound, we think kinesthetically, we think in abstract terms, we think in movement. Secondly, intelligence is dynamic. If you look at the interactions of a human brain, as we heard yesterday from a number of presentations, intelligence is wonderfully interactive. The brain isn’t divided into compartments. In fact, creativity – which I define as the process of having original ideas that have value – more often than not comes about though interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things. (Robinson).

In this passage Sir Ken Robinson explains the importance of a. switching up the criteria because we all think differently, not one specific way. By switching this up, students get a more well rounded education while at the same time allowing students who would normally be left out due to their different way of learning, will now be more included. The second key point he brings up is b. students who are creative really are more interactive just because they are more in tune with the different styles of learning.

For example I was in my high school orchestra and played all throughout school and this helped me focus more throughout the day. First off, I had orchestra in the morning and it was a great way to get me to start focusing on something that I loved to do, and also I was able to do something that involved movement and really allowed hands on learning. This helped me all through high school, middle school and elementary school. I wouldn’t change the fact that I was in orchestra at all. Not only did it help me in school, I was also able to release feelings through music. I also had a great group of friends who were interested in a lot of the same things I was in. Not that I’m trying to say all students should be in orchestra, I think through my personal experience music was something, a great creative outlet, that guided me and helped me through high school. I think there could be many great other opportunities and options for students to involve their body and minds in a positive way. Sir Ken Robinson also agrees with me and sees public education as a great way to enforce the arts and he’s quite baffled by the fact that it’s not in schools, “Truthfully, what happens is, as children grow up, we start to educate them progressively from the waist up. And then we focus on their heads. And slightly to one side.” (Robinson).

The public education system is really funneling students to only use part of their brain, and students are taught that the performing arts really is something you wouldn’t want to do as a “real” job. I feel as though we are teaching children that going to school and doing a certain thing is the only way that anyone will be successful. Gatto adds to this in his paper stating, “…a considerable number of well-known Americans never went through the twelve-year wringer our kids currently go through, and they turned out all right.” (Gatto 2). He goes on to list names of famous people that everyone knows such as George Washington and Abe Lincoln. He uses this as an example as to why education in public schools, the “…twelve-year wringer…” (Gatto 2) is so important, when clearly students have turned out all right doing other things that don’t involve the “normal” ways of how to become successful. The arts have been really demoted in the education system and in life in general. You don’t see students flocking to the university to become a musician. Sir Ken Robinson really describes how arts in schools have been downgraded levels in importance when in reality, they are just as important as any social science or mathematics. He talks about how “Art and music are normally given a higher status in schools than drama a and dance. There isn’t an education system in the planet that teaches dance everyday to children the way we teach them mathematics.” (Robinson) yet all of these subjects are thrown at the bottom of the food chain. This is sad, yet it is true in almost all school systems as Robinson goes on later to talk about, “Every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects. Every one. Doesn’t matter where you go. You’d think it would be otherwise, but it isn’t. At the top are mathematics and languages, then the humanities, and the bottom are the arts.” (Robinson).

The arts in the education system are so important and key yet we ignore it and treat it as somewhat of a hobby. I know that when I was in orchestra, I knew I wasn’t going to go into music. In fact, the majority of people in the Orchestra weren’t going to even continue practicing their musical talent except for the few exceptions who got full rides to colleges based on their musical abilities. Students, such as myself, have been funneled to believe that if I were to become a major in music, I would be unsuccessful, I wouldn’t make any money, and it would be a waste of money to go to college for such a poor choice of major. No, students need to do something worthy with their lives such as being a doctor, or professor.

Why is it that we enforce jobs that are so limited? Not everyone wants to be a teacher or professor. Many students most likely can’t achieve that ideal success either due to the fact it is limited. It is limited in the way of your brain. I know I’m a kinesthetic learner, and so far in the majority of my classes high school and college, a professor has stood at the front of the room and talked. This works every once in a while, but everyday? Teachers should switch up their ways of teaching and take this as an opportunity to get to know their students along with showing them different styles of learning. If we did this, along with putting arts in public education, the amount of successful students popping out of college and high school would be unbelievable. Everyone has that potential, we just limit success by limiting education. I’m going to finish off my paper with some food for thought, a quote by Albert Einstein, “Everybody is a genius. But, if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it’ll spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.” (Einstein).