Katie

  "Because I wrongly imagined that English was intrinsically a public language and Spanish an intrinsically private one, I easily noted the difference between classroom language and the language of home." I never thought about a private and public language.  As a person who grew up with only one language, I never thought about the idea of a public and private language.  The school in which I work has a large Spanish speaking population.  When one of my bilingual students needs to be picked up for health reasons, or just to relay a message, many times the students need to speak with their families.  The student and their family member speak to each other in Spanish.  This is their home language and incorporating not only Spanish, but other languages found in school into the curriculum would enhance the students' developing self-awareness.  Providing access to other languages at a young age allows students to acknowledge, become versed in, and create a r...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJJloZ3wKc0   Samantha Wood explores the role of privilege and how those with privilege can be powerful tools of change.  Throughout this class, we have watched, read, discussed, and blogged about the power culture and those with/without privilege.  I have thought about these concepts for the last few weeks and tried to find my place in this system.   I think back to my upbringing.  My Dad moved from Ireland to the United States when he was 28 years old.  He met my Mom soon after moving here; time moves on and they become pregnant with me, get married, get pregnant with my sister and eventually settle down in Rhode Island.  We lived on the Lincoln/Pawtucket line (that in itself was cultural dichotomy).  My sister and I grew up with a strong Irish culture.  My parents belonged to an Irish group that had its base in Pawtucket.  We listened to Irish music, attended every Irish event in the area, ate Iris...

 Until seeing the video in class last evening, I had never heard the term intersectionality.  As Dr. Stevos posted the slide entitled "Intersectionality" I tried to come up with words that define this term.  I came up with nothing.   Fransheska then defined intersectionality.  I now had a working definition and example of this term.    But it wasn't until we watched the TED talk with Kimberle Crenshaw that I could feel what this term means.  Ms. Crensahw coupled with Abby Dobson's singing really drove the point of intersectionality home.  Both women conjured emotions of hurt and pain, sadness and despair.   I felt angered by not only the atrocities experienced by the murdered women, but also that their stories, their names never made it to mainstream media.   This point was furthered by the number of people who sat once these names were verbalized.   The Wheel of Privilege and Power is interesting in that th...

  In many circumstances the people of these communities have not done anything wrong or made wrong choices to end up where their lives have taken them. Some may have had bad luck or horrific things happen to them in their past relationships or health, which resulted in their current state of dismay. Quote #4 sympathizes and asks WHY Mrs. Washington is in this situation. As a result, there should not always be a stigma which assumes that someone who is on welfare messed up their life carelessly. Unfortunately, there are sometimes where there is no clear explanation or reason how someone got to such a low point in their life. This is a quote from Gabrielle's blog on: “Amazing Grace: The Lives Of Children And The Conscience Of A Nation” By Jonathan Kozol This particular quote from Gabrielle resonated with me because many "mainstream" people believe that people choose to live on welfare.  I was in a position once in my life when I needed state medical.  I was a single mother...

 After watching the video I thought about my the culture of school in my youth.  I will focus on high school as the students in the video were this age.  I never really thought much about culture while in school.  I had my friends and in our school there was definitely a hierarchy of students.  The differences in my school were more based on economic status and not cultural diversity.  I suppose it's because of the community I grew up in.   I found this video very interesting.  I enjoyed how the idea of the Mexican tradition is to spread love and peace.  I really liked the poem they recited at the beginning of each class.  The message about treating others as you would want to be treated is a motto I live by.  I treat every person they way I want them to treat me.  I feel like those in power (Delpit) could only see one view of reality.  Those in charge do not want a culturally diverse reality.  They want a one-si...