Tolerance.org

With this being my final blog post for the class, I am really quite sad that I’m almost finished learning about social justice and diversity. The biggest thing we have been taught so far is about learning to accept and tolerate others (and students) who are different from us or our views of “normal”. Though the class is almost finished, I’m not ready to be done learning how to be a better person… but I don’t have to be finished, and neither does my class.

There is this really awesome website for teachers called www.tolerance.org and it has incredible resources for teachers who are trying to teach their classroom to be more tolerant of others. tolerance.org was created by the Southern Poverty Law Center “is dedicated to reducing prejudice, improving intergroup relations and supporting equitable school experiences for our nation's children” (Southern Poverty Law Center). It is a resource for teachers to find videos and lessons, and to read about reducing social injustices within the classroom. Through the website, it allows you to search by grade level, topic, or type of resource for uses within the classroom. 

I think this is a really awesome site because it can help teachers integrate learning about social justice without looking too hard or creating their own curriculum. I feel that we could all make our classrooms more tolerant and aware of our surroundings. With this site, we can actually implement learning about social justice. That is pretty awesome. These resources, especially the ability to search by topic, is really awesome because we can simply be learning about something as simple as the Civil Rights movement or something as complex as gender expression, and the website has something that could be helpful for all of it. 

If you are an educator or future educator, this group and website is an excellent way to help your classroom become an equal playing field for all students. It can help students better understand each other and their surroundings. 

Resources

Teaching Tolerance. (n.d.). Teaching Tolerance. Retrieved April 2, 2014, from http://www.tolerance.org

Teaching Adult Kids Today

Youth today are in some ways the exact same as they always have been, but in other ways, they are charting vastly new territory. They are still kids and they are still taught much of the same curriculum in school, but their personal lives look extremely different than they did 50 years ago. I believe that kids today are shown and taught how to grow up more quickly than ever before. 

Along with amazing medical and technological advances, violence around us has increased significantly. All of these factors teach children to act like teens, and teens to act like adults. With the great technological advances, the knowledge that children can receive from television and internet can be very dangerous. Not only are they learning much more at a younger age, they often come across things that are detrimental to their young minds, such a disturbing news or pornographic material. This is very serious because though children today are smart enough to understand what many things mean, they do not have the emotional capacity to deal with problems. Another big issue I see is how often youth come in contact with violence. “In 2010, nearly 700 Chicago school children were shot, 66 fatally, often in multiple shootings, as when 10 were murdered and 37 wounded by firearms in a single three-day period” (Yanklowitz 2014). There are school shootings and bomb threats regularly, and children are being prepared for something that should never have even been thought about as an eight year old. These are just a few of the issues that children today face. 


As a future teacher, I have to not only teach kids, but I feel the responsibility to help them be children and be safe. Technology is so advanced it is very easy to let children use iPads or computers in the classroom to do a lot of school work, but they need to be able to do things on their own and technology can limit that. I also have to keep technology in mind when assigning homework or projects because I do not want my kids cheating or stumbling upon something that could be bad for them. Furthermore, as a teacher, I have to be prepared to deal with violence within the classroom like home problems, bullying, school shootings, or even bombs. All of these things are becoming more regular occurrences and that is so scary. It makes teaching a totally different ballgame than even 20 years ago. These are only a few of the issues that are coming up within an elementary school classroom today and it is quite astounding. 

References

Yanklowitz, R. (2014, March 24). It's Hard to Be a Kid Today. The Huffington Post. Retrieved March 27, 2014, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-shmuly-yanklowitz/its-hard-to-be-a-kid-today_b_5018406.html

Learning Values from Home

I grew up in the Northeast region of Georgia. My town is at the bottom of the Appalachian mountains, and touches a large portion of Lake Lanier. This is unique because though we are pretty small, we have distinct regions of people. We have a lot of farming community, but we are also based around a giant chicken production industry. We have very diverse types of people: we have very rich, very poor, and everything in between. Our weather is fairly mild, which creates a little bit of everything. We have warm summers, cooler winters, and even the occasional snowstorm.

Both of my parents grew up in the same place I did, so I love to hear about growing up on the lake, and hanging out with their friends. Being from the South, we treasure slow summers and family time. We boat regularly and we actually live on the lake now because of my parents’ memories growing up. 

Once, my dad skied underneath a dock because his brother Blake drove the boat too close to the shore. My mom used to take out her father’s boat every day with all of her friends and they would jump off the bridges throughout the lake.  These are just some of the ways they lived while growing up.



I think that these types of stories and experiences have made me truly value family and learning how to appreciate my surroundings. I love to spend time with friends and family, and I make time for others regularly. Though school is extremely important, I know that its not everything to this life. I work to live, not the other way around. My grandparents and parents all worked extremely hard to provide for us, but through that, I’ve learned that enjoyment is necessary. We are people who need people and who love people. I’ve learned this through my parents upbringings and my own in Northeast Georgia. 

(2014, February 11). Georgia Base and Elevation Maps. Netstate.com. Retrieved March 13, 2014, from http://www.netstate.com/states/geography/mapcom/ga_mapscom.htm.

For the Love of the Lord

I have traveled to Spain a few times for missions trips, and along with those trips we have attended many many church services. Though, one of the churches we traveled to in Spain was Baptist (like me), it was totally different from anything I have experienced before.

At my home church, our services are right at an hour. My pastor says his sermon in about 25 minutes or so, we sing a couple of hymns, and then its over until next week. This particular church service was at a church called La Iglesia Evangelica Bautista. It is a tiny church in the town of Denía, Spain, located on the Mediterranean Sea. Most of Spain considers themselves un-practicing Catholics with a few muslims spread out here or there. This church is very unique because they are one of the only baptist churches in Spain. 

Going into the service, I expected it to be very similar to my experiences at home because they were baptist and part of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, just like my home church. Was I wrong. The air inside the building was so different than anything I had felt before. The service began with announcements and the celebrations of birthdays and anniversaries. EVERYONE in the church participated. Then we began singing, people were weeping, and putting their hands in the air, while my little group just looked on in wonder. Not only did we have a language barrier, but an experience barrier as well. People became more and more emotional throughout the service and by the end, they even had us feeling the love and presence of the Lord there with us. I was so in awe and so in love with this little church. They had helped me learn something and experience something totally separate from anything I have ever learned.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love my church, but I think that experiencing other denominations, churches, and religious services is extremely important to the development of a person. It helps us to better understand the world around us and to understand who we are in relation to these other people. When we truly see and understand, less prejudice and discrimination will happen and our lives can become more peaceful. Harshness usually comes from things we don’t understand. I hope that others get the chance to experience a totally different religious service because it is truly inspiring. 

Why Make It So Difficult?

For most of the time, I don’t have to have a plan of action to get where I need to go. I just walk the way I’m supposed to and I know that I can get there by stairs, steep hills, or whatever. A lot of people don’t have this same luxury.

 Recently one of my good friends has broken her foot, and it has been a very eye-opening experience. She lives in the door on campus that is located on the top of a hill. For most of us, it would be a hassle, but not a problem. For her, it was a problem because she either had to drive to her classes or try to handle the hill on crutches. Even worse, because her injury was temporary, parking and disabilities services on campus would not issue her a handicap parking pass. This makes getting to class and parking extremely difficult. We have many buildings on our campus that have elevators, but in incredibly inconvenient areas. And not only that, but they only work half of the time. She will have a class in one end of a building, but have to use the elevator on the opposite side just to get up one floor. Or, using the parking deck, she has to walk all the way around the building to get to a ramp instead of climbing a flight of stairs. She has to constantly build in more time in her schedule and a game plan for her to get somewhere that usually is so easy to get to. She also cannot participate in things like our intramural games or volunteer work because she can’t do things like walking a puppy or carrying heavy cans. 

Many places around our campus could easily be fixed to have better access for those with disabilities. An elevator added at the more commonly used end of a building, or build a ramp along with stairs somewhere for more convenience. Our world is made for “normal” people, but wouldn’t it be so easy to help everyone out?

Gender Identity

The Encyclopedia Britannica defines gender identity as “an individual’s self-conception as being male or female, as distinguished from actual biological sex” (Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica 2014). This definition really made me think about my own gender identity. How would I identify myself? Feminine? Masculine?    
   
The longer that I think about this topic, the more uncertain I am. I don’t dress up very often, but I have fun doing it. I wouldn’t really consider myself to be overly masculine or overly feminine. I like babies, tall heels, and fun makeup. I also like football, driving a stick shift, and playing outside. I think my gender identity would fall somewhere between masculine and feminine, but leaning toward the more feminine side. But how do others see me? I think that everyone has a right to express who they truly are. If guys want to wear dresses, they can wear dresses. If girls want to be MMA fighters, they can do that, too. I think that gender identity is found somewhere between upraising and personality. I believe that family and friends have a huge influence on gender identity and how someone sees himself, but at the end of the day, much of a person’s personality is just engrained. 

In our gender identity, most females are taught to act feminine and most males are taught to act masculine. When a person of one sex chooses to act like the other sex, sometimes people do not understand because of our culture. This causes tension and bullying and sometimes even oppression. Males definitely get picked on more for acting feminine than females do for acting masculine. Even today males dominate society, and when a male is not like the rest, he gets severely picked on. I personally don’t care. Everyone has a right to express themselves however they feel necessary as long as they aren’t physically threatening someone else.





References

Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. (n.d.). gender identity (sexual behaviour). Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Retrieved February 21, 2014, from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/228219/gender-identity

Raising a Genderless Baby: Okay or Not?

After reading more than a couple articles on raising a gender-neutral child, I cannot help but to feel bad for the child in this situation. I think that it is courageous for the parents to help their child(ren) become more of their own identity rather than an identity constructed by society. That being said, I do not think it is being approached the correct way at all.

A Canadian couple is choosing to raise their youngest child, Storm, as gender-neutral. Only a select group of people know the children’s gender, and it is being kept a secret from the rest, even his or her grandparents. I love the idea that a child can decide how they want to be treated and how they want to act rather than being told how to by society. But, by keeping the gender a secret, I can’t help but feel like the choice is actually being taken away from the child.

The biggest point I think Storm’s parents are missing is that when, we as humans do not have something to identify with in the beginning, we can end up losing our identity rather than finding it. In an online article by ABC, the point was brought up that, “‘To raise a child not as a boy or a girl is creating, in some sense, a freak,’ said Dr. Eugene Beresin, director of training in child and adolescent psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. ‘It sets them up for not knowing who they are.’” (Davis & James 2011).  Most of us strive daily to figure out who are better, and we have a gender identity. Without that, how can a child even know where to begin? Dr. Harold Koplewicz from the Huffington Post wrote, “Gender is a part of who we are, even if we hope that it wouldn't matter as much as it often does. Pretending it doesn't exist isn't a good message to send to a child-or an infant. It magnifies, rather than reducing, its importance” (2011). Gender identity is sometimes overbearing and ridiculous, and it can be thrown off if that is what someone wants to do. But shouldn’t THAT be Storm’s choice to do so, rather than having to make a choice of who to identify with or how to identify with others?

I think it is spectacular that these parents are allowing their children to be who they want rather than stick to gender-based things. I just don’t think that keeping a child’s gender secret is the best choice in our society. Our world could stand to lose some of the silly gender ideas, but some of the gender characteristics are innate rather than put there by society.  Let the child leave the innate and choose the rest.




References

Davis, L., & James, S. D. (2011, May 12). Home> Health Canadian Mother Raising 'Genderless' Baby, Storm, Defends Her Family's Decision. In ABC News. Retrieved February 14, 2014

Koplewicz, H. (2011, May 27). Bringing Up Baby Without Gender: A Risky Social Experiment? . In Huffington Post. Retrieved February 14, 2014

Privileges

I define a privilege as something we have that we did not have to earn, that other people do not have. Most of the time it is an advantage that we have that we did not ask for or that we do not deserve. Sometimes we do not even want the privileges that we have, but they are there and most of the time we take advantage of them. 

I am the first one to admit that I have grown up very privileged. I have never had to earn my food, my bed, my clothes, or even sometimes my spending money. I am white and I grew up in a middle-class, farming suburb. I was even privileged enough to have friends and family who look like me and like the same things that I do. I had sleepovers, birthday parties, and I even went to a private high school. Nothing about me says underprivileged at all except for maybe a fact that I am a female in the south. In class we mostly discusses privilege based upon race and gender.

All this being said, I think it is very sad that because of where I live and my skin color I am treated any better than others who are different from me. I hope that as a teacher I can get passed the different privileges and see my students for who they are rather than what they are. I want to be able to teach my students to respect people and to earn other people’s respect based purely on actions and personality. I want to treat my students without any biases based on privilege, but rather based on performance and earning. I want to learn about each of my students, instead of making assumptions based upon how they look or how they are being raised. I know that I am human and I have biases that I am not even aware of, but I hope to become aware and make my classroom a more safe, and healthy environment for each and every child I teach. I think his sums up my ideas perfectly :”Banks and Banks (2004) explain that the

chief aim of multicultural education is to achieve educational equity, ensuring that all students can attain academic success. In addition, effective multicultural pedagogy helps students cultivate the knowledge, dispositions, and attitudes needed to join with one another ‘to create a civic and moral community that works for the common good’ (p. xi)” (Flynn 2012, p. 109).

References

Flynn, J. (2012). CRITICAL PEDAGOGY WITH THE OPPRESSED AND THE OPPRESSORS: Middle School Students Discuss Racism and White Privilege. Middle Grades Research Journal, 7(2), 95-110.

Racial Discussion in the Classroom

    Despite the belief that our society is colorblind and totally equal, we still have very many racial inequity problems here in the United States. Some of our biggest problems lie within our educational system. Most people, including teachers, harbor the beliefs that African American students under perform and Asian American students exceed performance standards, when in reality each student is different.

    It is extremely important to discuss openly and unbiasedly discuss racial issues within our educational system to help each student reach his or her true potential. With all of the different stereotypes surrounding each student, they can become discouraged or start believing the stereotype is actually true. This will lead to everyone holding on to resentment for actions that most people are not even aware are happening. 

    It is up to teachers within the education system to bring these issues to everyone’s attention and begin the change. In a study done at Liberty University, it was found that “Teachers’ opinions concerning the perceptive dimensions of their students as well as a teachers’ obligation to the profession of teaching in itself, portrays an important part in the formation of their students’ academic achievement” (Batts 2012, p. 8).  A teacher’s perception of a student directly impacts that students academic performance. If a teacher holds fast to these stereotypes, the teacher’s students will embrace those stereotypes rather than find their true potential. Educators need to forget the stereotypes and see each student for what he or she truly is. They should strive to make their classroom free of any discriminations based upon race or ethnicity. It begins with a teacher.

    I think one strategy for talking about race within a classroom is by letting each student show their heritage, through projects, show-and-tell, or papers, and presenting, rather than letting someone else define them. For younger kids this may be a little harder, but you could still openly discuss race by showing and helping kids understand that despite difference of looks or belongings, they all have important roles in society.

    Race is an incredibly hard issue to bring up in school even 50 years after the Civil Rights Movement. As a society we pretend that we don’t see race, but we still see the stereotypes that each race holds. We need to truly break free by addressing the problem and changing attitudes.




Works Cited

Batts, P. L. (2012). Urban versus Suburban Public Schools: Resolving the Issue of Racial Inequality in Education. Online Submission,

Breaking the Social Norm

Hi, my name is Cree and I am a junior at the University of North Georgia. I am making this blog for my class about diversity in the elementary school classroom. Our first blog post is about breaking a social norm and others’ reactions to me doing so. 

 My good friend Paige and I decided that we were going to go eat dinner with a big group of our friends and pay with only coins. We really chose this idea because we could fit it into our schedule and we thought it would be fairly simple. Little did we know how weird it would be. 

I think the hardest part for me was trying to find enough money in coins to actually pay for a meal. We went to Mexican restaurant in Dahlonega, Georgia, which is not very upscale, but pretty normal for us. It became awkward when we went to pull out our money to pay. Our friends stared and kept giggling and some looked even a little uncomfortable while we waited for the waiter to pick up our tabs. One of our friends even offered to help us pay for our meal. When the waiter came to get the check, he looked confused at first, but then he took pity on us. We couldn’t figure out why, but then we realized that he probably thought we were poor and thats really all we had left for a meal. 

People who decide to go out to each in restaurants are usually expected to pay for a meal in cash or with a debit or credit card. By paying with coins, we were almost a little looked down upon. And it was automatically assumed that we didn’t have enough money, not that we were making a choice to pay with change. I think this says a lot about our culture because smaller bills are just thought to be lesser. Our culture is based off of socioeconomic status and  we were put into a lower tier purely because we decided to pay a different way than others. I think this really shows how we are valued in society purely off how we pay for things or how we look to the outside. It definitely showed me how narrow-minded our culture is and unknowingly so. 

Thanks for reading,
Cree