Gender Issues in Education

HYPERLINKS:


This week is all about gender issues in the classroom whether it has to do with sports, dress codes, or learning in the classroom. I decided to do a little searching about gender issues in education and I found some videos and a website that shows what is going on in schools today.


The first link that I found is about some information about what the Title IX law and some things that it enforces and also about some myths about women athletes. As an athlete in high this article interested me. In this article all of the "Did You Know..." facts was my favorite because it tells you precise examples of some things that the Title IX law pursues.One of them that caught my interest was:
 "Did You Know...Title IX requires that male and female athletes receive the same benefits of athletic participation:    

• equipment, uniforms, supplies
• access to weight room and training room
• equal practice facilities
• same size and quality locker rooms and competition facilities 
• equal access to practice and games during prime time
• same quality coaches as boys' teams
• opportunity to play the same quality opponents
• the same awards and awards banquets
• cheerleaders and band performances at girls' games too, etc. " 

This particular fact caught my interest because in my own high school the football team seemed like it received a lot more money than some of the other sports. The football team got a new football field, new jerseys, and new practicing equipment. Being on the women's volleyball team, we needed new equipment such as more volleyballs, our net was broken and we needed a new one, and our uniforms were old and starting to get yellow stains in the armpits...gross. We had to wait forever before we finally got a new net for us to use during practice and games and we had to do our own fundraiser to buy ourselves new uniforms. The football team, which is portrayed as a man's sport was apparently a little more important and they received all of the nicer things. Another thing in this fact was that cheer leaders and band performances can perform at girls' games also. This struck me as interesting because I had never heard of this before. I had only seen the band play at the football games and I had only seen the cheerleaders cheer for football and basketball.

In my next link, the video is about a woman named Shelly-Ann Gallimore:

Shelly-Ann Gallimore is involved in the sport track and field. She won the national championship in the triple jump. Title IX has helped Shelly-Ann achieve many things. She would not have been able to go to college without it because she received a scholarship to go to school for track and field. Because of Title IX she was given an opportunity to succeed and to do something with her life. She  thought that coming to America that everybody was treated as equal but she was shocked to find out that women in this country struggled to achieve equality through Title IX. In my own opinion although Title IX has been around I still feel like girls are not welcomed into boys' sports. As an example my brother did wresting and I loved the sport so much and I always wanted to do it myself but I thought that I would never really be accepted because I was a girl or the guys on the team would act awkward.

The next video clip that I have is about a little boy named Taylor Pugh:

Taylor was suspended from school for having long hair because it was against the dress code. The school claims that having long hair is a distraction to himself and others. I don't think that this is a good enough argument on their part because many girls have long hair and that is not considered a distraction so why should his hair be a distraction. Like his father said in the video; it is not like he had bright green hair with liberty spikes on his head because then it would be a distraction. I don't think that there is any reason why he should not have long hair. I think that the dress code for boys should be on the same level as girls. I'm sure that a girl would not get suspended if she decided to cut her hair short. It just isn't fair. 

In conclusion I realize that both genders are treated unfairly in some ways or another. In class I would like to discuss some personal experiences that people have witnessed or heard of about gender issues in education.

Unequal? I Think So.

After watching the Time Wise videos, doing a little reading about the Brown vs. Board of Education case, and reading the article in the New York times it became very clear to me that education in schools is said to be equal, but it clearly is not. In the first Time Wise video he states that "we are nowhere near a post racial America." He says that "people are still being racist and discriminating against average, everyday folks of color whether it has to do with housing, education, criminal justice, employment, healthcare, or elsewhere." I completely agree with what he is saying. I especially agree with the education portion of this quote. It really is apparent that racism and discrimination still exists in education. The Brown vs. Board of Education case was supposed to stop this sort of thing from happening. It created schools to be separate, but equal. It appears to me that people of color often go to schools that are poor and most of the students are at or below the poverty level.


In the article by Bob Herbert he states, "Schools are no longer legally segregated, but because of residential patterns, housing discrimination, economic disparities and long-held custom, they most emphatically are in reality." White people often go to schools that are filled with students who are middle class or above and they have nice facilities while African Americans or Hispanics do not have nice facilities. They often get provided with outdated books and often not even enough books for every student. Does that seem equal to you? It also seems like it is separated by race and class. It almost seems as if the Brown vs. Board of education only changed things a small amount. Here is a chart showing the rates of poverty of different races.

I also noticed from my service learning that being in a Providence school compares to the schools that I have been to all my life. The Providence school's facilities are not as nice as the facilities of the schools that I have been to. Also, I noticed that the Providence schools is predominately African American and Hispanic and the schools that I have been in are predominately white. The school that I went to had a nice playground and we had enough books for all of the classmates. At my service learning school there is no playground, just an empty parking lot for the children to play in for recess. I think that the schools should definitely be more integrated. They should try to mix the students so that people who live in poverty can go to a school with better teachers and a nice facility. In the New York Times article Herbert says that " The best teachers tend to avoid such schools. " He is referring to schools in poverty. I think that this article shows why there might be a problem with the racism and discrimination in education in the first couple of paragraphs. I think that people born into a disadvantage deserve a better chance to succeed starting with education. It just isn't fair to them because they never even got a chance to do well in the first place. 

In the Service of What??

QUOTES:

In this article by Joseph Kahne and Joel Westheimer, there were a few quotes that made me relate to my own service learning project. It made me think that I was doing my VIPS tutoring because I was providing a service to the students and not just because it gives me more experience being in a classroom or because it is required to get into the Education Program.

"Service learning makes students active participants in service projects that aim to respond to the needs of the community while furthering the academic goals of students."
-In this quote it is saying that the students who are participating in the service learning are helping others to better their academic goals, create a positive self-esteem, and to develop good thinking skills. In my own VIPS service learning I feel like I am one of those students who is helping others develop these academic goals. In my kindergarten classroom there are only two teachers. There is the teacher and the teacher's assistant and there are close to twenty students in the classroom. I feel that some of the students learn better by being one on one with the teacher. The teacher cannot have a one on one with every single student so I feel like while I am in the classroom I am helping students learn when on any other day they would not be getting any one on one attention. I feel like I am helping more students in the classroom academically by giving them one on one sessions when the teacher is busy.

"...students will have opportunities to experience what David Hornbeck, former Maryland state superintendent. referred to as "the joy of reaching out to others."
-What David Hornbeck is talking about in this quote is how you feel so much joy after helping somebody during a service learning event. It feels good to help others in some way or another. There is a story in the article about how a student and their stepmother helped serve senior citizens their Thanksgiving day meal. The student talked about how it felt good to make the seniors feel good during the holidays because some of them don't have much family in the area and they are often lonely. The student kept them company and made them feel good. I can relate to this because I volunteered at a soup kitchen once last year and I felt a sense of joy after serving the homeless their Thanksgiving meal. Many of them were so grateful towards me because I took time out of my day to do a volunteer job to help serve them.

"The experiential and interpersonal components of service learning activities can achieve the first crucial step toward diminishing the sense of "otherness" that often separates students-particularly privileged students-from those in need."
-The sense of "otherness" that the author is talking about is how people think of others before they actually experience being with others. A person may often have a biased opinion of a certain neighborhood or of a certain race. Let's be honest, I felt like I had a sense of "otherness" before I started my VIPS service learning. I was under the assumption that all of the children who went to Providence schools were going to speak Spanish and that all of them would be Hispanic or African American. Now, once I have been through my own experiences and I have witnessed with my own eyes how Providence schools are really like. The classroom that I am in for service learning is nothing like what I thought it was going to be like. The races in the classroom are completely mixed and everybody in the classroom speaks English.

I also feel like these quotes represent service learning very well and also how I feel about service learning.

COMMENTS/QUESTIONS/POINTS OF DISCUSSION:
How has the service learning changed your view about Providence schools if it has at all? How do you think you are helping and contributing when you go to your service learning?

The "Our America" Show

Hey everyone. I just wanted to let you know that the show Our American will be on the Oprah Winfrey Network tomorrow at 10pm. Professor Bogad told us about the show in class and also showed us a short clip of one of the episodes. I won't be able to watch it because I have to work :( but if anybody wants to watch it, here is the info!

Harsh Realities Finds Transgender Youth Face Extreme Harassment in School

HYPERLINKS BLOG POST:


I went on the GLSEN website and I found an article that I thought was most interesting to me. This article is called "Harsh Realities Finds Transgender Youth Face Extreme Harassment in School". I found that this article was particularly interesting because it was about transgenders. In my experience I have heard more about gay, lesbian, and bisexual harassment more than transgender harassment. I am most unfamiliar with transgenders so I thought that this article may inform me a little more. The article absolutely informed me and taught me a lot more than I did know. It also got me a little more interested and I also found some other things on the internet that relate to this subject.

This article, "Lonley Road: Why School is Hell for Transgender Pupils" made me see how it made transgenders feel when they went to school with peers. In the GLSEN article it said that transgenders face even higher victimization in schools than non-transgender lesbian, gay, and bisexual students. 9 out of 10 transgender students faced verbal harassment from their peers at school because they were transgender and unfortunately more than half faced physical harassment. " Two-thirds of transgender students felt unsafe in school because of their sexual orientation (69%) and how they expressed their gender (65%)." It really makes me very sad to see what the girl in the Lonley Road article had to go through. Lauren was verbally harassed to the point of where she wanted to kill herself. It came to the point to her that the harassment was enough to not even make her want to live her life anymore. She didn't feel like she was worth enough to live. That is a really low place to be in your life when you don't want to live anymore. All of the feelings that she had about wanting to kill herself was all thanks to her disrespectful peers. The treatment from her peers eventually got worse, and it became physical harassment. They spit in her face and even tried to take off her skirt so they could see her genitals. I don't think that any student should have to deal with these sort of issues in school. Fortunately for Lauren she spoke to her parents about these problems and higher authority at school and they helped her change schools and did the best they could do to help. In the GLSEN article it says that transgender students are more likely than gay, lesbian, and bisexual students to speak out about the harassment. In the article it also says that it's very important that the schools are made aware of these problems so they can try to help in the best way they can. Some do not help at all, but when they do it could change a situation for the better.

This video unfortunately shows how school systems are not willing to help transgenders lives easier in the school system. They won't allow Oakleigh to become homecoming king because he is technically a "female" In this case, the students that are shown in this video are supporting Oakleigh which is a nice sight to see, but the school system is showing discrimination towards him because he is transgender. Oakleigh is technically a female but he chooses to be seen as a male. He ran for homecoming king and the students obviously think that he should be able to be homecoming king. I think that he should be able to be the king because if the students voted for him, they want him to be their homecoming king. All the school system did was make him feel different and as he said in the video, he was holding back tears. He also said that he wasn't able to enjoy his homecoming because of this and did not show school spirit because he was so let down. In the GLSEN article it says that "Although most transgender students (83%) could identify at least one supportive educator, only a third (36%) could identify many (six or more) supportive staff." In Oakleigh's case she did not have very much support from her school district in any way.


It makes me really sad that there are even worse cases of harassment than these links that I posted. Some people are even killed for the fact that they transgender. Even when transgender students are out of school and on their own, they will still always be harassed and discriminated against. They will always have to live this way as long and people don't change their mind sets. Here is a video in remembrance of some of those who have been murdered for being transgender. It truly breaks my heart to watch it because transgenders are people just like anybody else. I don't understand why people have to hate others who are different from them.

Questions/Comments/Points to Share: This assignment was one of my favorite ones so far because it is so interesting, but sad at the same time to read the articles and watch the videos about LGBT men and women. I understand why people are afraid to accept someone who isn't the "norm", but what is normal anyway? There is no true definition for normal. Some things may be normal to some and not normal to others. It all has to do with a particular person's view. I see why people may be afraid to accept people of LGBT because they are different but I certainly don't believe that this gives them the right to harass or even murder them. 

Teaching Multilingual Children by Virginia Collier

QUOTES:

"There are differences between first language and second language acquisition in children. These include variables such as the child's age, place and time of second language acquisition, individual learning style, the broader society's social perceptions of the status of the child's identity group, and the child's desire or need to understand and/or identify with speakers of the new language."
In this quote Collier is saying that you need to teach children differently depending on whether they are being taught their first or second language. You cannot be taught your second language the way that you were taught your first language. It also depends on what age you are at the time of learning the languages. I think that Collier is saying that as a teacher you need to figure out how to teach the child considering that they are bilingual. It isn't all up to the teacher either because the student has to have the desire and want to understand a new and different language. If the student is not interested, then it probably won't work out so well.

"Don't teach a second language in any way that challenges or seeks to eliminate the first language."
Collier is telling us in this quote is that we should not teach a second language in order to override the students' first language. A students' first language is who they are as a person. They should not be made to feel like their language is wrong or that they should no longer use their first language. Their first language is important to them. Collier says that instead of making the student feel bad about their first language that perhaps a teacher could show them the differences between their first and second languages. Doing these kinds of things will help students get an easier understanding of the language used in formal schooling if they compare it to their first language.

"Teach the standard form of English and students' home language together with an appreciation of dialect differences to create an environment of language recognition in the classroom."
The teacher in a classroom with bilingual students needs to understand and appreciate that their students are bilingual. They need to plan their lessons with these things in mind and recognize the different ways that they can use language in the classroom. A teacher should not look down on a student who is biligual; they should accept it. They can use different languages to their advantages. Collier states that "once a child becomes literate in the home language, literacy skills swiftly transfer to second language settings." If a student knows their first language well, it will help in learning their second language in the classroom.

Questions/ Comments/Points to Share:
While I was reading this article by Collier it made me realize that I haven't experienced much yet in the classroom. In my own schooling I never knew anybody that was bilingual so I had no idea that there were certain ways to teach when having a biligual student in the classroom. I know that many of the Providence schools have bilingual students, but I still have not been able to experience my VIPS assignment yet. I hope to be able to go soon so I can learn more about the different types of people and cultures in the classroom so it will help me to learn to be a good teacher.

Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

White Privelege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh
REFLECTION:

I read this article by Peggy McIntosh and it reminded me of my experience in class the other day when Dr. Bogad went over S.C.W.A.A.M.P. When we went over this in class it completely made me realize that I was in the culture of power. Before reading this article and before this FNED class I never even realized that I was so much more privileged than other people. Reading the list of things that McIntosh wrote of ways in which she feels privileged compared to people of other races made me realize that the list pertains to me too. I never thought of it from a black person's point of view before. I wanted to see it from a black person's point of view so I did some searching on the internet.I'm sure that there are even worse stories than these but, after I read a few of these stories it just makes me realize how rude people are to people of color. I would absolutely hate to be treated like that just because of my skin color.

I don't personally have any black friends, but I really wish that I did because I feel like it would make me more aware of how black people feel and how they live compared to my lifestyle. In McIntosh's list she mentioned in number nineteen that, "If  a traffic cop pulls me over, or if  the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven't been singled out because of  my race. " This number on the list reminds me that I won't be getting pulled over unless I really did break the law in some way because I'm white. In a movie that I recently saw, a different situation happened. The movie I watched is all about racism and it really is a great movie to watch. The movie is called Crash. In the movie a veteran cop pulls over a black couple in an SUV merely because they are black. When he pulls them over he makes them get out of the car and he frisks them with his partner. The partner frisks the black male and the veteran cop frisks the black female. He has no reason to treat her badly but he does and he sexually assaults her. The black couple cannot do anything about it. They cannot report this to authority because the person that did this was authority. They had to go home without any dignity. McIntosh's article makes me feel lucky that I have privilege because I'm white, but it also makes me feel terrible for others who don't have the privilege. I wish that there was some way I could help in a big way.

Questions/Comments/Points to Share:
Does anybody have any racism stories that they would like to tell? Has anybody ever witnessed anything happen or have they experienced it themselves? It really interests me to hear the type of stories to make me aware because I am not discriminated by my race and I want to see it from another person's view.