August - Quotes

Three quotes that I picked from the article "Safe Spaces" by Gerri August are: "Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the life-styles portrayed in this episode." by Margaret Spelllings in response to the PBS show "Sugertime!" episode that had little girl with two moms. What this means is that parents would be upset if their child watched this episode and thought that a little girl having two moms was normal rather the stereotype of having one mom and one dad. This quote is relevant to the text because it proves that the LGBTQ community is not represented a young child's learning. Another quote that I picked was "When someone with authority of a teacher, say, describes the world and you are not in it, there is a moment of psychic disequilibrium, as if you looked into a mirror and saw nothing" The meaning of this quote is that when someone with authority like a teacher or staff member talks about the world and the different people in it but not you, they teach you about how things should be but not about how they are in reality. Basically erasing yourself from existence in society by saying you don't matter. The reason that this quote is relevant is because it teaches teachers and future teachers that what we say to our students helps shapes the way they view the world and themselves. The final quote I choose is from a principal explaining to her school's librarian why a book she chose to put in the library was not okay, "I'd love that [book] to be available to counselors that work with families that maybe have this situation, but in this society here, in this town anyways.. I don't know if it's our job to expose [children]" What the principal meant in this quote is that children with parents that are the same-sex aren't acceptable in the society by restricting the book to the children that have same-sex parents. She influencing the stereotype that a child has to have a mother and a father to be normal and accepted. This quote is relevant because it proves that some principals refused to incorporate the LGBTQ community in her school's learning environment and are blind to the damage they are doing to their students.

Something I would like to bring up in class that that I think as educators it's our job to try and help teach our children that sometimes in this world they will come across concepts or people that are different than them but that doesn't make them any less normal or accepted than them because if we don't do it, who will then? It's our job to create safe spaces in our classrooms for all kinds of children and make them feel welcomed in order for them to grow up in a world a society that has all sorts of different people and to spread love, not hate in the world

Journal #4 3/15/19

Today was my fourth day at my internship with Inspiring Minds and as I spend more time with the children that I work with I feel connected to them and the more they look at me as an adult that needs their respect. It was more of a chill day, the teacher had them mainly work on their Chromebooks but after things settled she had called the group I work with every week to the round table and gave me a whole stack of books for them to read together with me. After playing bingo last week they didn't really want to read but I kept telling them that we had to read the books because it's what the teacher had assigned me to do with them. They also had read a good number of the books but the teacher told me that it was okay to still read them because they needed to familiarize themselves with the word families and the different the letters make for the third grade. Since there was a good number of different books I tried to pick ones that we hadn't read together before and also ones that they wanted to read. Overall, they were great with reading except Issac who gave me a little more a a hard time than usual because he didn't feel like reading. I eventually got him to cooperate with me I little but I had to get serious and a little stern. I believe we read a total a five books before they had to get ready to go down to lunch.

I feel like the other children that I don't work with don't understand why I'm there or who I am and since I work with the dame four group of kids every week I'm there, I don't get an opportunity to try and connect with them like I would wish so when they're in a line to go down for lunchtime and some kids are talking when they shouldn't be and I just look at them and put my finger over my lips like they do, as a way to tell them to stop talking so the teacher doesn't hear them they don't give me the respect that they should because they don't understand.

Journal #3 3/8/19

Today was my third visit at my internship with second graders and I feel as if I'm starting to to gain the respect of the students I work with. The teacher had me work on syllables with different letter sounds that they would need to know in order to move onto the third grade. Overall, the students had done great with the different syllable sounds. The teacher had given me a bingo game with sight words to play with the kids and they enjoyed that the most, they literally did not want to stop playing the game. Sadly, our time playing the bingo game together was shorter than the kids had wanted because the teacher had asked me to see who completed their homework and to go over their morning work with them as well. Almost all had done their work and brought it and they had all to understand the the morning work as well. There's this little girl in the group I work with that we'll call Lindsey who I found out hardly ever does her homework so in efforts of trying to get her to start doing her homework so she can earn more points, I made a pact/deal with her that I'm hoping will make her start doing her homework from now on. Lindsey seems like a real sweet kid and I can feel that I'm starting to connect with her more which makes me super happy. My only hope for the rest of my remaining time there is that I can connect with more than just the children that I work with every week. 

(morning work front and back)

Social Justice Event: HER Workshop

I chose the HER Workshop event that took place Wednesday, March 6th. I chose this workshop because it seemed like it was going to be fun and interesting. Basically the event consisted of having the option to choose between five different workshops that were all centered around women. The workshops consisted of things like leadership skills, what messages social media gives us, domestic violence, career development and something else that I honestly can't remember. The workshop that spoke to me the most was social media workshop. In this workshop, we talked about the different kinds of messages that images form social media give us. We were asked to look at a series photos and then write on sticky notes what kind of message we extract from it. There were pictures of Indian Actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas on the cover of Vogue magazine, one of the messages we took from this picture is instead of talking about things liker her amazing career, they only focus on her wedding to Nick Jonas from the Jonas Brothers. Another image was of Kristen Bell on a magazine cover for 'middle aged woman' and the message we extracted from that is that when all middle aged woman are supposed to look liker her in the photo. We talked about a lot of other different pictures that gave us similar messages. She told us to write the topics body image, socioeconomic status, gender, race/ethnicity, sports/recreation and childhood and match up the sticky notes to which topic we thought they belonged too. To end the workshop, the presenter told us ways that we could become activities and showed us pictures of what magazines covers should look like and the messages they should send to us. At about 1:15 we had to go back to the conference room for the keynote speaker from a non-profit non-violence organization and a performance from a RIC Alum. I'm happy that I decided to go to this workshop event because it really empowered me to do more and be more like my mom always did before she had passed. 

Journal #2 3/1/19

Today was my second day at my internship in an elementary school and it went a lot smoother than the first. To begin, I had taken the bus and had gotten there a little bit before nine-thirty. Everything seemed a lot calmer walking in because the teacher only had her second graders. She had me work with the same group of students but this time she asked me to work on words that have a long vowel in the middle and have a silent "e" at the end, she gave me this work sheet for long "a" words to complete with them and after read two stories from a book that cover the same subject except the words didn't always contain a long "a". I enjoyed doing the worksheet with the kids though a little boy who we'll call "Issac" did give me a little bit of a hard time. From what I've been told by the teacher Issac has issues with staying focused on the tasks at hand so she had told me if he was giving me issues to just send him to the rug but I didn't want to make the kid hate my guts so instead I became friends with Issac and made the deal as long as he helped me out by listening, he could stay at the table with the group. It worked, a little. All four of the children did great with the worksheet and short stories. I did notice when one of their classmates would try and help them out, they would lash a little out and become frustrated. When this happened, I would just talk to them and say that the other student was just trying to help them out and not to be mean towards them. After, I had finished the worksheet and reading the two stories with them, there was still like ten minutes before their lunchtime so they just went back to their desks and worked on their Chromebooks.

I think by going and working with the group of children consistently that I'll really be able to break through more and create a special connection with them, I already feel it forming and I'm very excited.

Christensen - Hyperlinks

Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us by Linda Christensen discusses how children's books or cartoons teach us stereotypes from race and religion to gender at a young age and the problem of growing up within society like the one we live in. In the article, Christensen discusses how students are taught how to succeed, behave and even how to love through the media. She found that some students don't like to think or accept that they've been manipulated by the media or advertising but how it's important to realize it so you can begin to change the way you view or act in certain situations. One of the big topics Christensen talks about is how women or females are depicted. Christensen talks about there's a lack of female representation within children's cartoons or rather when we did see females being represented they are made to look unrealistic like Playboy bunnies or Victoria Secret models. She also discusses how in other cartoon's like "Popeye" depicts the main female character 'Olive Oyl' as woman that's silent and obedient with whatever the men want her to do. I read an article that helps illuminate how these issues can cause problems within the real world for children and adolescent females. Why So Many Early '00s Cartoons Couldn't Escape the Male Gaze  written by Shelby Peake talks about cartoons like 'The Powerpuff Girls' and 'My Life as a Teenage Robot' are telling children that women can't be tough and fierce because of their beauty. Peake uses Powerpuff Girls for example that the violence and fight scenes is accompanied by them looking adorable and lots of aesthetics based of the charm of the PowerPuff Girls. Peake claims that feminine imagery shown along side the violence tells young viewers that females cannot be fierce without beauty being involved. She also uses 'My Life as a Teenage Robot' as an example because the plot line for the show is the main character "Jenny"or "XJ-9" just wanting to be a normal teenage girl rather than a teenage robot that fights crime. In the show, Jenny consistently fails at being a popular girl that's always depicted as stuck up and shallow which Peake argues suggests to children watching it that females cannot be strong and girly at the same time.
These cartoons among other are implanting the ideas that women cannot be strong, fierce and independent while being feminine and beautiful. They are also teaching young females that in order for a guy to be interested in you that you must be obedient and silent while never being able to do their own things.