Safe Spaces by August

Safe Spaces
By: Gerri August

Extended Comments

For this post I am using Nicole's post on this article for commenting.


Nicole's first quote: "Tucked inside several books (not all from the same bookseller) were handwritten messages directing her to bible verses, once that have been interpreted as condemnation of homosexuality. Kimberly was stunned and bit shaken. She worried that she was wrong to share these LGBT friendly resources with youth. Aimed at a teacher who wanted LGBT youth to see themselves represented in literature in her classroom, these anti-gay sentiments packed a powerful punch"  (pg. 91)

This is sad. The person did not even know Kimberly and yet they wrote Bible verses saying it is wrong to be LGBT. She was trying to improve the curriculum and her community by adding more resources about LGBT. I agree with Nicole, the person who did this should be ashamed for judging and writing Bible verses in the books. That is not right. This can relate to McIntosh because you do not know what it is like to be bullied or made fun of or outcasted if you are not straight. Everyone has their own opinions...but hopefully, and soon, everyone will be accepting and make everywhere a safe place for LGBT people and everyone else.


Nicole's second quote: "Classrooms lay foundation for an inclusive and safe society: a just community where common interest and individual differences coexist. To the extent that teachers, school administrators, and college professors create an atmosphere in which difference is not only tolerated but expected, explored, and embraced..." (pg. 83).

I completely agree with your conclusion for this quote. Children should be taught about this at a young age so they understand it. It is very important for everyone to understand what LGBT is. There is no need to bully someone from this "community". The more they know about this, the less likely they will be to bully or make fun of or leave out. People will be more open to admitting if they are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender if they know that people around them are more understanding and accepting and will help them through this experience. The last thing they need is to feel alone. People will help. Schools and communities need to help and teach that there is nothing wrong with being LGBT at a young age so people will know and understand and make the community safer for everyone in the long run.

Nicole's third quote: "We wonder whether the only relevant question here is a child's readiness to learn. Perhaps adults need a Ready-to-Teach initiative"(pg.86).
"I think all children should be taught about LGBT but they can't if they don't have the chance which relies on the teachers abilities to be "Ready-to-Teach" about LGBT."

Media everywhere now has LGBT people on it. Ellen DeGeneres is a lesbian and has her own show. Nothing makes her different just because she is a lesbian. Her show was almost cut when she came out. ABC Family or Freeform has a show called The Fosters which is about a family of adopted children being raised by two moms. There was a lot of controversy about the show because of what it is about. The children know and understand that their family is "different" and accept it because they know their moms love them and do everything they can to help them like any family would. Everyone should be taught about LGBT and they should have the chance to learn, nothing/no one should hold them back from teaching it or learning about it.

 

Points to share:

I know that my school had a club for people who were LGBT and every now and then they would change the name of it to fit what everyone was. So for a few months it was called FREE, then LGBT club, then LGBTQ club, and so on. I did see some people use the word "gay" quite frequently and not in the right way...they used it to offend someone or something. I wish they would look it up in the dictionary and realize that is not the word they mean and stop using it like how Patrick did on pages 97 and 98 to help stop this.

Christensen: "Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us"

"Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us"
By: Linda Christensen

Hyperlinks


Linda Christensen talks about how children are influenced at a young age by fairytales, cartoons, and movies. This continues throughout a person's lifetime though. The media has a HUGE influence on everything a person does.

Starting at a young age, children watch fairytales or read little storybooks (usually by Disney). Cinderella is a common one and Prince Charming becomes the ideal man the little child will want when she grows up. This is known as The Prince Charming Syndrome. The fact that this is a real "disease" is frightening. People will wait for their "Prince Charming" to show up and will miss out on all of the other guys who genuinely care about her but she won't give them a chance because they are not her "Prince Charming". You don't know who your "Prince Charming" is until you get to know the person because he will not fall from the sky and say to you that he is your "Prince Charming". Disney fairytales in general are all hyped up and edited to be all positive and all happily ever after and bad guys lose/good guys win, when actually that is not how the fairytale was written hundreds of years ago.

On a side note, the Grimm and Glitter First Year Seminar here is about fairytales and how they aren't what they seem. You compare Disney's versions of the tales to what they were actually written down as from hundreds of years ago and you can see how made up Disney makes them. It is a very good seminar to take. I highly recommend it.

Toys even like Barbie influence young children. Barbie is supposed to just be a doll that children play with and have shows based on her. But no. Children want to grow up to look like her with the big chest, small waist, and wide hips. Finally, Mattel, the company that makes Barbie, is creating more realistic Barbie figures so "the new body types [can] have the potential to impact both girls and boys' expectations of body image" (USA Today) positively. Barbie Syndrome is a real thing, sadly. It is showing girls that the perfect body has to look like Barbie's and it is also showing guys that in order to have a perfect girl, she has to have the body of Barbie, and that is not right.

Shows how people will do anything to look like Barbie.

Once the Barbie phase is over, or if the person ever gets over it, Victoria's Secret comes into play. Every teenage girl will want to get that perfect body to become and Angel for Victoria's Secret. They have the fashion show every year and girls will watch that and starve themselves so they can look like those women walking on the runway. Even their ads are of half naked women with perfect bodies showing off the perfect bra and panties or PINK clothes to wear because you can be perfect if you wear their clothes. It is truely horrible what people will go through to look like these "perfect" people.

Christensen also says that media insists that what they show is "innocent, that no hidden motives or implications are lurking behind the cheerful faces it generates" (128). Really? Because now the Super Bowl is being scrutinized because of Beyonce's half-time show and her hidden meaning of the outfits the dancers wore and the formation of them. Do you know how many people watch the Super Bowl? About 115 MILLION PEOPLE watch it. People criticized Beyonce and the Super Bowl for having hidden messages during her performance. She is such a popular icon that people will do what she says or follow what she believes just because she is Beyonce.

It is 100 percent true that the "secret education" from media and children's movies, fairytales, etc. impact and influence children and people of all ages.

 

Points:

Body images have changed over the years. It relates to SCWAAMP because most of the women who were idolized were white. "It's Amazing How Much The 'Perfect Body' Has Changed In 100 Years" This link shows who and what body image was idolized and how it has changed drastically over the past 100 years

This is sickening that these are real syndromes. People should love their body the way it is. I hate how the media say that they are innocent and don't influence people. Of course they do! Their ads and commercials and shows are about how to get the perfect body and what the "perfect" life is like and the perfect husband and family. It's sickening to say the least.

Aria by Richard Rodriguez

"Aria"
By: Richard Rodriguez

Connection

1. Lisa Delpit

     Aria relates to what Delpit says at the end of her document about the conversation between the Teacher and Joey. The teacher talks to Joey because she "believes that it is very important to discuss openly and honestly the issues of language diversity". Rodriguez had a difficult time in school, just like Joey, because they both did not speak the "standard" English; Joey spoke "Black English" and Rodriguez spoke mostly Spanish. Rodriguez even says that once he got into school, he "easily noted the difference between classroom language and the language of home". This is a big problem because once a student is used to their "home language", school will become difficult as they try to understand the "classroom language" and see how it differs from what they basically grew up with.


2. SCWAAMP/Johnson

     Aria also relates to our class discussion of SCWAAMP and our reading of Johnson. Rodriguez's document was about how it was difficult in school to understand and participate because he spoke Spanish, not the "classroom language" of English. Rodriguez was not white, so he "automatically" had a hard time because he did not have the same privileges as whites (White-ness). He also went to a school where nuns taught so he had to obey the rules of the church (Christianity). Being a male (Male-ness) did not affect him positively or negatively yet. When Rodriguez learned English for school, he said that "Mother and Father, Ma, Papa, Pa, Dad, Pop...[were] all-American" words and he did not like that (American-ness), he wanted to go back to his language he grew up speaking, his "home language". Rodriguez had to follow all of these rules because he was an American citizen and those are the dominant ideologies.

Points to Share/Questions:

I honestly have never thought of how hard it must be for someone to come to school in America and have to learn English because their "home language" was different. That must be truly difficult to try to understand a completely new language after growing up using and knowing another. I believe we need to be less strict and as long as the students are able to understand tasks in a classroom, they should be able to still use the language they know best to communicate, but obviously write and talk to the teacher and other administrators in English.

Just a side note, we use some Spanish words on the Pre-school side of the day care I work at and the children love it! Off the top of my head, the teachers will say sit down in Spanish and the children will say please, thank you, other greetings, yes, they can count, etc. It keeps the children engaged.

White Privilege

"White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack"
By: Peggy McIntosh

Argument


***First of all, Peggy McIntosh needs to re-read what she types before she posts because it was annoying to have to keep on reading the same sentence(s) because of her grammatical and spelling errors. She is very well educated (has a Ph. D.) so there is no reason for these types of errors. Sorry for the bashing, but there is no excuse for it.


       One main point that McIntosh states is that being white is a privilege. She continues by listing 50 things that are in favor of white people. Just like her, "I repeatedly forgot each of the realizations on this list" until I read and understood all of them. White people are unaware of these facts until they are brought up and questioned. A lot of the items on the list occur everyday for white people. Most of them definitely occur in a white person's lifetime. As white people, we are unaware of these everyday occurrences because we were brought up that way. People who are not white, live through the items on the list everyday and are not given the same opportunities all because of their skin color. That is a harsh fact...because of a person's SKIN color, they are denied many things and end up living in fear. Being white, you do not have to fear because you are "privileged". That is wrong. We have "been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts...[us] at an advantage". At the end of the article, McIntosh says that "obliviousness about white advantage, [is] like obliviousness about male advantage". This statement is true and if it is taking forever to change the "male advantage", then it will take even longer to change the "white advantage". We know this is a problem so we should start trying to solve it.

Questions/Comments/Points to Share:

This problem will not solve itself on its own nor will it get solved quickly. We are still fixing "male-ness" and the fact that women are getting paid less for having the same qualifications and doing the same job as a man. As McIntosh says, "What will we do with such knowledge? As we know from watching men, it is and open question...". The fact that this is getting so out of hand that there is a movement called "Black Lives Matter" is getting too much because they are basically getting targeted because of their skin color.