August

Safe Spaces: Making Schools and Communities Welcoming to LGBT Youth: By Annemarie Vaccaro, Gerri August and Megan Kennedy

"Classrooms lay the foundations for an inclusive and safe society; a just community where common interests 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, students will be more likely to develop perspectives that result in respectful behaviors. Without the deliberate creation of an inclusive atmosphere however, what happens inside classroom walls reproduces the prejudices that exist outside these walls; straightness and gender conformity are assumed; LGBT identity is deviant." This quote is basically saying that a classroom should be accepting to everyone and welcoming to all. I would not want to go to school and sit in a classroom where I did not feel accepted or welcomed. School should be a safe haven for children not a place where they feel unwelcomed. This quote is relevant to the text because it is saying how classrooms play a role in the impact that school has on students.


Another important quote pulled from the text is "words invite or exclude, recognize or erase, encourage or intimidate, examine or assume." Growing up I remember I was always told how important words can be. I also remember being told once you say something you can never take it back so be careful what you say and if you have nothing nice to say do not say anything at all. I actually remember my cousin coming up to me and telling me that he was gay and I said why did you wait so long tot ell me I mean we are neighbors and are family. His response was I was afraid you would call me stupid or not talk to me again. I guess when my cousin first came out to people saying he was gay he had coworkers call him names and that is just plain old sad especially being grown adults in their late 20s.

Another quote that really stuck out to me is "One LGBT student reported that her college instructor compared homosexuality to be bestiality" (August). Reading this quote hurt my heart actually. This is just plain sad and this professor makes it seem so wrong but clearly they were just uneducated about it or were born in an era where this was frowned upon. I will never get why people think loving the same sex is nasty or why it is so frowned upon because there is nothing wrong with it at all. At the end of the day we are still all living breathing humans. Loving someone of the same sex should not make us any different than a person who loves someone of the opposite sex.  

Points to share in class: I believe that all children no matter what sexuality they are should be accepted in a classroom. Many children are being bullied or end up taking their own lives because they feel not accepted and that is very sad especially in today's society.

Christensen Article

Response to Linda Christensen

During My freshman year of college here at RIC I took a gender class and it was gender in fairytales so this topic that Christensen talks about does not really come as a surprise to me. I grew up never really watching Disney movies or much TV in general. I was more of the child to be outside running around until bedtime came around. When I did watch these movies I never really picked up on the fact that the man was always the "prince" and most of the movies ended with a happy ending where the prince and princess live happily ever after. After taking that gender studies class, I began actually watching many of the Disney movies with my niece who is 2 and wants to be  a princess when she grows up. As we watched them I started to notice all the stereotypes that were going on. Especially the ones where there wasn't a colored character in any of the Disney movies until recently. Many little girls grow up wanting to be princess and wanting to find prince charming one day but the sad reality is they do not realize that that will never happen. They grow up thinking men will always be the hero and that is not always the case because men can be the bad guy just as much as women can. Not every man that comes along into your life will be your super hero or your prince charming and save you from the bad in the world.

One quote that stuck out to me in this article is "The impact of racism begins early. Even in our preschools years, we are exposed to misinformation about people different from ourselves. Many of us grow up in neighborhoods where we have limited opportunities to interact with people different from our own families..." (Tatum). I really agree with this quote because we are all exposed to racism even if we do not notice it. I lived in a neighborhood in Western Cranston that was mainly all white people.  A block family moved in with 5 little boys. My neighbor would not let her children interact with those children just because they were colored. Mind you her children were no older than maybe 7 years old. It is really sad how she was basically teaching her children to be racist towards this family and this race.

Another quote that stuck out to me was "Childrens cartoons, movies and literature are perhaps the most influential genre "read"". This quote is very accurate because children become influenced by everything around them. Like I said earlier I know many children that think these Disney stories are real and this stuff will happen in real life and it just won't

I am going to attach a youtube video about stereotypes in Disney Movies. Feel free to watch it!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pJLdzhFi0I

Aria by Richard Rodriguez

Aria
Richard Rodriguez

Trying to learn another language can be very frustrating. I grew up in a family where we only spoke English but when I entered middle school and high school I took Spanish classes. I can't imagine what it was like for Richard and his family to have grown up speaking Spanish and being comfortable speaking Spanish until they were forced to learn the English language. 

Last year when I took FNED the first time I was actually placed in another school in Providence and every time I attended I noticed that not many children in my classroom spoke English. The classroom was mostly in Spanish and the teacher would scold the kids in Spanish. I can also relate to this article because my grandmother who is 94 years old came to America from Italy many years ago but to this day her English is not the best and is very hard to understand. When we try and have a conversation with her sometimes she does not really understand what we are saying  and she becomes frustrated and vice versa. I 100% that learning a second language can be very challenging. In a way I personally feel like it would make life much easier for everyone if everyone living in America spoke English but from reading this article I also got a better understanding of just how tough that may be no matter how young or old you are. 

I have had many people tell me that it is actually good to know two languages because when you go to apply for a job chances are they are going to hire the person not only with the degree but the one that can speak two languages fluently especially in todays society where Spanish speakers is in such high demand.


link to the reading: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-JcBFAuLc-0MW5DdnZyVnpGSHc/view

Kristof Article

U.S.A Land of Limitations
By: Nicholas Kristof

This article actually hits very close to home in a few ways. I grew up in a single parent family where my father raised me by himself with the help of my grandparents from the age of 21. He could not afford to go to college, pay for it himself,  and raise a child at the same time. In my opinion trying to get a job even with a degree is very tough never mind without a degree. I personally know many people that have a B.A. in whatever field they chose to go into and still can't find a job which makes no sense.

“The chance of a person who was born to a family in the bottom 10 percent of the income distribution rising to the top 10 percent as an adult is about the same as the chance that a dad who is 5 feet 6 inches tall having a son who grows up to be over 6 feet 1 inch tall,” Krueger observed in a speech. “It happens, but not often.”

This quote to me is basically saying that if you were not born into a rich family it is less likely for you to succeed. I disagree with this quote. I was not born into a rich family and I am a first generation college student and am succeeding in life just fine. It is harder when you aren't rich especially when you are paying for college classes on your own with no financial aid but it is not impossible.

I hear from people who say something like: I grew up poor, but I worked hard and I made it. If other people tried, they could, too. Bravo! Sure, there are extraordinary people who have overcome mind-boggling hurdles. But they’re like the N.B.A. centers with short parents.

This is another quote that I do not necessarily agree with for the same reasoning I gave for the above quote. It is only as hard as you make it out to be but nothing is impossible.

"The best metrics of child poverty aren’t monetary, but rather how often a child is read to or hugged. Or, conversely, how often a child is beaten, how often the home descends into alcohol-fueled fistfights, whether there is lead poisoning, whether ear infections go untreated. That’s a poverty that is far harder to escape." I agree with this quote 100%. What it is saying is the way a child is brought up and the environment they are brought up in plays a major role in their future. If you raise a child in a house where parents don't care what the child does or about anything I think that child will grow up to me more troubled than another child who is brought up in a house with a parent/ parents that are fully involved in the child's life

Kozol's All Lives Matter Article

Amazing Grace by Johnathan Kozol
"Next to another vacant lot, where someone has dumped a heap of auto tires and some rusted auto parts, he points to a hypodermic needle in the tangled grass and to the bright-colored caps of crack containers..."
This quote shows that to this young boy seeing crack containers and needles is normal and part of his every day life which is very sad. For many children it is not normal for them to walk up the street and see a needle laying on the ground and not be phased in any way by it. Most children would be confused and ask their parents what that needle is for but for this boy he already knew what it is for and he also knows what a big issue drugs are in his community.

"A small and wiry woman wearing blue jeans and a baseball cap, a former cocaine addict who now helps addicted women and their children, she tells me that more than 3.000 -homeless families have been relocated by the city in this neighborhood during the past few years, and she asks a question I will hear from many other people here during the months ahead. "Why do you want to put so many people with small children in a place with so much sickness? This is the last place in New York that they should put poor children. Clumping so many people, all with the same symptoms and same problems, in one crowded place with nothin' they can grow on? Our children start to mourn themselves before their time."
This quote shows how any men, women, and children are struggling and facing hard times while living in the South Bronx. Trying to help families especially ones with small children by putting them in this area is not going to help them or benefit them in any way. This area is filled with drugs, prostitutes, plants, and everything that a young child should never be exposed to in their life.
  
" A person who works in a real job at a place like Chemical Bank, she tells me, is a rare exception in the neighborhood. ' Almost no one here has jobs like that. Some are too sick. They live on SSI' maybe five or six in 25, she says, have some legitimate employment."
This quote shows that not many people in Motts Haven have a real job. Many people sell drugs or even rely on prostitution to make money which is VERY sad. With the number of people that have AIDS in this community prostitution should not be as popular as it is ut the people that are suffering from AIDS probably do not think twice before they go ahead and sleep with someone for money and pass the disease on to that person.

Points to share in class:
These issues are ongoing issues in our world that are continuing to be a problem every single day. Innocent children are becoming affected by these issues. In Motts Haven and communities like this I feel like the  government should be doing lot more than they are to help turn these communities around and to also help the families that are living in them. I also feel like the police should be stepping up and doing more and I understand there is only so much they can do but I feel like what they are doing right now just is NOT enough.