social justice event

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Back in October, I attended an on campus event where Dr. Joseph Schwab from Bridgewater State University came to RIC to give a lecture on what it means to be a man. He started by having us identify some words associated with masculinity. The crowd responded with words like strong, angry, violent, and sexual. He stated that because of the pressures to seem manly and fit in with these stereotypes, men are less likely to seek emotional help when they need it. Men are often silenced, and this silence comes in three forms. Personal silence is when one's own emotions cannot be identified by the person. Private silence is when the individual does not tell anyone about how they're feeling. Finally, public silence is when the person does tell people, but they are rejected and shunned for it.

The male narrative is also mentioned, which is the standard thoughts on what it means to be a man. There are alternate narratives like how to be gay or transgender, which relates to what August was talking about in his article. This also relates to how men are portrayed in the media and how that affects masculinity, which is what Christiansen talked about. And as far as narratives go, how to live as someone with down syndrome might be another, liked what Kliewer mentions.

Link 1 Link 2 Link 3

down syndrome

Reading this article made me think about all the portrayals I've seen on Down syndrome and how that compares to how people with this disorder really are. I've seen a video going around Facebook about how people with Down syndrome shouldn't be labeled as special needs and a lot of people seemed to miss the point of it. It wasn't that they were trying to deny that they had these needs, but that they wanted society to stop placing labels on them and deciding what those labels mean for them. I've attached that Facebook video as well as a boy with Down syndrome being integrated into a classroom effectively.

Herbert article reflection

In Bob Herbert's 2011 New York Times article, the author brings to light the issue of how lower performing, less successful schools are often most attended by poor hispanic and black kids who can't afford to go to a better school. This raises so many other issues and causes us to question why we allow such a large achievement gap to exist between minority children and white children. As Herbert explains, many white children are middle class and have the privilege of going to school with their peers who succeeding in school. Teachers would rather work at these middle class suburban schools that at a school with mostly poor kids in the middle of the city. Another point that Herbert makes is that we need to work on integrating more low performing students into better schools to create more diversity and to make sure that the minority students can improve. Once story I remember from the This American Life podcast, is that the woman, Nicole, was a product of integration in schools. She was a black girl from a poorer neighborhood who was bused to an almost all white school where she ended making friends. They got along well and she told a story about her white friends always invited her to the pool on the white side of town in the summer. This was all fine and good, but whenever she wanted her friends to come to her house or the pool on her side of town, her friend's parents always said no.

about service learning...

To be honest, while I started reading this article, I realized that I wasn't really sure of what exactly the definition of a service learning project was. So, I looked it up and the first result on Google came from Vanderbilt University who cited the definition from the National Service Learning Clearing House as “a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities.” So basically it involves performing community service and then analyzing what you've learned from it, which is what we're doing in this class.

This video from Cleveland State Community College gives an overview of service learning and the positive effects it has on college students and the community they serve. One professor even points out that in the classroom you can only simulate real world situations so much and going out and serving the community gives the student a deeper learning experience from actually working and doing something good. Personally, I would have liked a little more flexibility in this class's service learning project since I've been having some transportation issues lately, but I still enjoy going to my classroom in Providence and working with these third grade kids.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1soSE7m_hqujIx_E0ypQM4PRSxN4XdVV7CVdlUxD6KYQ/edit?usp=sharing

Link to vaccines powerpoint

election 2018 and social justice

I don't normally enjoy getting involved in politics. This is mostly because it's such a polarizing topic, and unlike other polarizing topics we've discussed in class, I just don't know much about it, which is why I'm not really sure what to say about it most of the time. In Article 1, it describes 8 ways to advance social justice after the US election. The first few are about becoming involved in your community and in politics, which can be good for some people, but it's not something I really see myself doing. This is probably the hardest blog post for me to write since I always try to avoid politics but I did vote in the 2016 election so it's only right that I vote again in 2018.

I couldn't copy any more of it, but I enjoyed the features on the third article link. This particular graph represents the way right leaning people voted on the issue of gender identity. The yellow part represents the 17% of them who agree that gender identity should be added to anti discrimination laws and the orange part represents the 83% of right wing people who disagree.

LGBT Definitions G throught I

Genderqueer- an umbrella term for any gender identity that is not typically male or female

Laverne Cox- a female transgender actress and star of Netflix’s Orange is the New Black

Miley Cyrus- famous singer who goes by female pronouns but says that she doesn’t “relate to being a boy or a girl”

Homophobia- an umbrella term for negative feelings towards the lgbt community or a specific lgbt person

Mel Gibson- an actor with old fashioned religious beliefs who is known for being both anti-semetic and homophobic

Heteronormativity- assuming that everyone is straight. For example, asking a married woman what he her husband’s name is.

Stef and Lena from the Fosters- a married lesbian couple who adopt and raise children. Stef is divorced from her ex husband and the two are constantly dealing with people assuming that they are straight.

Intersex- a term for a combination of chromosomes or sex organs in a person that differs from the typical male or female patterns.

Hanne Gaby Odiele- a supermodel for Vogue who was born intersex, having her internal testes removed at age 10