Race and Ethnicity discussion

Hi everyone,
I have been thinking a lot about the discussion my group was having yesterday about how race has affected my own experience in education, and during class when I looked back I shared that race was not usually on my mind, and, perhaps due to my own ignorance, really hadn't had a very profound impact on my life.  But now that I've thought about it more, I am realizing that this is in itself a form of my racial privilege.  I can't speak for anyone other than myself, but as a caucasian I never identified specifically with my race, being 'white' doesn't mean anything to  me, and it doesn't affect who I am or who I want to be. But I cannot deny that it has allowed me the privilege of being able to ignore how my race shapes my experiences. And, because I had not experienced firsthand racial discrimination, I was in a position to brush off the notion of race as a factor in my educational experience, and to assume that because it wasn't blatantly there before my eyes, it wasn't there at all.  Even though I had good friends of many different racial and ethnic backgrounds, we weren't sitting around seriously discussing race, it just didn't come up that often. And so I hadn't had a serious discussion of race with a diverse group of people and I am actually very thankful to have heard so many diverse views in our class. I'm curious to know what else people think because I'm sure most of the discussions in class were truncated for time reasons.

Thanks everyone and have a good Halloween weekend!

-not written by but uploadede by JWP

To Whom it may concern

I was very disappointed with the activity and how it turned out. The premise was to alleviate personal accounts within institutionalized racism, but how can one affectively do this without sharing one's personal experience, therefore adding to the discussion? I held off for a while because the whole conversation about ETHNICITY (NOT RACE) is very touchy and many comments seemed to be redundant, but when separated into groups, I found that our focus actually hit home for me, causing me to address a personal experience. The conversation took a spin for the worse because I was personally attacked. I made the comment, " for people like me, we have no choice but to cheat the system because the system was NOT made for us to succeed in it." I was told that my merit for entering Cal was questionable. This is absurd! The point of the conversation is to educate and tell others how to understand one another, not to bash and attack. That was a clear breach of our SOA as a class. I cannot say that I was shocked, given this person's narrow and harmonious- like view of society. Privilege is real! some of us have it, and some of us do not. I do not, but because I know how to work the system and use it to my advantage does not make me a cheater, it makes me a survivor. I am an African American Female who faces a double-bind of being of color and female. I face this everyday of my life and refused to be downplayed because I can play the game and can play it well. So the next time you want to question my merit, check my transcripts(yes they're legit), check my experience, and last and certainly not least, check your privilege.

-not written by but uploadede by JWP

Map of race distribution

Hi, this is an interesting map of race distribution in America

see this map and have a time to think about what this means or how we can change this

follow is the link to the map

http://gawker.com/5643051/how-white-is-your-neighborhood

An awesome video about education and creativity!! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U&feature=player_embedded

-Amelia 

Hello! I would love to share this article:

http://civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/language-minority-students/a-return-to-the-mexican-room-the-segregation-of-arizonas-english-learners-1/gandara-return-mexican-room-2010.pdf

It's a really important study looking at english language learners in our school system. Please read it!!!! (especially before the language, culture, and immigration group presents)

<3 Amelia

ps. Love!!

Recommended Reading

Thought I'd recommend a reading to anyone that's interested!  It's a book by Linda Darling-Hammond called The Flat World and Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future.  It is extremely relevant to our discussion this past Wednesday on teaching and funding.  I highly recommend it :)


-- Maureen 

"Can Teachers be Evaluated by their Students’ Test Scores? Should They Be? The Use of Value-Added Measures of Teacher Effectiveness in Policy and Practice"

Sean P. Corcoran's piece on the use of value-added measures of teacher effectiveness: http://www.annenberginstitute.org/pdf/valueAddedReport.pdf


Contributor: Nirali

Genesis of a class blog

Before the Monday, Wednesday 4 to 6 p.m. Fall 2010 Education 190 student-teachers take over the posts of this blog, it is important for the facilitators of this blog to establish some of our goals, purposes, and intents for this blog. 

Our goals are simple. We want to provide an online space for those who:

• are not heard in class 
• have realized new points, perspectives, and/or opinions based on in-class discussions
• would like to provide other pieces (videos, essays, articles, etc.) important to the discussions we create, in the name of education 
• raise questions and criticisms against the theories and academics of education 

Our audience is each other. The Monday, Wednesday 4 to 6 p.m. Education 190 class, of A's, B's, and Nirali; we are all student-teachers.  

Our individual contributions will help create this online space. The ways in which you can contribute are 1) via e-mail to account: ed190blog@gmail.com, or 2) by dropping a clearly written or typed post into the class drop-box, addressed to "ED 190 Blog." 

Our voices should be considered, learned from, and continued. All posts may be anonymous upon request, because the purposes of this blog is for the raw, organic discussions and points we would like to share with each other. The content should remain organic, but we will NOT upload any posts with hateful, attacking, or aggressive tones. 

Our interests in the blog are both short-term and long-term. Short-term: We want to create a space that is an extra outlet for the student-teachers of this class. Some suggestions include using the blog to showcase your own reading response or to summarize your team-teaching group's lessons. Long-term: This blog might be used to share our growing ideas and conversations on education to influence others or as a space for us to continue our relations after the end of this class. 

We look forward to receiving the posts and participating, ourselves, in the growth of this blog!

Best,

The ED190 Blog Cooperative Team -- Aaron, Jong Woo, Michelle, and Stephanie