Gender Gaps In Education

It may still be a man's world but for how long? For years, educators were concerned that girls were not keeping up in the classroom. Now the worry is that boys are falling behind in almost every academic category. Thirty something years ago, boys, not girls, were the high performers in schools. Today, test scores, grades and dropout rates show boys are achieving at levels far below girls. You might notice this but go to almost any college campus in America today and you’ll notice something missing. In the last 10 years, two million more women than men graduated from college in the U.S. Women now make up just over 40 percent of the nation's college students. And it’s not just college. Women dominate high school honor rolls and make up more than 70 percent of class valedictorians. And where are the men going?

In the nation's elementary schools, that’s where many young men first start to fall behind. What we know is that in America:

• ·         80% of high school dropouts are boys
• ·         80% of all classroom discipline problems are boys
• ·         44% of college students are boy

Once boys hit their freshman year of high school, they're at greater risk of falling even further behind in grades, extracurricular activities, and advanced placement. While the girls are busy working on sweeping the honor roll at graduation, boys are more likely to be bulking up in a weight room or otherwise engaged in video games or downloading music.

What are your thoughts? I feel outnumbered in every way!!! LOL

Separate and Unequal

This week’s post, is a not the typical we are assigned every week. This week we had to explore Brown vs. Board of Education, watch videos of Tim Wise’s thoughts on Racism and White denial in the age of Obama, and an article called “Separate and Unequal” by Bob Herbert. These pieces all have relationships and connections and discusses the change in education since Brown vs. Board of Education.

On the Brown vs. Board of Education website, fighting for school desegregation became part of broader movement for social justice while it led to include racial and ethnic minorities, women, people with disabilities, and other groups, each demanding equal opportunity. In Bob Herbert pieces, though school are now desegregated, schools itself doesn’t seem segregated today. It is resulted from residential patterns, social class and poverty. Low income students are going to school where they don’t learn much. Good teachers tend to stay away from school with a high population of low-income students. Herbert  says, “Long years of evidence show that poor kids of all ethnic backgrounds do better academically when they go to school with their more affluent - that is, middle class- peers.” Basically, I feel that the article says that race isn’t the issue. It is about the culture of poverty in which these children grow up, and the value system and hidden rules that they absorb from it.  Yet “We are nowhere near a post racial America”, says Tim Wise, author of “Between Barack and a Hard Place”.  Wise says, "6 out of 10 white folks admit to stereotyping by either perceiving blacks as less intelligent, more violent, less hardworking, less patriotic, live on welfare, and they do not work."For many people, the election of Barack Obama seemed to signify the end of racism as a pervasive social force in the United States. But is this true?  The answer to this is really dependent on how the people of America responded to the election and understanding the election to mean and what they understand it not to mean.  All of this relates to each other.

Question: Is America looking for segregation tomorrow? Why can’t we all just get along and learn from one another?

In The Service of What?

In the article, “In The Service Of What? The Politics of Service Learning” by Joseph Kahne and Joel Westheimer, it discusses two types of services. Kahne and Westheimer  discusses the difference between service for charity and service for change. The idea of service for charity is based upon the concept that a peerson volunteers his or her time to give back to the community, and to experience the pleasure of committing to this service. On the other hand, service for change, has a deeper meaning for a community and its volunteers. In the service for change, a community needs service which can aid the volunteers with knowledge to form relationships and help solve the problem together. Kahne and Westheimer believes service learning for change offers much more WINNING experiences for the community receiving the aid. Service for change concentrates more time on a WINNING plan rather than unconsciously volunteering time for the benefit of volunteering. Kahne and Westheimer wants the idea of service learning projects to individually provide different purposes and emphasize a variety of standards. The time that a volunteer spend working with students only provides real changes in their education when they are determined properly and repeatedly. If changes in their education are not being made, the time that he or she spends volunteering simply becomes a service for charity.

My question is, “What are we doing it for?”

Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us and POWER RANGERS!!!

       In the article, “Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us”, written by Linda Christensen, its discusses the issue of media influencing our youths.  She believes that our youths are persuaded to believe the media’s representation of specific stereotypes. Media is perceived as innocent but Christensen tries to prove a point that there is more than meets the eye. Children’s cartoon, shows, movies, and literature gives stereotypical messages to our young people before they can understand the meaning. Christensen points out that media gives off a secret education towards our youths. They enter the minds of children at a very early age. All children see is the pleasure that comes from within them.  She is blaming racism and stereotypes on media.   
       This article is a very enlightening piece that I have read in a while. Her argument was true and she had all the facts to prove it.  For example, she says, “Have you ever seen a black person, an Asian, a Hispanic in a cartoon? Did they have leading roles or were they a servant? What do you think this is doing to your child's mind? Women who aren't white begin to feel left out and ugly because they never get to play the princess” (131). I started thinking of every show I use to watch when I was little, to see if they sent a stereotypical message. Sure enough, there was one in particular. For example, the first season of Power Rangers. If any of you have been alive long enough to have seen the Power Rangers, you would have already figured out that there is something odd about the portrayal of the original cast. The black ranger is a black guy who break dances. How stereotypical. The yellow ranger is Asian. The white ranger is a white dude and also the mightiest of the rangers. The green ranger was Irish. The pink ranger is a preppy white girl. The blue ranger is another white guy. The red ranger is a redneck and he was the leader. That’s just my opinion. Why couldn’t they had cast an Asian as a leader. Despite that, this is still my favorite power ranger season. It was weird thinking after finishing this article. 

Here’s a clip about power rangers (Note: this is just a parody...not the originals)

GLSEN: Anti-Bullying Laws

Anti-bullying laws and policies should be put into action nationwide. Bullying is defined as a blustering, quarrelsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people. It can implant a fear, which keeps the victim from attending school and riding the bus. GLSEN’s studies show that 9 out of 10 LGBT (lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders) experienced bullying because of their sexual orientation in 2009. Nearly every state has their own anti-bullying, yet in states with enumerated anti-bullying laws, LGBT students experience less discrimination against their sexual orientation than those in states with common laws.

Bullying is something that happens everyday. Nobody benefits from it but it happens. Arne Duncan, who is in charge of the Department of Education, purposed policies in order to cure bullying and harassment. The policies are very detailed and gives example for each provision. Duncan listed key components of existing anti-bullying laws from 29 states. The laws were divided into 11 sections, which ranged from listing examples of bullying behavior to events in bullying incidents. The Department of Education has extended anti-bullying law beyond the classroom and playground and into and around school buses. Duncan says schools can have an enormous impact on preventing bullying but the question is can we eliminate bullying.

Arne Duncan on bullying:

Richard Rodriguez's Aria

In the article, “Aria”, written by Richard Rodriguez, he notes through his own experience that integrating into a new culture is difficult. That is very true. Incorporating a new language is probably the most difficult obstacle for immigrants to overcome. In “Aria”, he discusses being a bilingual student and describes his awkward attempts to come to term with his Spanish identity and public identity which is English. English is the public language. He emphasizes the need for a public language in order to fit.

Rodriguez, as a child, felt that by speaking English, he would leave behind his Spanish identity. He also felt that speaking English would offend his family. It wasn’t until then that his family was beginning to speak English at home. Speaking English meant they were able to have more confidence and Rodriguez began to notice them participating in society. For Rodriguez, this public language becomes his key to unlocking the door to opportunities. Yet the Spanish identity at home disappeared. The bond that his family once shared was different. He believes that people loses identity to fit in to the public’s identity.

Sometimes I ask myself, “Why is English so universal?” Lets take it from another country perspective besides the U.S. What bothers me is that people generally have to know a foreign language, especially English, to land a good job in their own country. Everyone seems to casually accept this as a fact of life. But something’s definitely not right here. Normally, if you go to a foreign country, you’re at a disadvantage if you don’t speak their language. But in countries in Asia, for example Cambodia, when a foreigner comes to your country, you’re the one who is at a disadvantage for not being to communicate with them in their language. Foreigners can come to live and work here without knowing a word of Khmer, and often making more money than all of the Cambodian employees combined.  How would you feel?

Do You Feel Privileged?

In the dictionary, privileges means a special advantage, immunity, permission, right, or benefit granted to or enjoyed by an individual, class, or caste. Either people have privileges or they do not. In the article, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack” written by Peggy McIntosh, made me feel very enlightened. I feel that the arguments she brought up were compelling and unbiased. She discusses white privilege and its effects upon her life. I feel that this article can be prove to be helpful to people of all races/backgrounds because it puts us all on common grounds.

McIntosh starts off with the idea of white privilege by linking it to men’s privileges. She believes “whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege”(1).  She is a white person and she realizes she had been taught to believe that racism is something which puts others at a disadvantage. She had been taught not to see white privilege as an advantage. If you may have notice, just being white can guarantee that you won’t be categorized because of the color of your skin.

It could be as little as being followed in a store, or being denied a seat at a restaurants, clubs, etc…  The white culture will always be categorized as feeling comfortable and confident. When you look at other races, they are categorized to feel uncomfortable and inferior. McIntosh claims that “If these things are true, this is not such a free country; ones' life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own”(4). This conflicts the idea of democracy because a person’s skin color categorizes his or her status in society.

“A "white" skin in the United States opens many doors for whites whether or not we approve of the way dominance has been conferred on us”(6). McIntosh discussed many cases where she felt that white privilege has played a role in her development in society. She is aware of it too. The only way to change things is by being persistent and getting heard. When talking about change, having a black president in office is not enough. Only with a mutual efforts can these issues be solved, and these ideas must be brought out into the open. We need to set aside all feelings of blame and guilt to focus on a change in society. Through her writing, McIntosh is reaching out to others.

Stereotypes and White Privilege: