Provo;ege, Power, and Difference: What Can We Do? -Allan G. Johnson

• Privilege
• Power
• Difference
• Racism
• Sexism
• Homogeneous
• Exclusion
• Rejection

Allan Johnson argues that racism, sexism, privilege, harassment, discrimination, rejection, and exclusion are the challenges we face every day in our society and they have existed for hundreds of years. Unless white males in power accept these challenges and attempt to change them, the silence and invisibility of privilege and oppression will continue. Johnson does offer key points for his readers which support the choices towards making a difference.

1. "The more you pay attention to privilege and oppression, the more you'll see opportunities to do something about them. You don't have to mount an expedition to fund opportunities: they're all over the place, beginning with you. "
2. Attentive listening is especially difficult for members of dominant groups. If someone confronts you with your own behavior that supports privilege, step off the path of least resistance that encourages you to defend and deny."
3. Understanding how privilege and oppression operate and how you participate is where working for change begins."
4. A key to the continued existence of every system of privilege is unawareness, because privilege contradicts so many basic human values that it invariably arouses opposition when people know about it."

I have always enjoyed reading Allan Johnson's words. They are fair yet precise, bold yet meaningful. I believe all students in college should be required to read Privilege, Power, and Difference because many students are unaware of the main topics mentioned but are important and should be acknowledged by all professors. With the recognition from schools on such important issues they can make a difference and aid in the process towards correcting this problem.

School Girls; Young Women, Self-Esteem, and the Confidence Gap -Peggy Orenstein

• Women
• Pride
• Education
• Sexual Education
• Sexual Harassment
• National Organization for Women
• Opposite the Norm
• Confidence
• Knowledge
• Respected

Peggy Orenstein argues that all classrooms need to teach and acknowledge women, their rights, and achievements. Unlike the every day class which are "adorned with masculine role models, with male heroes, with books by and about men- classrooms which the female self is, at best, an afterthought." With this education, both males and females in the class will benefit from this new lesson plan, because it opens the minds of students and allows them to become more educated not only in gender but in hidden lessons such as public speaking, respect and equality.

1. "If I took those lessons out and concentrated only on men's experience for a whole year, that would be the normal."


2. "Phase one as Womanless and All-White History, which most of us learned as children. In phase two, teachers notice that there are no white women or people of color in the curriculum, and they cast about for a few exceptional achievers to sprinkle in..."


3. "I reassure them that women's studies is not about "ruling over," it is about "existing with."


4. "I usually find that boys only resist studying women when they're presented as "lesser."

I really loved this piece. Throughout the whole semester I believe this was a top favorite. Orenstein introduces this type of lesson with a confident yet not cocky voice. She could have come off very strong saying nothing but women are the better sex and being narrow minded. But she didn't and because of that I feel as if I accepted this article with pleasure. I believe her when she explains how men have a hard time with accepting this material. She quotes that she usually finds that boys resist studying women because they feel as if they are being presented lower then women. It would be had for men and manybe even some wome to accept this lesson because students are not use to learning about women.

Citizenship in School: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome -Christopher Kliewer

• Segregated
• Argument
• Denied
• Development
• Skills
• Judgement
• Disabilities
• Control

Christopher Kliewer argues that students with disabilities should be educated with all students of different learning abilities. They should be given the chance to learn in a mainstream learning environment because here every student would be able to grow, develop, and learn from one another; in a different way from the students who are on the same level.

1. “Society itself is hurt when schools act as cultural sorting machines—locations that justify a competitive ethic that marginalizes certain students or groups of students…"
2. “The challenge is to erase negative attitudes about people with developmental disabilities, get rid of the stereotypes and break the barriers for people with disabilities."
3. "Success in life requires an ability to form relationships with others who make up the web of community."

I think it is really interesting that Kliewer raises such points. Before reading this article I felt as if children with special needs should be placed in a different learning environment. Not to segregate these children, but to be able to nurture them and give them additional attention or teach these students in a different way that they need to be taught. I always believed their was a specific teaching method for educating students with disabilities. Schooling Children With Down Syndrome reminded me of Jeannie Oakes piece on tracking. Both authors are suggesting mainstream classrooms should be mixed with different students including different learning abilities and mentality levels. By doing this, each student will benefit from one another allowing all levels to learn something new.

"One More River to Cross" Recognizing the Real Injury in Brown: A Prerequisite to Shaping New Remedies -Charles Lawrence

• Segregation
• Supreme Court
• Misunderstanding
• Recognize
• Black Children
• Elimination
• Devise and Demand
• Pupil Placement
• Civil Rights Case
• Brown vs. Board

Charles Lawrence argues that the Brown decision fostered a way of thinking about segregation that has allowed both the judiciary and society at large to deny the reality of race in America, that the recognition of that reality is critical to the framing of any meaningful remedy-judicial or political-and that Brown may ultimately be labeled a success only insofar as we are able to make it stand for what it should have stood for in 1954.

1. "The first is that segregation's only purpose is to label or define blacks as inferior and thus exclude them from full and equal participation in society."
2. "The second is that blacks are injured by the existence of the system or institution of segregation rather than by particular segregating acts."
3. The third is that the institution of segregation is organic and self-perpetuating. Once established it will not be eliminated by mere removal of public sanction but must be affirmatively destroyed.

Tracking: Why Schools Need to Take Another Route -Jeannie Oakes

• Practice
• Tracking
• Segregation
• Abilities
• Skills
• Educational Levels
• Schooling

Jeannie Oakes argues that tracking in schools is inappropriate and belittles all students below high-ability learning levels. She also argues that high-ability learners achieve just as well when they are mixed with all levels and the average and low-ability students achieve above their normal averages.

1. "In low-ability classes, for example, teacher seem to be less encouraging and more punitive, placing more emphasis on discipline and behavior and less on academic learning. Compared to teachers in high-ability classes, they seem to be more concerned about getting students to follow directions, be on time, and sit quietly. Students in low-ability classes more often feel excluded from class activities and ten to find their classmates unfriendly." (Page 170)
2. "The quality of classes for average students usually falls somewhere between the high and low-class extreme. For example, in average classes, many teachers expected relatively little of students." (Page 179)
3. "Taken together, these typical differences begin to suggest why tracking can and often does work well for top students. Start by providing the best teachers, a concentration of the most successful students and sometimes even the lowest class size. Ass special resources, a sense of superior academic mission, perhaps a parent support group, and these students will get the best education in town." (Page 179)

I really enjoyed reading this piece from Oakes. It was persice and direct. I have never heard of this tracking method before. It's interesting to think teachers and professional educators would even think of separating each level of ability into different classes. I feel like that is complete segregation. As Oakes explains, tracking only caters to the high-ability learners and belittles the rest of the different levels. I feel that in a classroom each student contributes to class no matter what each child's level is.

Teaching to Change the World -Jeannie Oaks and Martin Lipton

• Support
• Public Schools
• White Privilege
• Racial Privilege
• Educating
• Myths
• Metaphors
• Ideologies
• Inequality
• Merit
• Change
• Tradition
• Action
• Hope

Jeannie Oaks and Martin Lipton argue that today's educators must stay updated with the newest materials to teach in order for their students to succeed in their schooling.

Oaks and Lipton explain how schools today have to change. They use a metaphor for describing schools when they explain, school is like an assembly line or a factory. They portray a forceful environment and show no encouragement. Students today are looked at as customers instead of individuals. This type of institute is very problematic because different children have different learning styles, every students is not the same. This makes a child feel distant and unnecessary, making them feel like the teachers are just there to teach and if the student is not completely there, they do not care. The language in which we use to talk to students really impacts the relationships and settings we provide for the school community.

Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us -Linda Christensen

• Secret Education
• Accepted Knowledge
• Stereotypes
• Cartoons
• Media
• Television

Linda Christensen argues that children's cartoons, movies, and literature are the most influential genre towards young people send them stereotypical messages before they understand the meaning.

1. "Early in the unity, I show Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves, that depicts all Arabs with the same face, same turban, same body - and they are all thieves swinging enormous swords. " (page 130)
2. "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." (page 131)
3. "In Daffy Duck, the absence of female characters in many of the older cartoons. When women do appear, they look like Jessica Rabbit or Playboy centerfolds - even in many of the new and improved children's movies." (page130)
4. "In Cinderella, happiness means getting a man, and transformation from wretched conditions can be achieved through consumption - in their case, through new clothes and a new hairstyle." (page 133)

I really enjoyed reading Christensen's piece. At first I was a little skeptical, thinking that she was blaming racism and stereotypes on cartoons, how could that be possible. But after I finished reading Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us I realized her argument was completely true and she had all the facts to prove it. After Christensen analyzed a few cartoons, I started thinking of every show I use to watch when I was little, to see if I could pick out her patter of stereotypical cartoons. Sure enough, I could state stereotypes for many of the shows I use to watch. For example, Boy Meets World, this show promoted relationships at the age of 5 and popularity gets you into parties. It was weird thinking that all the TV shows, movies, and media that I was brought up to believe was sending such messages out to children without even seeing the slightest signs of them doing it.