Journal Part Two - February 23rd

The F-Word - An Introduction (Megan Seely - 2007) 

        This reading suggests that there are many stereotypes surrounding feminism and this supports my own knowledge because I have seen many depicted in everyday life. The article states that feminism simply means that women are equal to men. The article mentions many stereotypes that feminist are depicted as such as man haters, ugly, and angry which I see in the media being shown as “true”. They also mention the protest at the 1968 Miss America pageant where feminists were branded as bra burners and that term is still used to describe them now, almost fifty years later. I think these stereotypes explained in the reading are important because I have heard feminists wrongly referred to as angry ugly bra burning man haters and these stereotypes need to stop. Throughout my schooling I have never been taught a lot about gender equality – which is simply what feminism is – and now with the negative connotation with the word, people shy away from addressing the subject. I think that there are steps that can be taken in my teaching practice that could help deter these myths from being portrayed. We can help negate the amount of people who use the phrase “I’m a feminist but…” – there should be no shame in proclaiming feminism because it is not a negative thing.
        I personally reject these stereotypes about feminism but I know that these are the ideas I have been taught to believe through the media and through some of the people in my life. In grade three we had a supervisor at our school that very obviously didn’t believe in equality for women and girls, although I may have not overtly known this then. He refused to let the girls play floor hockey on the playground because he said it was a “boys” sport – whatever that means. Back then, we did protest that we were not being allowed the same opportunities as the boys – most likely the beginning of my feminist beliefs. I personally had no interest in playing hockey with the rest of them but if I wanted to, I wanted to know that there would be no objections. I can relate to the article saying that many people think that being a feminist can be thought of as a negative thing, proclaiming to the world that I possess feminist beliefs is not something that I do often because of what people think the meaning of the word is – to rephrase: if everyone knew the true meaning of feminism (men and women are equal) then I would have no problem proclaiming my beliefs – it is the negative connotation of the word that holds be back.

        These beliefs that I hold and personal experiences I have had with misogyny (discrimination due to gender) that eventually lead to fighting for equality and inadvertently, my feminist beliefs definitely inform how I go about teaching. Sometimes I am afraid that I somewhat overcompensate for what I experienced as a child – meaning I am afraid that sometimes without thinking I favor the girls in the class so they don’t feel the same discrimination. This could end up reaffirming the stereotypes that this article discusses because I may come across as a “man hater” even if it is without thinking about it. The few times that I have noticed this happening I obviously felt terrible for imposing something that happened to me on other people and I try to correct the behaviour – it is just hard to find a balance between the two where there is no favoring and everyone has equal opportunities. I think that is why we need to open up a dialogue about this with our students because there are still issues that need to be addressed when it comes to feminism. Teaching feminism to our students doesn’t mean teaching them to be man haters or angry women, it’s simply teaching them to be informed about their actions and like me – to hope that you can one day treat everyone as equal without having to constantly have equality in the back of your mind.

The Myth of the "Culture of Poverty" (Paul Gorski - 2008)

        This reading made me feel terrible because I know that I have been guilty of attributing these myths, I myself have thought these at one time or another. This reading suggest that there are several myths that are associated with students and parents living in poverty such as: they are unmotivated and have poor work ethics, they are uninvolved and uninterested in education, they are linguistically deficient, and that they tend to abuse drugs and alcohol. The reading also offers some things that we can do to help disband these myths and one that I found the most interesting and perhaps most difficult is to respond when colleagues stereotype poor students or parents. This solution could open discussions in schools on what we are doing to attribute to the stereotypes surrounding poverty.

        Throughout my elementary years I went to a community school not in the greatest part of town – but it by far wasn’t in the worst, but through this experience I definitely noticed some things and saw some myths being depicted. My school had a large First Nations population and at the time it seemed that a lot of their parents were not very involved in their education – at least from what I could see. It was not until I was older that I considered what other facts I could be missing but by this time I already had these myths ingrained in my mind. From my point of view it just seemed that it was just my group of three or four good friends whose parents were involved in our extra-curricular activities and consistently showed up around the school when needed. I now know that many parents of my classmates could have been unable to get out of work for class activities and could have perhaps been working more than one job to support their family (they didn't have flexible schedules as my parents had some of the time). Of course this may not have been the case all the time but I do not know what was going on in their lives. Later on, in high school when there was usually less need for parental volunteers I started to notice that people that I perceived as “poor” did exhibit some of the qualities that were talked about in this article, mostly that they were unmotivated when it came to school work and they tended to be the ones who were the “party crowd” that drank a lot. I did go to a very large high school (my graduating class being just over 400 students) so what I experienced was a small fraction of what was going on at our school. Thinking about it now, I barely knew anything about most of the people that I may perceive as “poor” because we didn’t have the same circle of friends – even if we did have a class together once in a while. These experiences I had did contribute to my thinking about the culture of poverty, and definitely contributed to me thinking that some of these myths were "always" true.

        I know that these associations between what I see and what the culture of poverty looks like came together in my head and I definitely am guilty of making assumptions. I hope that all these myths that I am guilty of thinking at one time or another do not have an effect on how I teach. Considering I have not been in schools long I have not had much chance to interact with parents but from what I have seen there are many people that just blame the myths and do not look for the deeper problem. It may just be easier to blame the fact that the parents aren’t as involved in their child’s education on the fact that they are poor and unmotivated people but this is most likely not the case. There are many extenuating factors that may be at play in families lives that we as teachers may not know about. This is where the solution that Gorski offers comes into play - speaking up when it comes to these stereotypes being portrayed. It could be a very helpful strategy is ending the myth of the culture of poverty but it also puts the group involved in an uncomfortable situation. It goes back to knowing when to fight your battles and approaching the question in a non-threatening way. I think because I am now on the other side of seeing these myths (being a student vs. being a teachers) I will be more aware of what is going on and be able to see that the myth of the "culture of poverty" is what it is - a myth and not the whole story.

Reading, Writing, and Race: Literacy Practices of Teachers in Diverse Classrooms (Gloria Ladson-Billings - 2006) 

        This reading invites me to rethink subtle racism in the classroom because it is obviously having an effect on student performance, weather we are aware of the connection or not. I find it interesting that in this study the teachers know that they are labeling mostly the African American, Native American, and Latino children as “students of concern” but none of them thought that it was an issue of race that they were dealing with - they treated it simply as an issue of literacy. They also address that these students being pulled out of the classroom takes away from their time in other subjects. The one teacher in the group that was willing to kind of address race as a possible contributing factor was the one who had taught in an all African American classroom. She saw results from her students just like she did from her students in her current classroom because her methods were effective. This teacher was criticized for being old school, but she saw results from the students (no matter what their race) so she stuck to what worked. The other teachers in the school had classes divided – the students that were struggling with reading were generally the African American children. 

        In schools I have seen comparable examples of this – through working in the schools I have noticed that the children in the specialized reading programs tend to be the First Nations students as well at the EAL students. The example we talked about in class where the teacher just placed the First Nations child in math help got me thinking about his prevalence. It gets me wondering if students just get placed in these programs without a second thought or without background information. This again goes back to questioning other colleagues about what the students actually need and fighting the myth that ALL the First Nations students will need extra help when they are switching schools. I have also noticed that these students that are receiving extra help in the area of reading, writing, and other language arts are missing out on other parts of the curriculum. This is something that may have happened when I was going to elementary school but I never noticed it until I was student teaching and saw the children leaving consistently during a certain subject. This is definitely problematic as a teacher because you want your students to be up to speed with reading because it of course helps with all other subjects but you also want your students to be able to experience all subjects. I believe that the students should be able to take part in all subjects but it is hard to have them participating if they can't understand or comprehend what I am saying. I don't know that this specific experience has been a result of race being an issue but it could be. I mean, all the EAL students in my classroom are different races - most coming from Pakistan and India. The First Nation students are the ones in the read to succeed program, I don't know that it is a matter of race but I am aware that it may be. Unlike the teachers in the reading I am aware of race being a factor in the classroom and children from different culture may relate to different types of material. If you try to be a "colour blind" teacher you are completely ignoring that part of their life and therefore diminishing them further - ignoring their race and culture as a factor can hurt their ability to learn and share about their culture.

          Things that I have seen in student teaching will definitely inform my teaching practice. I have been shown in my partner school that literacy and spoken English comes first and all other subjects kind of take a back seat in a way. I agree with this to an extent but my opinions contradict themselves - I want students to be involved in all subject areas but I also want them to be at the appropriate grade level in regards to reading. I find it hard to have both of these things - their reading may suffer if they are placed in the classroom for all subject areas but their achievement across subject areas may suffer if they are taken out of the classroom for extra reading and writing help. I feel like you should be able to have both - but so far I don't see a way that you can have one with the other and that makes me feel frustrated. I don't think that students should be profiled because of their race but I know race exists and is a factor in students lives. I do not think of myself as a "colour blind" teacher but I know that I have never addressed race in the classroom and don't exactly know how to go about it. It is a tricky subject to address but it does need to be addressed... but how? I am still trying to figure that out.