Class Sizes Keep Growing...What's New? I Wish One Day I Could Read The News About Tobacco Industries Closing Their Doors Forever. Stupid Capitalism

Here's an article about growing class sizes:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-07-29-class-sizes_N.htm

This one is different than most articles regarding this subject because there is a claim that the class sizes don't really matter as long as the teacher is effective. Seriously? Duh! I'm not a distinguished researcher from Stanford or anything but I do know from experience that a good teacher makes all the difference. So we have the solution now, right? Yes we do. How do we implement it? We make a degree in education worth more than it is right now. A degree in education does not equate to much monetarily. I personally don't measure success in terms of monetary value, yet it is hard to feel appreciated when you're having trouble paying the bills at the end of every month. I was reading the news last week and read that Education was amongst the lowest paying majors in all of the top universities. That doesn't help in implementing the solution to the problem with education. An effective teacher needs to have been trained in an effective manner, and not every teacher is. You may ask why we allow these teachers to teach our youth, and the answer is because there is a shortage of people willing to do so. As long as effective teachers are in high demand larger class sizes will be detrimental to our youth.

The Trope

The word trope in the dictionary is defined as any literary or rhetorical device, as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony that consists in the use of words in other than their literal sense. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. shows us how tropes, with regards to race, can be dangerous. Race as a trope describes when we specifically categorize race, e.g. the White race or the Black race. As Gates describes it, "Race has become a trope of ultimate, irreducible difference between cultures, linguistic groups, or adherents of specific belief systems...Race is the ultimate trope of difference because it is so very arbitrary in its application." (Social Theory, p. 533) Words can be a beautiful thing, but when used to describe race we have exposed their bad side. Words can be powerful and extremely offensive when used in the wrong context, yet we do it everyday to make sense of something that people find to be confusing. How confusing is race though? To me, it seems just as confusing as the difference between males and females. However, the way I see it isn't necessarily the way someone else sees it. As Gates put it, race is used arbitrarily all the time. Who categorizes the White, Black, or Asian race? The government gives us "standards" to help understand the concept a little better, but many people disregard this if they don't agree. As I have stated before according to government standards I am categorized as being a member of the White race. This is too confusing for me, so I simply disregard it. How can I be labeled White? American, yes. I just can't see how I am White

I Say Tomato, You Say Toe-mah-to, He Says Red Apple....Huh???

One day I lay in the grass with two friends of mine looking at the sky. It was a clear day with a few rogue clouds roaming around in the sky. I then noticed one and blurted out what I thought it was. Immediately after my friends each said they saw something different when they looked at the cloud. I was quite surprised when this happened. It had been a while since I last realized that everyone sees things in a different light. It really put a lot of things in my life at the time, and thereafter, in perspective. We are all individual beings with unique wiring. We need to learn how to walk in other peoples shoes and see the world through other peoples eyes. The world would be a much better place if we could do this.

To be continued...

Ok So What's Your Race? Oh Me? I'm Mexican. No...There Is No Circle For That On The Census. Ok...I'm White? Yea That Works Fine

The question of differentiating between race and ethnicity is one that has bothered me for a very long time. What exactly makes me white? Is it my skin color? Well even then it still confuses me because I can get pretty brown at times. Is there no classification for brown people? If someone asks me what my race is do I say white? If I do what will they know about me? They will think I am white when in reality I am a first generation American citizen. I speak Spanish just as well as I do English. I am not white in any sense of the word. Many people take offense to filling out the race section of the US Census. On the census website the government states, "How Should Hispanics or Latinos Answer the Race Question? People of Hispanic origin may be of any race and should answer the question on race by marking one or more race categories shown on the questionnaire, including White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and Some Other Race. Hispanics are asked to indicate their origin in the question on Hispanic origin, not in the question on race, because in the federal statistical system ethnic origin is considered to be a separate concept from race."(http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/race/racefactcb.html) Many people I speak to just skip the race question al together. I, along with many others, believe my ethnicity is a huge part of my identity because it has affected my ideologies, beliefs, religious stance, and countless other things. My experience is very different than the white experience. I am who I am because of where I grew up, who I've met, and what I've learned. To truly know who someone is we must understand where they came from. So the next time someone asks you who you are tell them the whole truth, not just a piece of it.

This Is My Circle And That's Yours...Keep Your Words Out Of Mine

People are naturally territorial when it comes to many things in their lives. These range from political views to material things, and everything in between. Speaking personally, when I first got to Berkeley I was so against using the word "hella". Looking back, the only reason I refused to say it was because all my friends back home in Los Angeles made fun of that word. I was being pretty close-minded. I came to realize this when I was speaking to some people originally from Northern California and confused them with my choice of words. I then realized I was simply letting what my friends back home thought influence me. But isn't that a major part of how we grow up? We are influenced everyday in our life. Whether it comes in the from of what are parents tell us, or our teachers, friends, random strangers, iconic figures, books, the news, etc. Life is all about who you surround yourself with and what you let influence you. It's not easy to grow up conservative your entire life and come to a place where liberal is the norm. It is difficult to accept a new idea, way of speaking, language, or even a type of food if you have been used to something else for years and years. With respect to Bakhtin, I feel it is hard to make other words your own because we already have a system we go with that works for us. Making someone else's ideas, or words, your own entails changing something that has been working for you. Change can be scary, and many times people steer clear of change. Although I don't adore the word "hella" I have stopped judging those who do use it, because I don't always use the most intellectual words myself. I am human. We all are. Change is good. That is all

Literacy...It's That Important

"Funds of Knowledge"

I was extremely intrigued with what Luis Moll had to say in this article. He states, "...reciprocal practices establish serious obligations based on the assumption of mutual trust...and leads to the development of long-term relationships." (Moll) I feel as if it is the role of a teacher to look beyond the school work of their students and to look at them as people with different backgrounds. I feel it is necessary for teachers to act like researchers to get the most from those doing the learning. I also feel that researchers need to look beyond the data they collect and see people for who they really are. You can only know so much about a person from data. To really know someone we have to spend quality time with them. We must strike up a conversation for the sake of getting to know the person, not simply to get answers to questions we had written up before. It is definitely possible for researchers to collect data and empower those they are researching. A combination of a teacher/mentor and a researcher is ideal. We are all mentors to someone, even if we don't know it. We all affect multiple people with our everyday actions. Being in an education class we have also become researcher. It is essential to realize the difference between the two, but to try and combine the two to really get the most from the experience. This, to me, seems like the biggest barrier (aside from nervousness) for us. The biggest thing to remember, though, is that if there's a will there's a way.