Final Course Reflection

This course has taught me a great deal about diversity.  It has made me think a lot about myself and my actions and it has given me a greater understanding of diversity.   I particularly liked the readings, as they gave me a different perspective on people.  The one story that really stands out and changed my thinking was about two deaf women who wanted to have a child.  They wanted to have a child that was deaf, so they went to some extremes to ensure that would happen.  When I was reading the story, I was angry; I thought how could they want a child to be born deaf?  How was this fair to the child?   However, after reading their story and understanding it from their point of view, I got it.  I understood why they wanted a child like them; didn't I want the same thing?  

I have enjoyed this course; it has changed me as a person.  I think that I look at people and view people through a different lens now.  One that I hope is nonjudgmental. 

Knowledge:

I gained a deeper understanding of diversity through the readings of the framework and personal essays in the book “The Meaning of difference: American construction of race, sex, and gender, social class, sexual orientation, and disability.”   The group discussions also gave me a different perspective on various issues of diversity.  I will expand this knowledge by continuing reading books about diversity and discussions with my partner and friends.  

Strategies:

The work we did on our website has given me many resources and strategies to help me promote diversity.  The website can be found at http://aimsofdiversity.weebly.com/.   Many of the strategies listed in this website I would incorporate into my teaching and my everyday life. 

 The web is also a very good place to find information about small things you can do to help promote diversity.  For example, one website say to write something on your Facebook wall.  Since Facebook is one of the number one social media forums, the information can spread like wild fire.

My main take away from strategies to promote diversity is to take action.  It can be the small changes I make now that will have a bigger impact on the future.

Perspective:

This class has taught me a lot about diversity.  It have given me a deeper perspective on our society.  Our society is made up of individuals who are unique, however we are one society.  Understanding, accepting, and embracing each other’s uniqueness will create a stronger, safer, and happier society. I do see things differently now and I want to share what I have learned with others.   For example, just today driving to work I was listening to a radio show.  The talk show that I really enjoyed listening to I discovered was discriminatory and racist.   I turned it off and I am wondering if I will listen to it again.   When you can look at things from different perspectives you see the world differently and you are really opening up your world.

Vision:

My vision for myself as an advocate for diversity is to take action.  That is much easier to say than to do.  I have set the following goals for myself.

               

Personally:

·         Speak up when a joke is inappropriate.

·         Tell my stories about diversity and gain new ones

·         Speak up when family or friends make racist comments

·         Learn more about diversity and what I can do

·         Listen to people’s stories

·         Remember that every small thing I do will have an impact, change takes time and do not give up

As an Educator:

·         Create a safe inclusive environment for all students to learn in and express themselves

·         Speak up when I see or hear discrimination

·         Do not be afraid to talk about difficult topics and answer students questions

·         Integrate various cultures and backgrounds into my everyday classroom 

·         Encourage all students to share their traditions

·         Collaborate with other teachers, parents, and community members to help them gain a better understanding of diversity

·         Mixed up groupings regularly so students work with different students

Guiding Question: “What are the aims of Diversity?”

I think the aims of diversity is to treat every individual with respect and to embrace their differences.  In doing this we will gain a deeper understanding of the world around us.  When we teach students about diversity we are broadening their education and understanding of all the people in the world.  When we promote the aims of diversity in a wider circle, our family and friends we are helping to change society.  Taking to people can cause a ripple effect, when I talk to other people about the issues of diversity and they talk to others, we are helping the evolution of change.  I know this will not happen overnight, but I think we are heading in the right direction and promoting the aims of diversity will change our world in the future.

Rosenblum, K.E., & Travis, T.C.  (2012).  The meaning of difference: American constructions of race, sex, and gender, social class, sexual orientation, and disability, 6th edition.  McGraw-Hill.  

Reflections on Aims of Diversity

My reflection for aims of diversity can be found on my educational blog at http://pamsreflective.blogspot.com/

I have really enjoyed this class.

Reflection on Framing

Media has impacted our lives for a long time.  Most of the time we do not even realized how much the media impacts what we buy or how we think.  When you read the article by Kendall on Framing, you will start to wonder yourself, how much is the media influencing your thoughts?  Especially Kendall talks about how media frame social classes.

Kendall describes in her article how television shows depict social classes a certain way.  She states rather than providing a meaningful analysis of life in various social classes, the media either play class differences for laugh or sweeps issues under the run (pg. 448).  In her article she analyzes various TV shows that do this exact thing, from the very rich to the very poor.  In the way that media portrayed the different classes influenced how society constructed images of classes.   Since I do not watch a lot of TV I had not watched of any of the TV shows that she wrote about.  What this did remind me of was various TV shows that I grew up with.  Such as “Leaving it to Beaver”, which portrays the average American middle class family.  The father was a successful business man and the mother was a dutiful house wife.  The children were perfect, or tried to be.   At least was how I saw it, the problem was it was unrealistic.  However, many Americans thought that this was the typical middle class American family.

This is because our mental maps of what the various classes look like have been influenced by media.  For example in Harris and Carbado’s article they show two images of victims from Hurricane Katrina.  One image is a black man with a bag of trash wading through chest deep water.  The other image is of two white people wading through water with backpacks.  The media depicted the first picture as a man who was looting a grocery store.  The second picture the writer depicted the two white peoples with backpacks as finding food and supplies.  The way the writers of these two photos portrayed the photos influenced how people felt about what was happening in New Orleans after Katrina. 

I have to admit that thinking about these two articles and the article by Garland-Thomson about how disability is framed was troubling.  In Harris and Carbado’s article they discuss how society is “color blind” to racism.  In the article I read about disability last week this was basically the same message.   I have been writing about how I feel that racism is the United States is being wiped out but maybe that is just my “color blindness” to racism.   I feel sometimes that I cannot win no matter what I feel. 

We are a society that is completely influenced by the media.  From the cars we drive to the movies we watch, media is impacting our decisions.  I find this disturbing and wondering how I can help myself not be influenced by media.  How has my view of social class been influenced by the media and how am I going to change those frames?

Reading 45: Kendall, Diana – Framing Class: Media Representation of Wealth and Poverty in America

Reading 46: Harris, Cheryl. L, Carbado, Devon W – Loot or Find: Fact or Frame?

Reading 48: Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie – Disability and Representation

Reflection on Education

This book has really pointed out some inequalities in our society that I have never really thought about.  Reuss’s article on Cause of Death: Inequality is one of those articles.  In this article he makes you look at the disparities between deaths of people who are educated, versus people who are not.  His research has shown that educated people have a longer life expectancy than people with limited education.  I have never linked education with life expectancy.  I am really not someone that likes statistically data as I feel it can be manipulated to show whatever outcome you want it to shown.  However, thinking about life expectancy in relationship to education makes me think that we should be doing everything possible to ensure that every child has an equitable education.  This goes right back to all our teacher education class, providing all students with an equitable learning experience.  In doing this we are not only ensuring all students are receiving the same opportunities but we may also be increasing their life expectancy.   This is amazing to me.

 His research has also shown the lower you are in the social hierarchy the shorter you are expected to live.  He mentions that 44% of poor people in the United States lack health insurance (pg. 302).  I wonder what that number is today.  This is a disturbing figure to me.  Almost half of the United States does not have health insurance.  I can definitely see the relationship between the lack of health insurance and the shorter life expectancy of people lower in the social hierarchy.    I think access to preventive health care would go a long way and increasing the life expectancy of the poor.  

This article just really made me think about the link between education and other factors in someone’s life, like life expectancy rate.  If you think about it as a teacher for every student you encourage and help to graduate from High School (and perhaps continue with college) you are maybe helping them also live longer.

I have mixed feelings about Larew’s article.  I know that his data shows that students that go to Ivy League schools are usually very successful and they have greater opportunities than students that go other colleges.  This in turns relates to economic success and possible longer life expectancy   He talks about how “unqualified” students are getting into Ivy League schools because they parents went there and how unfair this is.  I think there is a much bigger discrimination issue with colleges.  It is not just legacy children, but certain person are also selected because they fit a certain criteria “black”, “female”, etc.  This has nothing to do with how qualified the students actually is.   Until there is a system that every college needs to follow, colleges will continue to select the people they want in their schools.  It appears for Ivy League Schools this is related to how much money a family has. The other problem I have with colleges is the cost to go.  Ivy League schools are much more expensive than other schools and students leave with a boat load of loans.  

How come our education systems requires us to pay so much to go to college?  How about the idea that all colleges charge the same amount?  What would that do to our society?  What if college was free?

These articles shed a new light on how important education is.  It is like the system of interconnected parts and educations play a huge role in people’s lives.  It is very true that the greatest gift we can give our children is the gift of education.

Reading 31: Reuss, Alejandro – Cause of Death: Inequality

Reading 32: Larew, John – Why are Droves of Unqualified Unprepared Kids Getting into Our Top Colleges?  Because Their Dads are Alumni 

Reflection on Racism and Stereotyping

I have to admit, that I felt when Barack Obama was elected president it was a sign that racism was coming to an end.     As Wise wrote in his article, Obama’s election to the presidency showed that people could come together and defeat racism.  Obama got the white working class to confront racism and think about what was best for the nation.    He got young people to work together in what he called cross racial collaboration to make it possible for Obama to win the election.   His campaign to the presidency made people see racism first hand. (pg. 364)  I think this really changed people when they witness the inequalities and discrimination first hand.  So for me when Obama was elected as the president I thought that our nation was on the road to wiping out racism.  I know that Wise’s article goes into why that is not true and would probably label me one as a white who refuses to see what is really happening.

I am not saying that racism has ended.  It was quite clear to me when that Basketball owner publically made racial comments about his “own” players that racism was alive in well in the United States.  However, the public reaction to his actions also shows that we are making ground in wiping out racism.  I do think that we are making steps toward ending racism.  Do I think that it will happen in my lifetime?  Probably not, change takes a long time to happen.  Racism did not happen overnight, ending racism will be a slow process.  As one of the article in the books stated, we may not see the change today, but everything we do will have an impact on things in the future.  We need to keep taking the steps to letting people know that we will not tolerant racism.

On another note, the article by Wu about the “Model Minority” really made me think.  His point is that most of Americas think of Asians as computer geniuses, math wizards, doing well, overachievers, polite, law abiding, and the model citizen.  Wu says this is just a myth.  It is creating a certain image of Asians that is not true.  Wu writes this stereotyping is use to compare Asians to Africa Americans, as it provides the statement to Africa American’s “They made it; why can’t you?” (pg 373).  Wu states that it creates jealous among other groups as they feel Asians gains are their loses and they resent Asians. 

I currently work at National Life in Montpelier.  The National Life Insurance Group works in the same building.  They are many people from India that work for National Life.  I have heard many comments that they are computer wizards, super smart, polite, and work for less money.  I have also heard from former National Life workers that they lost their job because they employee people from India because it was cheaper.  It is this type of activity that causes resentment in people.  If someone truly lost their job because someone from India could be paid less, it is not fair to either party.  I have heard of this in other places and I wonder what we can do about it. 

So just as I am feeling that we are moving forward with wiping about racism, I have to take a half a step back.  I have to admit that I have heard many people refer to Asians Americans in this way.  They believe they are super smart, computer savoy, hardworking, and they threaten their jobs. This type of resentment is racism. We will always have companies that exploit people that is a different issue that needs to be addressed.  I still believe that we are moving forward in eliminating racism, it is just a slow process.  I am not ignoring that racism is an issue, but I do believe in general as a nation we are working toward eliminating racism.  We have to keep making the steps forward.

Reading 38: Wise, Tim – Between Barack and a Hard Place

Reading 39: Wu, Frank – The Model Minority: Asian American “Success” as a Race Relations Failure

Reflection on Disability 

I was very moved by reading the articles by John Hockenberry and Sally French.  These articles were about the real life experiences of two individuals who have disabilities.  One person was wheel chair bound and the other person had limited sight.  Both individuals were labeled by society as disabled.  In my view they both did indeed have a disability.   That is the whole point of both of the articles, the way that society viewed them made them want to deny their disabilities.  I am therefore as guilty as the cab drivers in Huckenberry’s article or the people in French’s article that made them feel that way.

The first article told the story of John Hockenberry who became a paraplegic due to a car accident.  He describes his life in the 1990’s in New York City, trying to hail a cab as a paraplegic.  He painted a horrible picture of me of our society treats people.   It seem like almost every cab refused to pick him up because he was a paraplegic.  He said some of the cab drivers that did pick him up refused to put his wheelchair in the trunk.  Some stated “I have a bad back”.  One cold Christmas eve when he could not get a cab, he wheeled himself over to a cab parked across the street from him.  He asked the cab driver for a ride.  The cab refused at first, then Hockenberry reminded him it was “f?>king Christmas Eve”, so the driver agreed. However, when Hockenberry got into the cab the driver refuse to put the chair in the trunk.  A series of events occurred and Hockenberry “went crazy”.  He had reached his tipping point, and he smashed out the windows, headlights, and tried to choke the driver.  He felt like he really wanted kill this person.  You will have to read the article to get a good picture of what happened, but I can understand his frustrations. For those of you who know the holiday movie “Christmas Story”, Hockenberry’s reaction to the cabbie reminded me of Ralphie in the Christmas Story.  The scene where Ralphie beats the bully because he had enough.

The profound event to me was the cab driver who did pick him up.  He nicely put Hockenberry’s chair in the truck and treated him as an individual.  Twice this man picked up Hockenberry.   I was thinking we need more people like this in society.  You later find out the cab driver is one of the men that bombed the Trade Center in 1990’s.   I just kept thinking how is this possible?

Hockenberry also discusses his experience as a paraplegic trying to get to and from the subway station. 

In French’s article she talks about her life long struggle to get people to accept that she has limited sight.  She felt bad when people asked her if she saw a rainbow, when she couldn’t.  So she started saying she could.   So she started going through life denying her disability.  She wanted to seem normal so other would not be unset.  This again was sad to me.

These two articles gave me a different perspective on people with disabilities.  We are faced challenges in our lives, some people more than others.  We should however treat everyone that same and as we would like ourselves to be treated.  We should not make someone feel bad about their disability or feel they need to hide it.  My other thoughts from reading these articles is that it seemed like Hockenberry and French both wanted to do things themselves.  So if I see a person with a disability is it better to ask them if they need my help or leave them alone?

Reading 33: Hockenberry, John – Public Transit

Reading 34: French, Sally – “Can you See the Rainbow?” The Roots of Denial

Reflection on the Deaf-World

Oliver’s article on the definition of disability was interesting.  He wrote that one of the reasons why definitions are important is because of the need to identify and classify people.  He said if a disability is see as a tragedy, then disabled people were be treated as if they are the victims of some tragic happening or circumstance (pg. 167).  The other very interesting thing that I found in this reading is Oliver said that poverty is a major cause of disability (170).

Understanding the politics of the definition of disability was important for me moving forward in reading Liza Mundy’ article “A World of Their Own”.  In this article she writes about two women (Sharon and Candy) who are deaf.  They also have a deaf daughter.  They sought out a sperm donor that was deaf, so they would have a better chance of having another deaf child.  I found it interesting that regular sperm banks did not allow deaf people to donate their sperm.  The women had to ask a deaf friend to be the donor.

Throughout the pregnancy the women worried whether their child would be born deaf or not.  They were hoping for a deaf child.  Although they said they would love the child either way, they really wanted it to be deaf.  Three months after the child was born it was given a hearing test.  The test showed the child was deaf in one ear, and severely deaf in the other.  The child could have been provided with an aided device that may have helped him hear something.  Sandy and Candy decided not to have the hearing aid.  In a world where most parents would have done anything to help their child hear, these parents decided to wait until the child could make the decision.  It seemed like in the article that by waiting, the child would have lost his chance of hearing.

This raises two questions. What are people’s thoughts on Sharon and Candy seeking out a deaf donor to increase their odds of having a deaf child?  What are people thoughts on Sharon and Candy not providing the hearing aid to their child? 

At first I could not understand why they would have chosen either road.  Then I read the article by Lane on Ethnicity, Ethics, and the Deaf- World.  I also read the person essay.  This shed a new light on my feelings.  The personal essay by Heather Shaw was very moving.  The most powerful statement and reflection on myself I got from that essay was her words “I am not disabled, until someone sees me as disabled”.  This goes along with what Oliver state in his article about definitions, if it is seen as a tragedy, it will be treated as one.   These articles, along with Lane’s article changed my thinking about Sharon and Candy.  Sharon and Candy are part of a Deaf-World, to them this is their ethnicity, their identify.   The Deaf-World sees itself as an ethnic minority group.  They do not see themselves as disabled, others see them as disabled.  So in a world where woman are having test to determine the sex of babies, spinal bifida, cystic fibrosis, Downs Syndrome, and another of diseases, then making the decision to terminate their pregnancy, then I cannot be angry with Sharon and Candy for choosing the child that they wanted.

I felt bad at first, then I thought who is to say that being able to hear is not a disability.  Who I am to tell a deaf person that they have a disability?  These articles have given me a new perspective on the Deaf-World.

 Reading 18: Oliver, Michael – Disability Definitions: The Politics of Meaning

Reading 19: Mundy, Liza – A World of Their Own

Reading 20: Lane, Harlan – Ethnicity, Ethics, and the Deaf – World

Personal Essay – Invisibly Disabled