SocialJustNess

Final Presentation https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1RDliDbp8UJDruk4IaMLxy02Tt_57DIKu3IB3_gI0r8U/edit?usp=sharing

Vanessa Ruggieri Dr. Lesley Bogad FNED 502 June 19, 2019 Teach-Out Final Project — Theory in Practice: Final Reflection For my final project, I created a video and handout to share with my Admissions Office Staff and Student Workers. The topic that I chose was The Importance of Safe Spaces on College Campuses for Both Students and Faculty/Staff in addition to how to be an ally to the LGBTQ+ community. Queer issues are important to me as a young queer professional working in Undergraduate Admissions. I chose to teach about this issue to raise awareness and promote diversity within the office, and eventually campus-wide. After showing the video I made to some of my student staff and peer staff, I received some of the following comments: “ I learned the meaning of “queer” and appreciated delving deeper into these issues.” Many of the students told me stories of their friend and peers coming out to thier families or afraid to come out due to Religious bias being discri...

YouTuber Franchesca Ramsey defines “Ally” as, “A person who wants to fight for equality of a marginalized group that they're not a part of.” and says the base way to be an ally is to, “Realize that you are going to make mistakes and apologize when you do” (2:32)  In addition, at 3:00 she made a powerful point in explaining that “Ally is a verb!” Saying that you are an ally is not enough, you need to also act on it as well. This video, in addition to the links she added into the description box, provide us with excellent resources going forward. Teaching at the Intersections , from Teaching Tolerance by Monita K Bell. (2016) was the perfect article to summarize everything we learned in this class.  This reading opens on a black ninth-grader, Nicole. “Nicole’s teachers know very little about her life. When they look at her, they see an African-American student who isn’t doing well. They also see a typical example of the deep racial disparities that exist within absentee...

“Under the proposal, the time students spend with a certified ESL teacher would be cut from three periods a day to one period a day for beginners, and to no time at all for intermediate and advanced English learners... leaving content teachers to provide both language and content instruction...Rather than guaranteeing that students work with trained ESL teachers, the new regulations allow for ESL students to be in any classroom in the school as long as the teacher collaborates with a certified ESL teacher outside the classroom...We would never suggest that children be taught science by a history teacher who is in close collaboration with a certified science teacher.” (p. 1-2) I am honestly appalled by this. The first question that came to mind was, are all teachers trained in both their content and ESL? I assume not. Also, it is surprising to me that what they are proposing will have no direct interaction between the ESL teacher and the student, they will only interact between the ...

"Safe Spaces" - Vaccaro , August, Kennedy  In this text, Vaccaro, August, and Kennedy argue that educators can create safe spaces for their students, through communication and curriculum. In order for these two tools to be successful, we need to start talking about diverse experiences and accepting the experiences of others that are in the minority in terms of gender, sexual orientation, and identity. This is something I, like many queer folks,  heard all the time growing up, is blatant heterosexism, which is defined in the article as, “heterosexism is the assumption that everyone is or should be heterosexual.” (Introduction) In order to create change, we need to begin to acknowledge differences among each other in a positive way.  The beginning of a solution to create increase visibility for queer folks and, in turn, create safer spaces in our school systems is getting LGBTQ+ folks included in the curriculum. Whether the biases are intentional or not, there is no do...

“Before Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1975, millions of children received inadequate special education services...and at least one million children were prevented from attending public schools altogether.” (0:30) ONE MILLION! This was so astonishing for me to read, and my pure shock for the lack of representation for differently abled students only increased as the video progressed.  “I’m sorry we have to do this to you.” (3:21)  What the head of Special Education said to the Principal of Richard’s middle school when he was going to their school. I’m sorry?!? Seriously? I hate that even before Richard got his start at a “normal” school he is seen as an inconvenience, by the head of Special Education of all people.  “I think it’s cool that they have them in here...it’s a better learning opportunity for him and for us to interact with him.” (12:52) It was nice to hear how accepting the students were about Richard. At this poin...

Choose a topic The Importance of Safe Spaces on College Campuses for Both Students and Faculty/Staff Choose 2 articles to summarize (actual summaries due Mon, June 10) "Safe Spaces" - Vaccaro, August, Kennedy (2012) “PRIVILEGE, POWER, AND DIFFERENCE” by Allan G. Johnson Explain what and to whom you will teach... and how I will create a presentation to give to my tour guides, student workers, and faculty/staff about the importance of inclusivity in admissions decisions and as a whole. I am not sold on a deliverable yet, but would love to create a pamphlet and presentation. Maybe even a video! I am currently in a presentation class as well so I would love to incorporate the skills I am learning in that class into my final presentation.

"Safe Spaces" - Vaccaro, August, Kennedy (2012) “Unfortunately, many adults engage in subtle types of harm, sometimes without knowing it. For instance, most adults unconsciously perpetuate heterosexism; heterosexism is the assumption that everyone is or should be heterosexual.” (Introduction) T his is something I heard all the time growing up, especially from close friends and family members. I used to dread holidays because of the most popular question, “So, do you have a boyfriend?” and statements like, “You’re such a great girl, the boys must love you!” It was not until I began seeing myself represented in the media through LGBTQ+ icons such as Sara Ramirez   Callie Torres on Grey's Anatomy and Mary Lamberts queer anthem, She Keeps Me Warm , did I really start to learn to accept myself and feel a sense of belonging.  “Most educators do not set out to marginalize LGBT youth. They simply follow paths of least resistance...LGBT students need advocacy and prote...

WOMEN OF THE DAY By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca, Volume 33, No. 3 — Spring 2019 After perusing the Rethinking Schools site of both current and past articles, “Women of the Day” by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca stood out to me the most. I strongly related to this because of both my high school experience in addition to what we have talked about in class during our previous sessions. In the three quotes below, I will go further into depth on my personal connections in addition to the connections we have already established in class. “...they wanted to talk about curriculum, and more precisely, about the lack of women they encountered in the pages of textbooks, classroom handouts, short stories, and novels. They were outraged and coming to me for advice about how to demand a change.” In the beginning, high school history teacher, Ursula Wolfe-Rocca, was approached by one of her students to talk about the lack of women in their classes. As we discussed in class, we want and need to see ...

Chapter 1) “‘Good students’ were obedient students, students who followed orders. The assignments were so easy that all obedient students got good grades, but I gave plenty of bad grades to students who were not obedient, who did not do their assignments. Obedient students were not kept in from recess, but most days there were one or two disobedient students kept in from recess. Obedient students' parents were not called up to school, but on one or two mornings a week I met a parent of a disobedient student who had been summoned to school at 8:30 A.M before classes began. Obedient students did not get suspended, but disobedient students were suspended at my request at the rate of about one a semester.” (Pg. 4) Should disobedience = bad grades and suspension, or are these students disobeying because they are bored or unchallenged in class. Is it really disobedience or is it more relative to an outstanding issue? Chapter 2) “The working-class children were learning to foll...

The Problem We All Live With - This American Life By:   Ira Glass and Nikole Hannah Jones “While Normandy is falling apart, over at Francis Howell, none of the things that parents were worried about came true. No one got stabbed. Test scores did not drop-- at all. And at least so far, the influx of black students hasn't caused white parents to flee. Mah'Ria's thriving. Where the transfer law forced integration, it's working.” - Jones “The US Department of Education put out data in 2014 showing that black and Latino kids in segregated schools have the least qualified teachers, the least experienced teachers. They also get the worst course offerings, the least access to AP and upper-level courses, the worst facilities.” - Glass One connection I can make to both quotes is from working in the Admissions Office. Test scores, of course poorly performing schools, have statistically lower scores. However, students of color are consistently scoring lower t...

“The Silenced Dialogue: Power Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children” Delpit, Lisa “Those with power are frequently least aware of - or least willing to acknowledge - its existence. Those with less power are often most aware of its existence..”  (Delpit, 26). As we discussed in class last week, the first step in promoting equality in acknowledging the existence of prejudice and privilege that you hold. This is especially important for the white teachers teaching nonwhite students because Delpit argues that since they are not as aware as teachers of color, they do less to help make those students feel welcome and included, ranging from seeing students that look like them in picture books to being treated differently based on having a different writing style, like the Native American woman example. “It was the lack of attention to this Concern that created such a negative outcry in the black community when well-intentioned white liberal educators introduced "dialec...

The two texts that I will be discussing in this blog post are “The next time someone says 'all lives matter,' show them these 5 paragraphs” by Kevin Roose and “Deconstructing Privilege” by Margalynne J. Armstrong and Stephanie M. Wildman. In, “Deconstructing Privilege” Armstrong and Wildman argue that we are so afraid to acknowledge racism in today’s society, that we become colorblind or try to decompress the issue by creating an all-in movement like “All Lives Matter.” “The real issue is that, while strictly true, "All Lives Matter" is a tone-deaf slogan that distracts from the real problems black people in America face.” (Roose, 2019, p.1). This quote is very important because it shows that using the word “all” instead of “black” is extremely harmful and even a microaggression within itself because it is erasing the importance of the message and invalidating a whole group of individuals. Of course all lives matter, but that is not the point of the movement. Wit...

“PRIVILEGE, POWER, AND DIFFERENCE” by Allan G. Johnson Page 2 “Problems of perception and defensiveness apply not only to the language of race, but to an entire set of social differences that have become the has for it great deal of trouble in the world.” Page 7 “The simple truth is that when I go shopping, I'll probably get waited on faster and better than she will. I'll benefit from the cultural assumption that I'm a serious customer who doesn't need to be followed around to keep me from stealing some. thing, The clerk won't ask me for three kinds of 10 before accepting my check or accepting my credit card. But these indignities that my whiteness protects me from arc part of her everyday existence. And it doesn't matter how she dresses or behaves or that she's all executive in a large corporation. Her being black and the realtors' and bankers' and clerks' being white in a racist society is all it takes.” Page 15 “The trouble a...