6th Grade - Fitting In

Fitting in during middle school is hard, whether you have the "cool" gene or not. All of the texts we looked at for the sixth grade unit were centered around trying to fit - being cool - through our appearances. The Macklemore video focused on how shoes make us not only look cool but have athletic ability, the Abercrombie and Fitch readjustment video focused on Abercrombie and Fitch - a brand centered around the cool kids to look cooler, the Merchants of Cool documentary clip tried to identify just what makes kids cool - for clothing companies to use for their new trends, and The Style Quiz is designed for people to identify with a unique style that says something about what kind of person they are. I kind of struggled with this unit because these texts are perpetuating a message that is exactly what I would not want to send to my students. Fitting in shouldn't be all about appearances and what we wear - but it is. Showing the younger generations how important our appearance is in American society only reinforces that idea. Teachers are hard-pressed to change kids minds about the socially engrained idea about the importance of looks; so we should do everything in our power to try and change that importance. The only reason appearance is so important in our society is because we have been socialized to think that way. So, when discussing these texts, I would be very careful to steer discussion not onto: how does one become cool? but more like: how does consumerism control and affect our success in school, in terms of "fitting in?" I think this is a more valuable message for the students to get out of these texts because trying to become cool without already understanding what makes someone cool is nearly impossible. In the documentary the interviewees even said that it is extremely difficult to find these innovative kids who define what "cool" even is. I wouldn't want to help my students try and fit in to a system that is so unforgiving (because so little people are deemed "cool"). Instead, I want the younger generations to focus on how products maybe affect and control aspects of our lives - and how we as a consumer can control that. In the documentary they discussed how the trend-setting companies are actually getting their ideas from trend-setting kids. So, if the students are the ones who set the trend, they have a lot of control in what makes people cool.

At my high school, a lot of styles were designated "cool." Yes, fitting in was a big factor for middle school and high school kids, but fitting in didn't revolve around clothing and products. This isn't because we were isolated from the greater society or anything, it's just because we decided as a community what we would accept as "cool" behavior. As a result, the kids who could afford the coolest Jordans weren't the only ones who were considered cool - the kid who bought his shoes second hand was just as accepted. The spectrum of cool clothing and products and behavior was extremely large, and I think that made for really successful students, both in academics and in social aspects. If kids understood their possibility for impact on consumerism and fitting in, I think the standard for cool might be a little different - or at least broader.

7th Grade - Animals

Each of the texts for this week shed some sort of positive light on animals and their abilities. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi shows the intelligence of mongoose, Primal Compassion showcases the compassion of gorillas, the Blackfish trailer highlights the cruelty toward Orcas at SeaWorld, the New York times article shows the benefits of a population of trout, and the Scarecrow video also highlights animal cruelty in the way that we feed America. It would be extremely easy to do a unit on the importance of animals and all the fascinating things about them. However, I think that 7th graders and a lot of people in general already have respect for animals - the main reason animals are treated with cruelty is that people aren't aware enough about it for something to be done. So, for this unit I would make that a focus. Instead of highlighting the interesting or good qualities in different animals, I would try to get  my 7th graders to think critically about the way humans interact with animals, and ask them to question what we immediately see in regards to our treatment of animals.

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, Primal Compassion, Don't Fear the Feral, and the New York Times are good texts to start out with, because their main purpose is showcasing those amazing animal stories. I could introduce the unit with something smaller like discussing the different qualities of different animals, and where we can see immense compassion from animals that we otherwise would not believe is capable of the feeling. I would also showcase the importance of animals to our everyday lives by using the New York Times article and talking about all the revenue that the new trout population brought to that small town. However, I wouldn't spend too much time on these texts, because I think for the seventh grade level it would be easier to discuss this idea of animal cruelty and the fact that its being hushed up in the other texts.

I then would have the students look at the Scarecrow video, and finally, the Blackfish trailer. The food industry is sort of out-of-sight out-of-mind for 7th graders - my brother is in 7th grade and I know he doesn't think about where the food on his plate came from. He doesn't grocery shop, so he has no concept of the path his food took to get to him. I would discuss this topic of the food industry and where our food comes from before diving into the issues held here. If nothing else, just getting the students to think the production process for their food would be a start to get them thinking critically about the food industry. I would try and get a discussion going about what the actual slaughterhouses look like. Is our world that different from the Scarecrow's world? How long do we think it will take for it to look like that? And, what can be done? Finally, I would look at the SeaWorld case and try and get a lengthier discussion going. SeaWorld would probably hit close to home for 7th graders because it is something they cherished as a kid - like Disneyland. It is easy to spot the animal cruelty going on here, so I don't think it would be hard to get the students thinking and talking about it.

8th Grade - The Prince and the Pauper

One of the things that was most striking to me about the texts we analyzed this week was how much my personal opinions wavered back and forth. I usually have a pretty strong opinion that I stay firm to in each of these units we are covering. There are compelling arguments in all of the texts we looked at.

The Seattle Times' article and letter-to-the-editor coupled with the NPR News article were particularly interesting. The Seattle Times guest speaker represents a large population of people who are working on minimum wage with little benefits, while also supporting a family. When I read the letter-to-the-editor, I was offended by the ignorance of the writer. To say that people shouldn't complain about  minimum wage because they could just move or go get a different job or not have children is acting as if everyone has an equal opportunity to move or get any job they want that one would deem as a "career." The writer said people need to get new skills that would be applicable to higher paying jobs. Where does one acquire those skills? Usually through education, and education costs a lot of money. So then one asks - where do they get the money for education? If all the people who are on well-fare or work minimum wage jobs for their only income went to school on scholarship, there wouldn't be nearly enough money in each of those scholarships to go around. The writer is completely disregarding the circumstances that these minimum-wage-workers might come from.

The NPR News article highlighted some interesting points regarding workers supporting their families on minimum wage. These families rely on programs like food stamps, which are funded by income tax payers. This poses the issue that a lot of people's livelihood is supported by other peoples taxes. Whether or not this is a good system to help people support their families, it causes a lot of people to resent these people on minimum wage who rely on food stamps to feed their families. So... where does it end? We need people to occupy these jobs, but we need people to be able to support their families. But we also need people to support the people that sell them their fast food, and they will be extremely disinclined to do so if it comes out of their pocket.

The Mark Twain short story is a prime example of someone becoming extremely successful in a capitalist economy, using only a bank loan to gather the necessary funds for his life, his wife's life, and his friend's life. However, this story is extremely idealized - yes, it does show the possibility of the "rags to riches" scenario, but with extremely unrealistic sequences of events. People can become successful off of bank loans, but the problem is no bank would loan money to someone with extremely low income or a bad credit score. So if the story were to actually represent a real capitalist economy and its ins and outs, the Brothers - representing the bank - would have never made a loan to such a man. They based their decision off of the fact that he seemed intelligent and honest - but how can one possibly place those characteristics on someone based off a first glance? So -- is a communist economy actually a good idea for America, like the movie trailer Inequality for All suggests? With the top 1% in control of the United State's business and politics, I highly doubt that sort of economy will show its face in American economics anytime soon.

9th Grade - Man vs. Man

The impression I got from the 9th grade texts is that they are not only focused on man vs. man, but also on the different ways of operationalizing men and how those categories affect the way men view each other. For some reason, I think people of the same sex feel a certain competitiveness with each other. With men, this competitiveness is more apparent than women. It is often manifested violently.

Football is one of the most physical sports that exists - and men love it. That's not to say women don't, but football is generally a sport that takes more interest among men than women. A lot of men like to play and watch football all throughout their lives. So what makes it so appealing? Well, it's an intelligent sport with a lot of thinking that goes into play-making that isn't necessarily always evident. But for those who don't really get the play-making, maybe part of the appeal is in the fact that it is so physical. Football fans love to watch hard hits; it's thrilling. Maybe part of the appeal of football is just to watch these extremely athletic men fight so hard to get the job done. Seahawks fans love Marshawn Lynch because he can fight through multiple defenders with simple brute force. If that's not a pure love of the physicality of the sport, I don't know what is.

So - this battle the New York Times article and the PBS visual essay highlight is a hard one to fight because part of what makes football football is the physical nature of the sport. Just like the Villapiano family, young boys are not going to stop playing football because of the possibility of head injuries, and parents are going to struggle to tell their children to give up on their dream. So, football is a success because it's a physical sport that showcases what is essentially an extremely organized battle between athletic men. Men especially love that, because of the competitiveness they feel toward each other. And to top it off, football is especially physical and violent. The NFL and NCAA have made rules and regulations to try and combat this issue - like if a player's helmet comes off, they have to sit out for one play. But football fans dislike these rules because it keeps their favorite players out of the game for a play that could be extremely important. I have trouble seeing this battle against brain injuries in football going very far very soon.

Chris Rock's "Chris Rock Tiger Woods" piece plays into the way men are operationalized and how that might affect the competitiveness that exist between men. Chris focuses on golf's popularity among African Americans. In general, the video showcases fantastically how unpopular golf is in communities with a high population of African Americans (Harlem). Chris is asking why - why is golf so unpopular among blacks? And, more specifically, black males? Well, golf is considered a "gentleman's sport"... and therefore is followed by a large population of wealthy white men. There's no wonder that blacks aren't drawn to golf. On top of that, golf is probably the least physical sport out there. It is mentally calculating and ensues very little physical competitiveness. Men in general are not as attracted to golf as football, possibly because it is less physical, and African Americans are not attracted to it because of the simple lack of African American golfers. The black bird-watching piece falls under a similar category as the golf video - bird-watching is considered a sport, and it is not physical at all. Also, like the article states, there are very few black birdwatchers. So again, no wonder black males are not attracted to bird-watching.

The news reports of racial targeting among young black males is another example of man vs. man and the way men are operationalized. It is possible that the later cases reported in the news article occurred not only because the teens were black, but also because of the competiveness that exists among men. Maybe the attacks were spurred by both competiveness and racism.

The Most Dangerous Game follows a similar theme, except without the racism attached. The game played here is completely based upon the competiveness of the commander; his sport would be entirely different if his victims were female. The commander was so attracted to hunting men because of the innate competitiveness he felt toward them.

9th Grade - Meeting Mr. or Mrs. Right

I think the most interesting thing about all of the pieces we looked at is how they either scrutinized women as a population or men as a population. There was never a piece that made fun of the idea of a 'Mr. or Mrs. Right'.

In the one-act, the men are extremely degrading to the women. The attorney makes snarky comments about the women, insinuating that he believes them to be silly and only worried about sewing and cooking and other household nuances. In reality, it was the women who solved the mystery to who is the murderer - or for the most part. At the very least, the women came closer to any interesting evidence than the men did. And how did they do it? By simply discussing the situation sympathetically, and thinking about a woman similar to themselves like women do. Another thing I found interesting about this piece is how sympathetic the women were. They wanted to see the best in her. It was almost as if they were fighting for her innocence for the sake of women in general. The constant chastising from the men may have sparked some resilience in the women, and made them want to be sympathetic and hide the canary because maybe they understand on some very small level that she was fed up with her husband and his coldness. She needed some light in her life. The women probably felt similar about the men, and therefore were more sympathetic to her.

In the piece on CNN about the online dating profile, men as a population are chastised. They do say in the video that she did not want to isolate men completely, but one cannot help but make implications based on the fact that hundreds of men messaged the most terrible woman on the planet for a date. Was it because she is hot? Regardless, the men still messaged someone with zero morals. What does the say about these men? Or, maybe in this piece there are more implications about dating in general. Is it so impossible to find a date that men are messaging women at random to try and get one? If so, it is seemingly extremely difficult to find 'Mr. or Mrs. Right' and if students saw something like this, they might be inclined to lower their standards or start dating at a very young age because they are afraid of being alone for the rest of their lives if they ignore some opportunities.

Similarly, the YouTube video "It's Not About the Nail" paints a picture that women are infuriating ad unreasonable about the world and the way they seek sympathy. Viewers would see this and think: if I get married to a women, this will happen to me. She will be unreasonable and illogical, and there will be no getting through to her. It's a common stereotype that women just want to be sympathized with, they don't actually want help. This is a ridiculous notion that all women are like this. While people may feel this way sometimes, no one really wants to go about their life without any solutions and feeling sorry for themselves. When someone is down, they will eventually want it fixed.

So- after seeing that these pieces all isolate and scrutinize one gender, how does this relate to Mr. and Mrs. Right? Are our standards too high? Are we too critical? I would say that the media paints a picture of marriage in a way that isn't always accurate. People joke about their wives or husbands as the "old ball and chain." Why is this? Well, perhaps its the cynics out there that aren't married or who do have a failing marriage that like to make these jokes to make their situation seem better. But in general, I think the message I would want to get across to my students is that people are extremely critical of different gender types, especially when it comes to marriage. I would encourage my students to not feel as though they need to grab on to someone as soon as they can - the media inflates the idea that marriage is impossible. While it isn't easy, I guess I'd want to give them a little hope and not always buy in to the stereotypes of marriage and married men and women they see in popular culture.

10th Grade - Back to the Future

10^th Grade blog – Back to the future

The most common theme I see between the different videos and Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron” is the creator asking questions about our fears, such as: how do our fears affect the way we construct and live in society? I think our fears play a large part in how we live our lives – on some level we are constantly avoiding our fears to make ourselves happy. So, people use their collective fears to construct society in one way or another. 

For example, “Harrison Bergeron” is a perfect example of society using their fears to construct a society in a certain way. The people in Harrison Bergeron’s society had a fear of competition between people, and having inequality in abilities. What they failed to understand, however, is that different people have different positive qualities – and that’s okay. They equalized everyone so no one was exceptionally good at anything. While this made everyone equal, it did not celebrate the different abilities people have. There is a line we must draw with equalizing; it is okay to let people be exceptional at certain fields, because other people are exceptional at other fields. However, inequality becomes a problem when only one or two abilities are celebrated, and other abilities are ignored. I went to a high school where the starting quarterback for the football team was just as cool as the kid who played water polo and had a knack for playing the game Magic. I am extremely grateful for my high school, because I had the privilege to grow up in a community where whatever you did was okay and cool; there wasn’t one or two abilities that were celebrated – each person’s ability was equal in its “coolness.”

The message I would want my students to understand here is that people develop fears and let them govern their lives. And I’m not just talking about being scared of spiders or zombies – but rather broader and more complicated fears like failing or not fitting in. The fear of inequality led Harrison Bergeron’s society into the ground; everyone was so equal there was no celebration of some of the things that make life beautiful – like the arts.

I would transition from Harrison Bergeron to the Dystopian Timeline by discussing this idea that our fears dictate our lives and in a broader sense, our society. I think one of the things that made The Hunger Games so successful, as the Dystopian Timeline discusses, is the fact that this heroine was able to come up from nothing in the worst society imaginable. Suzanne Collins was able to create a dystopian world that would make anyone cringe – I mean, it can’t get much worse than sacrificing kids to slaughter each other while the whole country watches. Then, out of this terrible government and society, comes Katniss, a strong-willed female that people can also relate to because her main goal is to save her family. She’s humble. So – the point here is that the societies in these novels create a world based off our worst fears – sacrifice, harm to children, lack of freedom, etc – and highlight a character that rises above it. I think instead of teaching the Dystopian Timeline I would teach an entire dystopian book, so the students could really analyze the character and see how their actions helped them conquer the fears of their society. 

I would use the zombie videos as further examples of fears dictating society. In a way, Night of the Living Dead highlights the fact that we cannot just ignore our fears and shoot them away. We need to recognize our fears in order to understand what we don’t want our life to entail, but then be able to put them aside enough to not allow the fears to dominate our decisions. The “Why Do We Love Zombies?” video falls perfectly into the subject I am discussing. The creator believes that zombies are reflective of technology, something we are afraid of but not necessarily aware we are afraid of. The same goes for fear of failure or fitting in – we might understand that these are real fears of ours, but it’s hard to see the fears manifest themselves in our everyday life. I would use this video to highlight this fact.

Honestly, I was pretty thrown off by the podcast as I usually am by at least one of the texts. But one of the things I thought of as I was listening to it was that it painted a picture of a kind of creepy and foreign place – Night Vale. Maybe Night Vale could represent one of those societies constructed around fear? I don’t know – it jumped around a lot. Maybe the fear that is manifested in this podcast is a fear of not understanding… knowledge is a very important component to 21^st century US society, and without it I think without our thirst for knowledge our society would kind of break down. The way the podcast jumped around in time and subject may be reflective of us not being able to have a firm grasp on every aspect of the world – there will always be mystery in the world we cannot understand. I think this thought would scare some people, and therefore construct society in a way that tries to eliminate any guesswork or mystery… sort of like 21^st century US society. We try to apply science to almost every situation, when in reality science does not apply everywhere.

12th Grade Part 2: Chivalry, Gender Roles, and Feminism

Blog 2 – Chivalry, Gender Roles, and Feminism

Gender is a weird topic in our society because it doesn’t carry quite as much weight as race does, but it is still is a prevalent issue. But I think because it is a prevalent issue, people try to talk about it as politically correct as possible – and in doing so, some issues arise. 

For example, “The Gingerbread Person v2.0” claims that people should think of femininity and masculinity as playing tug-a-war. People can have masculine-ness and feminine-ness without one taking away from the other. The article is just trying to point out that someone can be masculine and feminine at the same time, i.e. they want to be progressive in the way people look at gender roles. But when I read this, all I thought was: why is there feminine-ness and masculine-ness in the first place? Do we need to take character traits like “sensitive” “kind” and “familial” and apply them to woman-ness? Character traits shouldn’t be categorized. Character traits are character traits, and people either have them or they don’t. I like sports and kids, but when I say that I like sports and kids I don’t think: my liking for sports is part of my masculine-ness and my like for kids is part of my feminine-ness. The fact that I like those things is just part of me. If we want to be progressive in the way that we think about gender roles, then we shouldn’t categorize character traits in the first place. Why don’t we just take away those labels and just say that someone is both assertive and kind at the same time and be done with it. They aren’t both masculine and feminine at the same time, they just are. 

The article, “Are these the most PC parents in the world? The couple raising a 'genderless baby'... to protect his (or her) right to choice" is all about this need to be PC about gender roles. And as the article discusses, it raises the issue about whether or not the parents are actually imposing their beliefs on their child by trying not to make a choice for him or her. I think at the end of the day, what the parents are doing is good in that they are giving the child freedom to be whomever he or she wants at a very young age – but I think keeping the gender secret is actually giving the child less freedom to be whomever he or she wants because the parents already made the choice this big deal. When that baby comes out with what gender he or she wants to be, everyone is going to be tuning in because it has gotten so much media attention. If they simply raised the child in accordance to what they like to play with and wear and do, then the choice would come naturally to the child rather than feeling like they needed to put a lot of thought into whether or not he or she wants to be a boy or a girl. Like one of the doctors in the article said, there is something innate about gender. Children are not in-tune to society’s stereotypes until an older age, so the baby’s choice would be her or his own. 

It is so hard to talk about gender roles and feminism because people are so worried about not offending anyone and being very PC. But by doing so, all these definitions and categories are created about gender roles. I think if we really want to be progressive, we need to simply think of people as people with certain character traits rather than boy and girl with either boy or girl character traits.

12th Grade - Climate Change

Emily Neeleman

ENG 323.01

Blog 1: 12^th Grade

January 22, 2014  

Climate change has become a major topic of the 21^st century as a global issue that needs to be fixed – fast. It feels as though environmental studies are becoming more integrated into the education system than ever. In high school, I took a class called “Global Citizenship”, which was required of all seniors, and it had a major focus on climate change and sustainability. In college, I took Environmental Science 101, which is a popular class among underclassmen at WSU. I did not go out of my way to become educated about the environment, but I did become educated, and what I learned was fascinating. After taking my environmental science class in college, I even considered changing my major, even though I had wanted to be an English major since my junior year of high school. Environmental studies are so important right now. I notice that my peers would maybe put it on the back burner of the problems of the world because it’s hard to notice environmental change if you’re not looking for it. However, I believe it to be extremely important that people are well educated about environmental change because although I cannot invent new sustainable systems to provide energy, I can do my part in trying to conserve. So, when I decided to become an English teacher I thought to myself that I would educate students about the environment through our English studies. The 12^th grade unit on nature we are discussing is a perfect opportunity to do so.

The videos, pictures, and story we read do not lead to a climate change discussion in an English class. I would have to dig pretty deep in an Environmental Science class if I wanted to discuss climate change in each of these mediums. However, what they do all posses is a way to promote respect for the environment in my students. The first step to educating people about the environment is making them care. “Snowfall” has a constant underlying tone that nature is this great force to be reckoned with. Nature should be taken seriously, and the skiers did not take the mountain seriously and paid the price – as grim as it is. Even the most experienced and professional skiers, who have a love for the ice, snow, and mountainside that I will never understand, did not respect the fact that that mountain was beyond their reach that day. There are forces that can be greater than mankind.

Hurricane Katrina falls under that category – a force greater than mankind. The images in the video show the destruction that a hurricane can cause, and the directors of the movie were trying to convey that in their film. People forget what nature can do until it happens. The BP oil spill included in the video is a perfect example of people not respecting nature, and the damages that follows. Using this video in the same lesson as the “Snowfall” article promotes the same idea of respect for nature in both the destruction it can cause, and the destruction we can cause. The hydraulic fracking video shows the same sort of destruction the BP oil spill caused. The best line in the video was when someone pointed out that something that nature has been creating for millions of years is destroyed quickly just with some heavy machinery. This video would hit home for most students – if we don’t respect the environment, then it can seriously affect our personal lives, in the way that fracking affected people’s drinking water.

Finally, the images in the “Vanishing Ice” exhibit promote respect not because nature is dangerous or affects our personal life, but because it is particularly beautiful. Climate change seriously affects the melting snow and ice, and if it continues, the icepack in many areas will be gone. The exhibit showcases the most beautiful images of snow and ice around the world, and to think that these sights might not exist because of a lack of respect for the environment is very saddening. I want my children to be able to visit Glacier National Park and Patagonia, but with the continuing rate of rising temperature, these parks will be seriously depleted by the time they would get a chance to.