Teaching to Change the World By: Oakes and Lipton

This article has many interesting points, I feel however the most important points are:

• Ambition


• Class


• Social Structure


• Government


• Privileged


• Success


• Progress


• Age


• School Assembly Lines

This article tells us about the basic principals that the American schooling system was founded on. The major idea in this country is "my child can grow up to be anything he/she wants to be" and according to the reading this is called the Myth of Merit. The article tells us that this myth is a source of immense pride

"forged in a fair culture in which individual ability and determination,rather than wealth or personal connections, hold the key to sucess and upward mobility."

The education system, the writers write,is called an educational playing field. they write:

"It was as if they were playing on a field tilted in there opponents' favor-they might kick or throw farther and run faster, but their efforts reaped fewer positive results because the work was uphill"

This section writes about how the educational system has always been tittled so white middle to upper class children can suceed. This is the uneven playing field. However this does not register with the majority of America, because the field is tilted in their favor. Because of this many Americans do no believe anything is wring with education.

The text later goes on to talk about schools as an assembly line...many schools are like this today, I belive for the sheer fact they have to be. If they do not have particular classes or particular curricualem or particular teahcers, the students will not succeed. I belive this is a sayetemic problem, and is somehtign that will take a long itme to fix in our school systems.

Something that the article writes about is the idea of "Throwing Money" at the schools and districts. However I feel that thsi is a good point, i believe that thsi can be a good thing, lettng schools have money to fix anythign they need to and possibly upgrade facilites. I belive that this can be a good thing, by fixing facitities and things of that nature can produce pride in ones school. And i belive that thsi is key to a schools sucess and priosperity as a place of education.

One major point was fear of the reast of the world. The courty is loosing ground, as was written in "A Nation at Risk" This is somethign that americans so not want to see happen, reports like thsi create fear and instead of being a string nation we become a fearfull nation.

This article opened my eyes to many things, There is much more i would write, but its time for class...maybe after class ill add more!

The myths that bind us

SO, this reading , to me was about class,

• gender roles
• stereotypes
• male representation
• female representation
• Poor representation
• representations of people of color
• Culture
• upbringing

All of these things to me are included in Linda Christensen article are written about. Her article that tells us about how our upbringing on many of the cartoons and movies of our childhood have influenced us into things certain ways and also things of others in predetermined ways.

This article starts of by telling us about how many different media types we receive our information from. They include TV, Magazines, and Comic Strips. These medias are all crucial to us in child hood and into adult life. However, movies and television are so important as children we are influenced, no matter what. The major contributors to this spread of stereotypes is Disney and other animated cartoons according to Christensen. Disney and its perpetuates the cycle of making sure, every one feels they must loom perfect as the article writes, in the Tinkerbell example, perpetuates the cycle, rather disturbingly. One thing i did remember about this, and i do not know if it is mentioned, in the article, is the "Ugly Stepsisters" in Cinderella, were ugly and i believe at least one was large. This perpetuates the cycle that the older you get the more bitter you become, also said by Christensen in the example about Ursala.

When cartoons, especially older ones, are shown they portray other races, not always in a good light. The example in the text, was Popeye, and the story "Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves". The article tells us that the 40 thieves all had the same face, and later in the story began to steal everything, perpetuating a ideas that all people of Middle Easter decent steal and look alike. Even in other cartoons, there are very very rare instances of minorities in the cartoon, and if they do that are defiantly not always in the best light or very stereotypical, there is one cartoon i am thing of...but i cant remember its name...frustrating...anyway.

I have always felt cartoons are not politicaly correct, and i feel for the most part cartoons are not supposed to be, look at family guy for instance, not at all correct, but still funny, and can defiantly give children the wrong impression about many things. However cartoons are an important part of growing up, and i feel it is our job to teach children the correct way of listing, seeing and accepting others and to take stereotypes out of our lives as best we can.

Aria-by Richard Rodriguez

This piece written by Rodriguez, is a story about his own childhood and his struggle to maintain his individual culture and his eventual surrender to English and a parchael loss oh his cultural identity. The story begins with Rodriguez, who is a young boy, sits in an English speaking class room run by Nuns. The story begins with your Rodriguez basically afraid to speak English because he doesn't have a firm grasp of the language.

The story continues, the Nuns ask his parents to speak English at home over Spanish to help grow his vocabulary. This was precipitated by a exchange in the classroom where the teacher yelled at Rodriguez for not speaking well enough, basically. However as the family spoke more English the children eventually became very comfortable with the English language.

This development brought about large changes in the social structure of the family. No longer were the children rushing home after school they were out and about playing. In a particularly stinking portion of the he tells us about the disconnect that occurred between he and his parents. He writes about the feeling of Americanization, and truly feeling what it is like to be part of that large portion of society that knows the dominant language. This story was a story that i feel many children and even young adults go though and is very relevant today.

My personal opinion on this matter is that you should learn English. It is the primary language of this country. Everything and anything is written in English. Learning English to me is a necessity to live here it makes life easier and able for you to adjust to the culture and climate of the US. However I do feel for Rodriguez, his writings about the loss of a particular social identity makes me feel, and i know this, that you need to be able to blend you old language/heritage and your new one.

He writes about his family a lot, the loss of his mother and father, in the sense of no longer speaking. This is again something I feel bad, because they felt that could no longer communicate because of the language gap.

For some reason this story also re-enforces my opinion of the need to learn English. Making everything run smoothly and not putting the strain on family that can happen between the generations from the other country and the new "American" generation.