Prejudice in Schools

In the book Who will tell my Brother?, a student is offended by the school mascot. Throughout the book, Evan, a teenage boy of partial American Indian heritage, challenges the school's stereotypical Indian mascot. As a prospective teacher, how would you react to Evan's problem? Would you stand up for him, and along with him try to persuade the school board to change it? The members of the school board are closed minded and don't find this to be a problem of significance. Would you risk your reputation, or keep to yourself about it? In some ways, teachers are guides and examples for their students, so how would your decision affect your students?

Modern Music and Poetry

The Clash's "Straight to Hell," is a political song about the Vietnamese women and children who were not allowed Visa to the US after American soldiers were told they could bring their family back home. Please pick out a line from the song and describe how it is meaningful to you. Then, I would like you to discuss whether or not this progressive method- looking at rock/rap music as a form of poetic verse- is too controversial in the classroom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDlwue0F9HY

The Clash Straight To Hell lyrics

If you can play on the fiddle
How's about a British jig and reel?
Speaking King's English in quotation
As railhead towns feel the steel mills rust water froze
In the generation
Clear as winter ice
This is your paradise
There ain't no need for ya
Go straight to hell boys
Y'wanna join in a chorus
Of the Amerasian blues?
When it's Christmas out in Ho Chi Minh City
Kiddie say papa papa papa papa-san take me home
See me got photo photo
Photograph of you
Mamma Mamma Mamma-san
Of you and Mamma Mamma Mamma-san
Lemme tell ya 'bout your blood bamboo kid.
It ain't Coca-Cola it's rice.
Straight to hell
Oh Papa-san
Please take me home
Oh Papa-san
Everybody they wanna go home
So Mamma-san says
You wanna play mind-crazed banjo
On the druggy-drag ragtime U.S.A.?
In Parkland International
Hah! Junkiedom U.S.A.
Where procaine proves the purest rock man groove
and rat poison
The volatile Molatov says-
PSSST...
HEY CHICO WE GOT A MESSAGE FOR YA...
VAMOS VAMOS MUCHACHO
FROM ALPHABET CITY ALL THE WAY A TO Z, DEAD, HEAD
Go straight to hell
Can you really cough it up loud and strong
The immigrants
They wanna sing all night long
It could be anywhere
Most likely could be any frontier
Any hemisphere
No man's land and there ain't no asylum here
King Solomon he never lived round here
Go straight to hell boys

LGBT

Deliver Us From Evie by M.E. Kerr is one of the first novels published to outwardly deal with the topic of "coming out" for a recent high school female student. The main character Evie had always been more masculine in the way she dresses, talks, and even walks. When she meets a younger girl who takes an interest in her, Evie starts to outwardly display the fact that she is a lesbian. There is a part in the book where Evie and her "girlfriend" go to see a concert. She brings home a tape from the concert which accidentally gets played for her whole family to hear. The lyrics of the song basically out Evie in front of her whole family. As teachers we will more than likely come across students who are contemplating "coming out", but may not know how. What would be some advice we could give to these students to make their "coming out" easier than it was for Evie?

(Sorry I am having trouble finding my link to the actual song lyrics, so I will have to add them tomorrow when I can get to a physical copy, but you should still be able to give an answer)

Elizabeth Hart

Hypocrite

She spoke to me of Heaven And an Angelic Host She spoke of God And the Holy Ghost She spoke of Christ's teaching Of man's brotherhood Yet when she had to sit beside a Negro once She stood. In this poem, we see (as simply as it is stated) the kind of attitude that seems to be permeating our culture today, a sort of "Do as I say and not as I do" kind of attitude. With a poem as simple as this one, you can start topics that vary from racial intolerance, to homophobia, to religious bias, to socioeconomic inequality. How do you see yourself starting this discussion with your students? Can you think of any examples like this from your own experience? How can you teach students tolerance and diversity when they are being indoctrinated with this idea that one has to say the politically correct thing, but can turn around and do something that goes completely against that?

The Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, recently gave a speech at the University of Virginia.  He discussed teaching as not just a career or profession, but a calling.  He thinks that education is this generations civil rights issue.  This country has progressed when it comes to equality some since the civil rights era, but education is lacking the equality it rightly deserves.  He discusses that our country will within the next 5 years possibly lose 1/3 of it's teachers from the baby boom era, and that need for great new teachers will be immense.  Education in this country needs to change and be accommodated to the need for equality; we need a new approach.  As a prospective teacher, I found this speech very inspirational.  In the teaching program we have at UWM, I think that we are heading in the direction that Secretary Duncan envisioned for the future of education in this country.  I have attached a link to this speech below...

http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/2009/10/10092009.html

Understanding Gender Roles

In the short story Go Carolina from novel Me Talk Pretty One Day, author David Sedaris comically narrates his public school experience of talking with a lisp. Sedaris actually has a "lazy mouth," but as he conveys to us through his description of family life we see that he also happens to be gay. So, while his parents seem to associate his lisp with his love for cooking, cleaning and lack of interest in sports, the audience understands that his lisp is actually a physical barrier (and not another stereotype).

When reading this short story, teachers need to realize the prejudice being conveyed from the perspective of the narrator. While this book made me laugh hysterically, there was also an understanding that Sedaris had to conform to certain gender roles. While sports didn't interest him, he pretended to be interested anyway. In the article Adolescent Gender-Role Identity and Mental Health: Gender Intensification Revisited, Heather Apriss, Sara M Lindberg, and Janet Shibley Hyde describe gender roles and the important social implications of such behavior.

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/122597253/HTMLSTART