From belly dancers to Burqas: Media representation of Muslim women

     I really enjoyed this event, I learned a lot from it. I really didn't know what to expect from it. I honestly thought that their were going to be actual belly dancers during the lecture but their was none. I thought I was just going to be sitting down for 2 hours bored out of my mind, but it was actually the opposite of that. I think that all of those who went to this lecture would agree that it was very interesting.
     The first thing that Afshan Jafar was write down in a piece of paper the words "Muslim women are ___ " and we had to finish the sentence. In my paper I wrote down "Muslim women all look the same". I knew it was wrong for me to think that but that was the first thing that popped into my head when I thought about Muslim women. Jafar then collected the papers and began reading them outloud, I knew I was going to feel guilty when she read my paper out loud. I was surprised to find out that a lot of people wrote the same thing I did. I think that this has to do with the fact that most of us , as soon as we hear "Muslim women" we think about them being all covered up and that is why they all look the same.
     As the slides how began the first picture we looked at was a picture of jasmine from the movie Alladin. I thought to myself this is going to be interesting because I grew up watching this movie. As Jafar continued talking she brought up Disney and how racist they are. I never really thought of Disney being racist because after all it is a program meant for children. However  Disney is indeed racist, Jafar explained to us that the original  lyrics in the beginning of the movie are racist. The original lyrics say " oh I come from a land from a far away place, where the caravan camel roam. Where they cut off your ear if they don't  like your face.nots barbaric but hey it's home". This was very disturbing and I got upset because I thought to myself , how can Disney do this? Disney is meant to be for kids so why would they out such lyrics in a movie? Do they want kids to become racist? Most people have not heard this version of this song because Disney was forced to change the lyrics. That doesn't change the fact that th original lyrics are racist.
I think that this connects to the silence dialogue reading because what Disney was trying to do here was to silence their voices. They said so many bad things about them I'm the song so that they can be silenced and so that other people could think bad about this culture. I want to also relate this to the will it help the sheep reading? I really don't think that racist lyrics and racist movie clips will not help the sheep. What this is doing is making children see the Muslim culture in a negative way.

As Jafar continued talking about Alladin , she talked about jasmines appearance. Jasmine clearly doesn't look like a Muslim women. Jasmine looks more like an Americanized belly dancer. On the other hand the villain of the movie Jafar has the Muslim features. It is like they are saying that Muslim women should show their skin and that those who have the Muslim features are evil. 

Another picture that we looked at that I thought was very interesting was a picture of an American women in a bikini , who is looking at a Muslim women and is thinking to herself " everything covered but her eyes what a cruel male dominated culture. The Muslim women right next to her is looking at her thinking "nothing covered but her eyes, what a cruel male dominated culture". I really liked this picture because I think that it shows how us as Americans portray Muslim women without even knowing anything about their culture. We automatically assume that Muslim women cover themselves up simply because the men tell them to, when unreality it is not like that. Muslim cover themselves up because that's their culture, that's how they feel comfortable. In this picture both women believe that both cultures are a male dominated culture, I think that this shows how people no matter where their from, are easy to judge people based on how they look. 

I think that this can connect to the reading white privilege. I think that because of the white privilege people see as Muslim women as a male dominated culture. I think that it is the privilege that doesn't allow us to see that they dress that way because it represents their culture.

My opinion  on Muslim women has completely changed after this lecture. If I had a chance to write down in a piece of paper again "Muslim women are __" I would say Muslim women are, misunderstood, strong , beautiful, brave, open minded and much more. Muslim women are just like us , they may not dress like us but we are all same in the inside. 

Citizenship in school: Reconceptualizing Down syndrome by Kliewer

Quotes
     "Now we know that people with disabilities can learn and have a full rich life. The challenge is to erase negative attitudes about people with developmental disabilities"(71).
     I think that their is a lot of negative attitudes towards people who have developmental disabilities but I think that this has to do with the fact that many people don't even bother finding out information regarding the disabilities. People just chose to ignore these people that have disabilities, and they see them different. Many people believe that people with disabilities are not capable of doing anything and this is not true. I think that people need to stop being so ignorant.

     "If you came into the room and were told there was a retarded child with special needs, I don't think you would pick Lee out. The kids agree that he's as capable as they are"(83).
     Many of the times people believe that they would be able to point out someone who has disabilities becausetxhey look different then us. What they don't know is that sometimes you can't tell and you wouldn't be able to tell unless someone told you the person has a dissability. Many of these people are very bright and they look just like us, they are able to do most of the things that we can do.

    "According to shayne, the notion of Down syndrome often obscures our ability to recognize the child as a child"(86).
    I think that this is true , many people have a hard time seeing a child as a child when they know that he or she has Down syndrome this is sad but it's true. I think this has to do with the fact that we automatically feel pitty for the child , and we just see the child as someone who has a disability that we automatically forget that he is a child not just a disabled child.

The link below is a video of  girl with Down syndrome explaining teachers to not limit students with disabilities.  I liked this videos because it really shows how people with Down syndrome can be succesfull too. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YOwDfnoek6E


I really loved this video it's informational and it shows how people with Down syndrome are able to do some of the things we do I this this video also helps us understand people with Down syndrome.  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5M--xOyGUX4

Literacy with an attitude

Quotes

     "A principle was reported to have said to a new teacher 'just do your best. If they learn to add and subtract, that's a bonus. If not don't worry about it"(11).
     Because of principles like this one students are failing in schools. If principles tell teachers to not worry about their students education then the principles themselves don't care about their students education. It seems as if the only thing they care about id the check they get at the end of the week, and that's not fair to the students. I think that principles, teachers, and  the school faculty should encourage their students to care about their education not put them down. Teachers need to show students that they care about their education and not just the nice pay check they get. Students need some type of motivation.

     "In the middle class about one third of the teachers grew up in the neighborhood of the school. Most graduated from the local state teachers college, and many of them lived in the neighborhood of the school"(12).
     I think that teachers living in the same neighborhood as their students should help them connect with the students. It might help teachers understand their students more, it can help them understand their students life style. Teachers can use this as an advantage because they can try to find a way to teach their students and make them be interested in school and their education. If teachers don't show that they are interested then their students won't be interested either.

     " Teachers In the middle class school seemed to believe that their job was to teach the knowledge found in textbooks or dictated by curriculum experts"(12-13).
     I really dislike this teaching method. I don't think that this will help the students at all. This teaching method just makes students not want to learn because it's so boring. I know that this is boring from my own experience because this is what most of my high school teachers did and I honestly can say that I didn't learn much. I think that teachers should at least teach from the textbooks but make it fun in a way.  

 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bKjqjpePhTchttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bKjqjpePhTc

Becoming something different

     As I was reading this article I was able to connect it to another reading we have discussed in class, and that is "The silenced dialogue". The reason I connected it to the silenced dialogue is because in that reading it talks about how students are silenced in classrooms. In the article Becoming something Different, Esme was a silenced student. In the sixth grade Esme wasn't too sure of her status as a student. She says that she paid attention in class and asked questions but still had difficulty understanding. Esme's voice is silenced here because the teachers didn't do much to help her understand questions and assignments. The teachers responsibility is to help students learn not make them more confused when they ask questions, because if they ask a questions it's because they don't understand but that doesn't mean that they have a learning problem. Instead of helping Esme the teachers positioned her as needing help with academic tasks, so instead of being helped she was silenced in a way. I think that this is one if the reasons Esme didn't have confidence in herself , that why she said that she wasn't too sure of her status as a student. Esme says " I really don't know if I'm good" I think the teachers job is to help students instead if making hen doubt themselves and think that they are not good. Esme was silenced In the sixth grade but as she went to other grades she was able to have teachers that didn't silence her , instead they helped her and that's when she began to enjoy school more because she actually had helpful teachers. Her teacher had different strategies so she was able to understand more. Esme then saw herself as a "a lot smarter"(1).

In The link below the first minute and ten seconds is a video of students who had similar situations with Esme because they would ask questions and class but the teachers didn't help. The rest if the video is strategies that teachers can do to help their students understand a little bit better. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-bWU238PymM

Between Barack and a hard place: Challenging Racism, Privilege and Denia......

This video really talks about most of the topics that we have discussed in class, it talks about how many people don't like to talk about certain topics such as racism. People chose not to talk about racism and they decide to ignore it because they say they are not racist and that's it they don't wanna have a conversation about it. Something that was said in this video that really caught my attention was " well I don't have to have this conversation, I'm not racist because some of my best friends are black, or I dated an Asian once". I found this interesting because I feel like I have heard this a lot. Many people say things similar to this as a come back when another person wants to talk about racism. Reality is that just because you have black friends or dated so,some of a different race this doesn't mean that you can't be racist.

Another thing that I found interesting was when he said, " are their men in this country who are sexest? Are any if them heterosexual ? How is that possible? Because by the logic of the person that says if I got friends who are black then I can't be racist, then if men date women or marry them or are simply attracted to them, the fact that I'm a heterosexual means that I cannot be sexest. The only sexest would have to be gay men".  I really liked this because it really shows how ridiculous it is that people  think they can get away with not talking about racism because they have friends of different race. The truth here is that people are scared to be called racist if they speak of racism.

I chose this pictures because I think that they  go with this video. I think this just shows how we are used to hearing about people not being racist because they have black friends.

In the service of what? By Kahne and Westheimer

While I was reading this article I started thinking about all the times I have done community service. Ever since I was little my parents and I would do many things to help others. In church every year for thanksgiving and Christmas we would collect can foods, juice boxes and cookies and we would put them in boxes and give a big box to the families in our church who were of low income and were in need of extra help. One of the things that I love the most about helping people is the big smile I get in return. I think that it's important to help those in our community because it not only makes us feel better but it also makes other people happy and it gives them hope and lets them know that their are still good people out their that care.

Last year I did something I really loved and that was teaching english to children who come from other countries who only speak Spanish. I taught this class for 3 months in Scalabrini Dukcevich center. I had about 5 students who had just came from Guatemala and El Salvador 2 weeks before class  started. They didn't know any english, and I was asked to teach them  basic english because they were going to start school soon. This was such a wonderful experience because I got to help these kids, in 3 months they didn't know perfect english but they knew the basics. They told me they were so happy because they didn't feel so left out in school because at the end they were able to understand what the teacher would tell them. I really liked doing this I think I am going to this again in the summers, I like knowing that by helping others or doing something for someone else it has an impact in their lives.

 The link below is the page for Scalabrini Dukcevich where I do most of my community service. http://www.slmri.org