No Name-Calling Week Reflection

After looking over the GLSEN website the article that stuck out to me the most was the "No Name-Calling Week" article. The article basically talks about a project that the organization does to prevent kids from bullying and name calling. Recently my brother, who is in middle school got involved in a so called bullying situation. It was a couple of weeks ago that my brothers school called home. Meanwhile my brother is a little bit of a trouble maker. However he isn't one to bully people. So my mom gets a phone call from the assistant principle saying that a mother called saying that my brother had bullied him and was really upset. so naturally my mother got the call and was furious. she gave him to whole story about how you can't pick on other kids and so on. However my brother denied the whole thing. he told us he was defending another girl in the class. My brother was so upset he was upstairs crying the rest of the night. so the next day my mom gets a call from this little girls mother. the mother of the little girl thanks my mom for my brother sticking up and defending her daughter. My mom a little thrown off asked her what exactly had happened. The little girls mother begins going on and on telling my mom about how this little boy would tease her daughter and make fun of her almost everyday. She told my mom that her daughter would come home crying just about everyday from school, and the mother had called the school a couple of times to address it, but they never really did anything. The mother also said that my brother had seen this other little boy teasing her daughter and he stepped in and actually said something to this little boy. after hearing this story i was so proud of my brother for doing that. however the little boy was embarrassed and told the teacher that my brother had been bullying him, and once the teacher heard that he was sent to the office. after the whole thing was cleared up my brother wasn't in trouble and the little boy ended up getting a good talking to my administration as well as his parents. after reading the article about no-name calling week and hearing this story about my brother i just feel that more people should be like this. also that there should be more focus on this subject. sometimes i feel as if it is so overlooked in schools today and people are to passive about name-calling. names really hurt and it just seems wrong that we don't put enough emphasis on it.

I believe that this No name-calling week should be used in more schools than it already is. i believe that it such a good thing for schools to do, because I think sometimes we over look things. for example if my brother never said anything that little girl probably would have been bullied for the rest of the year maybe even longer. i think that organization is a very good thing to incorporate into schools. It's a topic that we as teachers should be aware of especially in the middle school and high school levels, because no kid should ever have to experience something like that.

I wanted to talk in class if anyone has every done something like this at there schools. I have never heard of this. But i also found another similar even which i thought was cool. The website is: http://www.dayofsilence.org/

Aria - Rodriguez

This article talks about a spanish speaking family and how the children had to adjust their language in order to fit in to society. looking at it like that i figured ok well that makes sense that they to get the kids to speak english. in order for them to be able to be involved in many things in society they would have to learn english. however what i didn't realize was the impact this truly has on a family. 

quote 1

"One Saturday morning I entered the kitchen where my parents were talking in Spanish. I did not realize that they were talking in Spanish however until, at the moment they saw me, I heard their voices change to speak English." This quote is basically talking about how they parents are trying to change there life style to benefit their kids. It's good that they are trying to help their kids but it's changing who the family is. It's  not fair that they need to give up their culture all together. this kind of made me angry, because they are giving up who they are all together because a group of nuns told them that they should be speaking english in order for their kids to survive in society. why can't they speak both? i don't think it's fair that they are putting the pressure on the parents to eliminate their spanish culture to accommodate for the rest of the society. they should be able to speak both if they want. the teachers should help them to learn english, but not try and get them to lose their spanish back round. in society it is an achievement to be bilingual. why can't they be bilingual. why is it that they can't speak both? to me i don't believe this is right. it made me pretty mad throughout the entire article, because it's just not fair to this family.  

quote 2

"We remained a loving family, but one greatly changed. No longer so close; no longer bound tight by the pleasing and troubling knowledge of Our public separateness. Neither my older brother nor sister rushed home after school anymore. Nor did I." this quote is talking about how he family is slowly growing apart because they are starting to lose the one major thing that connects them, their spanish. to me this doesn't seem right. should a family be broken up because society says they must conform to the rest of society? because these kids are being taught that they need to follow society they are growing more and more apart from their families. this is not fair to these spanish speaking families, as well as families of other cultures. they should be taught english, because it is a huge part of society. however they shouldn't lose there back round in the process. to me that is what it seems like society is making them do here. 

quote 3

"But the bilingualists simplistically scorn the value and necessity of assimilation. They do not seem to realize that there are two ways a person is individualized. So they do not realize that while one suffers a diminished sense of private individuality by becoming assimilated into public society, such assimilation makes possible the achievement of public individuality. " i really liked this quote because i believe it pretty much sums up the entire article and how i feel about it. it talks about how people are almost forced to conform to society's wishes, but it's the difference in people that make individuals in society. i believe that is why this article makes me so mad. the family is forced to conform to society in order to think about succeeding. to me that's not right. i do believe that they must learn english, but they shouldn't have to lose their first language in the process. in this case it broke up a family. is it worth it for anyone who speaks a different language to have to be jut like every other individual in america? if so then we aren't individuals because we are all the same. i don't think that is fair in anyway. that was one of the main reasons why this article made me so angry. personally i'm pretty close with my family, and i would hate to lose that closeness if we spoke a different language and had lose our back round in order to feel like a part of society.

Lastly I would like to talk in class about if people agree with Rodriguez. Personally i don't I'm more of a Collier fan!!!

White Privilege by Macintosh

After reading McIntosh's article i totally agree with her. Basically the article talks a lot about what she calls "white Privilege" which is how white people are born with all of these extra advantages just because of their skin color.
quote 1
 "White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, code books, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks. " This quote basically talks about how white people have an advantage just because of their skin color. To me this is very interesting because i have never really thought about all the advantages white people have. however do other races also have advantages? i know that white people are born with much more privileges, but i believe that other races have advantages as well. the question is how many advantages do other races have. However i do not disagree with McIntosh when she talks about white privilege. she lists a lot of advantages in the article that most people take for granted and don't even realize.  


quote 2
"In my class and place, I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth." this quote is basically saying that she grew up thinking racism was only talking negatively or acting meanly toward another race. however this is not the case. if white people take advantage of what she calls "white privilege" that is just as bad as being racist. it's not right that white people get these advantages just based on the color of their skin. everyone should have to work for what they want, and no one should have any more advantage than anyone else. but if you look at the daily advantages that occur for white people i'm sure everyone can find one thing on that list that they are guilty of. however the common thought about how racism is only based on meanness is such a common misconception, and i thought the same exact thing until i read this article. most people are blind to "white privilege". 


quote 3
"Although systemic change takes many decades, there are pressing questions for me and, I imagine, for some others like 

me if we raise our daily consciousness on the perquisites of being light-skinned." this quote os basically saying that if we can change the problems what will happen. i find this quote interesting because how can we change something so big like this. i completely agree with McIntosh and i don't believe that it is right that white people get these undeserved advantages just because of their skin, but what steps can be taken to change it. is it just changing it yourself and hoping people follow? i just feel like this is a very difficult topic to change, but if we can then by all means it needs to be changed because it is so unfair that based on a persons skin they have an advantage. it should be changed but i just cant see how we can change something so big.