Kahne and Westheimer Reflection

   This article made me think about the Strength-Based approach in the field of social work, which I learned about in my Early Childhood Education and Social Work class. The Kahne and Westheimer article discussed the differences between service learning projects motivated by charity and by change. Those motivated by charity tend to make the assumption that the people that are receiving aid have little to nothing to offer in return so they just give help without gaining any knowledge or understanding. Also those motivated by charity might look down on those who they are helping, like  in the article they talked about the middle school students who went to an elementary school in a poor neighborhood. The students and their parents had all these negative assumptions about the kinds of people who lived in that neighborhood. 

   By contrast the service learning projects that are motivated by change align more closely with the Strength-Based Approach to social work. The strength based approach emphasizes that everyone no matter where they come from has something to offer, therefore everyone can learn from one another. When you participate in a social learning project with this approach in mind it creates a reciprocal relationship between you and those that you help, it isn't you looking down on someone simply giving them things. Instead it becomes two people or two groups of people creating a dialogue and helping each other.  

   It's hard to say whether service learning projects motivated by change or by charity are better because in both scenario's those who need help are receiving it. The question is do motives really matter? This is where ethics and moral philosophy comes into play. I took an ethics course for my first year seminar where we talked about this and really there isn't a right answer. However it is undeniable that service learning projects motivated by change does create a deeper understanding of the world

Safe Spaces- August

     While reading this article the thing that really stood out to me were those teachers with good intentions who simply didn't speak up when they heard something negative or made assumptions about their students. These teachers are not necessarily homophobic or transphobic, they just feel as though it isn't their place to teach someone else's kid about these issues.

     The reason that this stood out to me was because I feel like this is where most educators would fall on this spectrum of how they feel about and engage with the lgbtq+ community. They feel like they have to walk on eggshells or not even engage with it at all.

    

      But here are my thoughts on this approach:

• As yourself what is it that even makes it a question whether or not to integrate lgbtq+ representation or history in the classroom?
• Do you teach your students about the civil rights movement?
• Do you teach your students about the various waves of the feminist movement?
• When you read stories or show other forms of media to your students have they ever included;
• Any sort of romantic relationship (whether its implicit or explicit)
• A single parent household?
• A mixed-race family?
• An adopted child?
• A blended family (ex: step parents)
• Or how about a child raised by a grandparent or some other non-biological parent?
• If you answered yes to any of these questions I'm curious to know what makes teaching about those oppressed groups or portraying these different family structures different from teaching about the lgbtq+ communities struggle for equality or portraying a family or a person who is lgbtq+? I mean think about it a lot of these topics were at one point taboo and we know now (or most of us now know) that, that was wrong. So what it is that makes the lgbtq+ community different from all these?
• Maybe it's the fact that perhaps you think that you're students are too young to be introduced to the concept of attraction or relationships or gender
• Well that's weird because in our society we can look at a literal baby boy who just so happens to smile in the direction of a girl one time and say that he's a "flirt."
• We also gender genuinely everything that people do...
• Okay well maybe it's different because it should be left up to the parents
• Why? Because it's risque? Now we're getting somewhere

The reason why educators are so cautious and afraid of mentioning the lgbtq+ community is because we know that it is still so unaccepted. No matter how much we like to tell ourselves that "It's 2018 no one cares anymore" we do care.

     

So as an educator what are you going to do about it? Are you going to sit back and let this cycle of misunderstanding and hatred continue or are you going to be the leader that you signed up to be and help create a better world? The choice is yours.

Pariah (Social Justice Event)

     For my social justice event I watched the film Pariah. This movie is about a young black woman named Alike who identifies as a lesbian and her struggles finding a place in the lesbian community as well as being accepted by her family. Unlike many popular LGBT stories in the media this isn't a story about a girl struggling with her sexuality, instead Alike is very sure of who she is from the beginning. As a matter of fact everyone around her also knows even though it remains something that isn't talked about. Throughout the movie Alike lives the life that her parents want her to live while at home by wearing more traditionally feminine clothing and then changing into a more butch style and navigating her first experience with romance (which spoiler alert doesn't end well). She lives in these two worlds until the end when she finally chooses herself and her own happiness by moving out of her house where she couldn't be her authentic self.

What did I learn?

     To be honest I feel like I didn't really learn anything from this experience. These themes presented in the movie were not new to me.  However there are a lot of things or points made in this movie that I think are really important to talk about such as:

1) You can not make someone into who you want them to be and trying to change them will only backfire and push them away.
                -  Alike's mother was very suspicious of her daughters sexuality and in an attempt to keep her away from fully immersing herself into the lesbian lifestyle she pushed her into a friendship with another young woman from church. But here's the thing.... she didn't want her daughter to like girls so she forced her to spend all of her time with a seemingly nice and likable girl??

              Well jokes on you because now they are just going to be gay together!!

               

2) Make your intentions clear!!!

                          - Now remember when I told you that there was a romantic aspect to this movie? Let's unpack that. Alike of course fell for Bina, the nice girl from church that her mom made her become friends with. The two friends became really close and flirty and at one point the two hooked up and they lived happily ever after right? Wrong. Don't be too discouraged, Alike also thought that they would be a couple after this but instead Bina broke her heart and said that she wasn't, and I quote, "gay-gay" she was just having fun and it would never happen again nor could they talk about it again. Just a little advice... Don't do that. Just be straight up with people about what it is you want before anyone can get too hurt.

Connection to Texts

1) Privilege, Power, and Difference by Johnson-  I think that someone with no connection to the LGBT community watched this movie they would become more aware of things that they don't have to got through. Also Johnson emphasized the importance of talking about privilege and our differences and in this movie everyone ignored Alike's sexuality, which proves that not talking about it does not make it go away.

2) Christensen Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us- This article basically can be summed up by three words "accurate representation matters" and that is exactly what this movie gave us. This movie centered around people of color, specifically black people and the main character was a butch lesbian. This is not something that is typical of mainstream media. It shows that people like that exist and they can have happy endings.

3) McIntosh White Privilege Knapsack- Even though this movie did not talk about white people and their privilege I think that it is important to acknowledge that the black community generally has a harder time accepting homosexuality. I mean for one, it is very rare that queer media represents people of color. This is because just like the people in Alike's life, a lot of black people want to sweep these things under the rug. Maybe it's because they know that black people already have it hard enough in the world and they feel like they can't afford to have another thing going against them. I don't know. But seeing black people and people of color get to be the leaders in stories that have been typically told from the perspective of white characters is refreshing. I am not at all saying that black people are more homophobic than any other group nor am I saying that these same reactions don't occur in white families. I'm just saying that it is interesting to look at these issues from a different lens and think about the root

Follow The Leader

     After reading through Christensen's article "Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us", I couldn't think of anything to write about that hasn't already been said. I mean at this point we get it, the media puts ideas about groups of people into our heads whether they are accurate or not. I see no point in talking about this or trying to explain this any further seeing as everyone else's blog posts pretty much covered it. 

     It wasn't until reading  Nate's blog post, particularly the part where he talked about how children now more than ever are being exposed to the media and how they tend to mimic what they see, that I found my direction. 

     We all pointed out what children see in the media impacts how they see the world and their own place in it but I have decided to talk a little about just powerful a force the media truly is, specifically social media.

     Social media. It is a much larger part of our lives than we care to admit. I think that everyone is inspired by things that they see online. People get ideas about what to wear, what to buy, what to say, and generally who to be from it. I think that, that is perfectly normal and okay. But is there a dark side to this?

    

     Internet challenges. Sometimes they are fun and even good for society (example: the ice bucket challenge for ALS awareness) but sometimes they are downright dangerous. Social media gives us all this herd mentality where we want to follow the leaders, which in our society tends to be anyone with a high follower or subscriber count, no matter what the consequences could be. I mean think about it. We have not only kids but fully grown adults snorting condoms, choking on cinnamon, starting fires, hurting themselves and others, and ultimately dying doing things that they wouldn't normally do, but doing it because they saw it on the internet. That is so hard to wrap my head around. I also can not believe that I even participated in any of these challenges and that I somehow still feel some pride about doing them successfully.  

     

     The power of the media can not be underestimated. What we see in the media matters. If we can somehow be convinced that eating tide pods is a good idea because of what we see in the media then I think that every single source of media needs to be more careful about the messages that they could be sending about what's right and wrong, about different types of people and their statuses or roles in the world.

If you're interested in some of the scary challenges that have come from the internet here is a good Shane Dawson video that talks a little bit about some of them.