In The Service of What? The Policies of Service Learning
By: Joseph Kahne and Joel Westheimer

Author’s Argument:
In this article the authors discuss the important of service learning projects emphasizing meaningful service. The authors believe that a service learning experience should inspire a desire for change, not just charity.

Quotes:

1. “Educators and legislators alike maintain that service learning can improve the community and invigorate the classroom, providing rich educational experiences for students at all levels of schooling. Service learning makes students active participants in service projects that aim to respond to the needs of the community while furthering the academic goal of students.”

• This quote is trying to stress the importance of service learning projects in all schools by explaining how they enrich students educationally while at the same time helping the community. I completely agree with this quote. All students should have the experience of working in the community as part of a service learning project. Service Learning isn’t just helping others, it should be an experience where the student learns from the person they are helping or learns about the situation they are helping to change and make better.

2. “To tap into the full power of service activities, however, these practitioners would want to combine critical inquiry with action. This process can transform students’ understandings of both disciplinary knowledge and the particular social issues with which they are engaged.”

• This quote is talking about how service learning can’t just be a community service project where the student is allowed to just do work and stay disconnected from the people involved. The school needs to first get the students educated and involved with the actual problem they are dealing with, whether it be homelessness or a natural disaster they are helping victims of. The students need to have a background and full understanding of the problem at hand in order to come to an understanding and brainstorm a plan to CHANGE and best help those in need. We need change and solutions, not just a band aid on all of our problems.

3. “These statements testify to the transformative power of service learning experiences. The effect could become even greater if students discussed the possible causes of these rumors and their impact.”

• This quote is from part of the article that is talking about students who were nervous about going to a certain neighborhood for their service learning because of what they had heard about the area. This quote is saying that service learning has the power to transform the minds of the impressionable and teach them that not everything is what people say it is and that people can be different then what you always thought they might be. It is also saying that if the students who go to those “bad” neighborhoods take the time to talk about the way people judged those neighborhoods, and how it had made a bad impression on them that would have stayed if they hadn’t gone to see for themselves, they might be able to urge others to be more open minded.

Questions/Comments:
This wasn’t my favorite of all the articles we’ve read so far but there were some parts I liked. I do like certain things that they said about service learning such as that it should be about change and not charity and how it has the power to transform people. I love that we talk about our service learning projects in class, it helps me look at my own project in a new light and I’m happy to share and hear how other people are opening there minds to theirs.

Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us

Unlearning the Myths That Bind Us
By. Linda Christensen


Authors Argument:
In this article the author discusses the “secret education” taught to children through books and movies. The “secret education” Christensen is talking about is to see the world, sex, race, and class a certain way, subliminally through cartoons.

Quotes:

1. “The “secret education”, as Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman dubs it, delivered by children’s books and movies, instructs young people to accept the world as it is portrayed in these social blueprints. And often that world depicts the domination of one sex, one race, on class, or one country over a weaker counterpart….When we read children’s books, we aren’t just reading cute little stories, we are discovering the tools with which a young society is manipulated.”

• This quote is saying that children are taught a “secret education” through books and movies, and that this “secret education” teaches them to see the world, sex, race and class a certain way. This “secret education” is taught subliminally through these children’s books and movies, and also through cartoons, so as to be deceiving to someone not looking for racism or sexism.

2. “ It can be overwhelming and discouraging to find out my self image has been formed mostly by others or underneath my worries about what I look like are years (17 of them) of being exposed to TV images of girls and their set roles given to them by TV and the media…..So why dissect the dreams? Why not stay ignorant about them and happy?”

• This quote is talking about the influence of advertising and media on girls self image. The girl who said this was acknowledging the fact, not happily, that her life has been influenced by the media and other people. She felt as though she’d rather live in ignorance of it all and be happy with the way she was living her life before rather then dissect everything in the media and see it for what it really is and be miserable that she let herself be influenced so much, and question her true identity.

3. “Because we can never look like Cinderella, we begin to hate ourselves. The Barbie syndrome starts as we begin a lifelong search for the perfect body. Crash diets, fat phobias, and an obsession with materialistic become commonplace.”

• This quote is a reference to how the media, even children’s stories, portray women. The image of women in the media is tall, skinny, and beautiful and by starting to show children this image at such a young age in everything they read and watch it gives them “Barbie syndrome”. These unrealistic images of women influence girls and women to do everything they can to achieve that perfect look, the perfect body and they become materialistic and most of the time live with an unhealthy obsession with weight.

Questions/ Comments:

I thought this article was great. It really made you think about how much you let media influence and control your own life, since you were a child even. It also made you look back at some of the movies, TV shows and books you read as a child and break them down and think of what the characters may have portrayed and taught. It was especially important to me that this article contained so much about the role of women: the portrayal of women in children’s books/movies, how media influences women, and the Barbie syndrome.

Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community

Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community
By: Dennis Carlson


Author’s Argument:
In this article the author talks about the normalization of gayness, how gay teachers are viewed in schools, and the representation of gays in popular culture. Also, the author mentions gay culture, a person’s desire to “be themselves”, gay people discovering their identity.

Quotes:

1. “…and a number of states explicitly prohibit teaching about homosexuality. In 1993, for example, the gay rights movement claimed a major victory in the signing into law of a Minnesota bill that makes it illegal to discriminate against lesbians and gay men in employment and housing. Yet what got ignored in all the celebrating was a provision in the bill that prohibits teaching homosexuality in public schools.”

• This quote is talking about how there are a few states in the United States that have laws that forbid schools from teaching students about homosexuality. Minnesota wasn’t one of those states and in 1993 a law was passed that made it illegal to discriminate against gays and lesbians when it came to employment and housing but hidden in the bill the state added on that they didn’t want homosexuality being taught about in their state either. So while the gay rights movement made a small step towards something they also got a right taken from them at the same time.

2. “To the extent that gayness is recognized in the curriculum, it is likely to be in the health curriculum, where it is associated with disease. For example, one of the most popular health texts on the high school market is Health: A Guide to Wellness, which mentions homosexuals or homosexuality once in acknowledging that “the first group in the United States diagnosed with AIDS were male homosexuals”

• This quote is saying that in the states and schools that do mention homosexuality in their curriculum it usually gets mentioned during health. Homosexuality gets related to health because schools relate it to disease by teaching kids that homosexuals were the first people to be diagnosed with AIDS.

3. “…nothing seems more certain than that homosexuality is contagious. Second, homosexual teachers were presumed to be lecherous and develop “ridiculous crushes” on students” (Willard Waller)

• This is a quote by Willard Waller, a sociologist, states that homosexuality is contagious like a sickness or a disease. He also believed that schools should get rid of homosexual teachers if they knew of them in their schools because their homosexuality was contagious, and because they would develop unsafe crushes on their students and the schools wouldn’t want that.

Questions/Comments:

This article was a little tough to get through. The parts about how homosexuality is viewed in the world of education were surprising and sort of upsetting to read. You wouldn’t like to think people were so intolerant of those who are different, especially those who are teaching the youth of our nation. Also, some of the things done and said to those teachers seemed very hurtful and unnecessary. We all have the right to be who we are, and not be discriminated against for it. It’s judgmental and wrong to say a gay teacher will develop a “ridiculous crush” on their students just because they are gay, and it’s INSANE to propose that being gay is contagious. It isn’t a sickness or disease. It’s a lifestyle, it’s a choice, it’s the way a person is born.

Vice Presidential Debate

Just finished watching the Vice Presidential Debate. I have to say I started to watch it with sort of a biased opinion of the candidate, especially after our discussion in class today about Palin. I was fairly certain I felt more strongly about Obama/Biden up until this point, and after hearing what everyone said about Palin in class today (the Katie Couric interview, the Supreme Court thing, etc) i thought she sounded pretty stupid. But I have to say after watching the debate just now Biden was the one who made himself sound stupid and Palin sounded very intelligent. She was excellent at debating, didn't make any errors, was articulate and made very strong points. The language she used was easy to understand and she directed most of what she was saying to the middle-class, working, American. Biden on the other hand I felt made very confusing points. Most of what he said wasn't clear, and according to ABC News a lot of which wasn't even correct. Biden also spent almost all of the time he was given attacking McCain and his policies rather then expressing the ideas and policies that he and Obama were working towards, while Palin mention Obama about twice during the entire hour and a half debate. One thing that ABC News is bringing up right now though is that Biden kept tying McCain to Bush throughout the entire debate. Biden brought up many cases in which McCain supported and agreed with many of Bush's policies and ideas and Palin kept trying to change the subject because she had no way to argue this.

All I know is that every time I watch a debate or read something about the election or the candidates or talk to someone about them I just change my mind over and over. I just keep getting more confused :-X