Animated Culture

What is your relationship to Disney and animated children’s culture?  What role did these texts play in your life as a child, if any? In that of any children you share time with? How do your memories challenge or reflect Christensen’s claims? How does Frozen meet or challenge your memories of princess culture? 

In unlearning the myths that bind us by Linda Christensen, the “secret education” refers to the indoctrination of young children through books and movies.  This wouldn’t be so dreadful if it were not for the fact that the marginalized remained voiceless and invisible.  

Because most of our early information about how others live does not come from first hand experience, our cultural stereotypes are shaped and distorted by what is seen in the media.  

For me personally, being in the minority of the minority, Hollywood and media images portrayed did not represent me.  The images of the Latina in the ‘novelas’ were always fair-skinned or white as this is what is valued in the Latin culture due to colonized mindset. Whenever, I would see the images depicting Latina that are upheld as a standard of beauty.  I was not celebrated, as I did not see my reflection in them.  My image was not mirrored within the dominance of the minority culture. This absence is an aspect of the oppression I felt.  The indoctrination left behind by the colonizers runs deep in the blood of my people that the ideologies are accepted and the vicious cycle of negation is perpetuated.  The negation of who we are to who we think we must be.   

How has this affected me in my adulthood?  Accepting the notion, that I could not play the damsel in distress as I lacked the characteristics of beauty as portrayed by the media, I came to a resolve that strength and intellect would be my innate qualities.  These same qualities have been my driving force and kept me motivated to push past and redefining for myself what is beauty. 

Frozen the Disney movie challenges my memories of princess culture, because she chooses her love for her sister to teach her how to control her powers.  Even though she is locked away and isolated in a castle, it was by choice.  A choice made from desperation and lack of guidance.   In the end, she no longer had to hide and suppress who she is.  Embracing her true self, and understanding her love for her sister lead to her happily ever after. 

Media Literacy

What do you make of the (divergent) positions of Boyd and Prensky (per our discussion in class and/or per the article above?)  Where do you stand on the “digital native” terminology?

To assume that the youth are native to technology ignores the fact that not all teens are technologically savvy or that they know what to do with the experiences.  I agree with the statement that digital immigrants can support them by helping turn their experience into knowledge.  Together the digital natives and digital immigrants have something the other needs.   It is interesting to see that with the wide spread of social media, false news is on the rise.  So teaching critical-thinking skills to our youth is of upmost important.  To have the ability to discern fact from opinion through various fact-checking techniques is a skill the digital natives would need now more than ever to protect themselves from lies, and manipulations.  The digital era opens doors and puts information at your finger tips, but one should be weary of the falsifications be presented as facts.   It was hilarious hearing the term immigrant and native used with reference to technology for the first time in class.  While trying to understood the culture of technology in terms of first culture and first language, I was able to see parallels in my upbringing to that of my parents.   However, I did not attribute the way I process information differently than my son, to the  technology gap between our generations.  No matter how we process information or use technology, immigrant or native, we both need technology.  

Digital Native or Digital Immigrant?

I definitely consider myself to be a "digital immigrant."Digital Immigrant cannot become a digital native
according to some who argue this point.  I work really hard and make a conscious effort towards integrating technology into my daily life to access information more efficiently.  This work of integration unlike a "digital native" is not effortless and ingrained as I was not born with technology in hand.  In the process of this integration, my hesitation towards technology exhibits my accent.  The initial uncomfortable feeling I get when I have to learn something new.  For instance, I have yet to be technology savvy to create a google classroom account.  This may be my next professional growth goal so I can integrate technology meaningfully with my students.  Although I have welcomed blended learning with the use of Lexia, and Dreambox, I do so with hesitation as we're asked to assign individual assignments based on student need, which should be monitored.  It feels like more work! So I step into the digital age (information is at your finger tips) where my conventional speed of teaching and learning is not engaging enough to my twitch speed learners.

My summer Digital Media Literacy

 Who am I?  I am many things, as this is a loaded question.  I identify across many different areas on many different levels in my lifetime.  I am female. I am Black.  I am Latina.  I am a speaker of another language other than English.  I am native born to the U.S. from immigrant parents.  I am a culmination of different cultures in one universe trying to make it make sense in a changing world.  With a mindset for growth I accept challenges sometimes knowingly and others subconscious that I have internally struggle with to overcome. 

Mapping out Interconnected Care

When Nice is NOT enough, and Justice is required

Mapping out my role as a teacher would not fit into one neatly packaged body of parts, but into many bodies as I assume a variety of roles to meet the very challenging needs of my students.  Most days I walk into my classroom I do not know what to expect so to be prepared, I carry a  

      

  

Throughout the day, I  

 between multiple roles to manage the behaviors and  and cope with the different personalities.  At times I get confused managing so many roles.  Managing multiple roles as a common practice for many of us on any given day, but I think as teachers we are required to draw on different aspects of our personalities and experiences we bring to classroom.  

At times, I feel like I have to deliberate and settle a conflict between students, so I wear my robe as a  

            

and listen cautiously to both sides of the case.  My job here is very important because the plaintiff and the defendant have to be heard objectively so my biased opinion of either students does not cloud my judgement.  

At the end of the day, I do not want to

 a student.  All students deserve a chance to be heard and made to feel validated. This requires a very fine of listening to every one’s perspective and considering the facts.  

Sometimes facts is not sufficient when deliberating on a case, and I have to rely on my

skills to get to the root of the problem.  In most instances I have to filter through layers of social emotional needs to discover deeper underlying reason, some ones’ feelings were hurt.  If and when I am able to help the students come to a resolve I feel like it’s all in a days work.  Just doing my job so I can do my job.  After I have finally won their trust through our established relationship of mutual respect, I can now begin to 

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

• Culturally Relevant Pedagogy left me feeling inspired and validated for the work I do as an educator.  The video expressed the work I do as an educator so eloquently.  I am the cultural translator that bridges the school culture and the home culture by building on students’ prior cultural knowledge.   I help make connections between what is known and what is to be taught and understood.  The ‘cultural filters’ as they were referred to in the video, is when students try to receive the message from school culture and try to adapt just as the school culture should adapt to the students.  It is not or should not be a ‘one size’ fits all model, as in the sink or swim situation I experienced.   Home language should not be silenced in the classroom, but used as a resource to leverage learning. 

• In my classroom this looks like the use of both Spanish and English to keep up with content while learning language.  Students have literacy text in both languages.  Spanish is used to help bridge understanding and make sense of content.  Students are encouraged to use their native language when necessary, either verbally or written.  

• The series of videos made some great points about bilingualism.  First episode Getting Acquainted states that students should not remain silent just because they do not speak the English language. The educator should find a means of being able to reach that student and establish a means of communication through the students linguistic background.  The goal ultimately, is not to silence the student into learning English, but to make them bilingual. 

• The second episode, Advocating for Bilingual Students showed how the teachers in the classroom went above and beyond to welcome the students in the classroom.  I really liked the language and culture portraits that shows how students identified with language.  The use of the multicultural and multilingual touchstone text is an awesome way for students to see themselves in the books.  Finally, I was touched by the teacher’s honesty when she expressed how she had to let go and become a co-learner with her students.  This act of humility can go a long way with students showing them empathy in the process of adaptation to a culture and a language system that is foreign.  

• The third episode, Bilingual Superpowers was very impressive way to have students create text.  Students are so into the graphic novels that having them create their own through the use of their home language is an ideal way to encourage their creativity and keep their interest level.  

• The quote from the fourth episode, Knowing your students, the teacher was quoted the book they were reading in class to Kill a mocking bird, she took a classic and added her own unique spin to it,” you can never understand a person until you consider things from his perspective, climb into his skin and walk around in it.”  She did this by celebrating the small victories in class helping the students feel accomplished.  She provided scaffolds in their language through prompts and visuals even though she did not speak their language. 
• https://youtu.be/t1gcinsjuZE

• The fifth and final episode, Benefits of Bilingual Education inspired me because my Teach Out project is directly related to this concept.  It sparked some new ideas to use with my students in class.  I like the story, My name is Jorge on both sides of the River.  I could read some touch stone and mentor text, and shows some videos to spark the students with ideas of the benefits of being bilingual so they can brainstorm.  

• Good teaching is just that, regardless if you can speak the child’s home language.  Incorporating the use of home language has many benefits, among them is academic success.

Engaged Pedagogy

• From Paulo Freire’s work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, although I have not read it, the documentary has given me the impression that he believed in a higher power other than himself.  If this is the case, is that one of the basic elements to achieving social justice?

• Also the documentary claims the importance to label an issue, because through the labeling one can better understand the concept ultimately to be able to dismantle or deconstruct the issue.  This reminds me of ‘intersectionality’, with these multiple invisible and visible identities can we begin to deconstruct the social injustices?  Does language begin to evolve as we give labels to issues in an attempt to understand them better? 

• Also, the article mentioned that Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of the teacher as the healer.  What happens when the healer needs healing?  Or the teacher is not able to practice freedom of education because of some absence of empathy or understanding of the human part of students? 

• What if the teacher’s teaching and learning philosophy  is that of the cognitive approach and therefore in tuned to the child’s nature and not how they are nurtured?

• If the practice of teaching as a form of freedom through healing and the healer must reach self-actualization that should be to help the self before helping other, the last ultimate step in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs a desire for self-fulfillment namely, the tendency for her the (the individual) to become actualized in what she potentially is, what would this look like if took it more seriously?