Uninhibited's blog

I want to write a little about the postings and how I think they could work better. Today, I found myself really wanting to read what my classmates posted about in relation to the past week and to our field trip yesterday. I quickly realized how much of their voices I was missing out on because I hadn't had the time to read them all. I think by this point we've all felt drained with all of the information and emotion we've experienced. The readings and the classes have been as Michaela said "heavy." Today, I found that a lot of what I've been feeling has some interesting connections with other people in the classroom and I would love the opportunity to explore them all. I want to respond to, read and connect to everyone's stories but I feel like I have a lack of time.

So, I think is post is really asking the question of how can we use serendip postings more effectively to truly encourage dialogue? Are we doing the same thing we've talked about before of just writing our posts (for the grade) but not for the learning? I do think that a lot of it has to do with how much we're required to post a week for each class. I would like the opportunity to silence my own voice more often if it means I get the time to really pay attention to what my peers write about. 

Any thoughts?

How can you grow as an individual in a family that has defined your role even before you begin to walk? How do you strip yourself of inhibitions because of whom you are told you are or need to be in order to keep the family together?  What do you do when your responsibility to the world, to your family, and to yourself stand in opposition, ready to battle for the crown? My life since coming to the United States has been a constant push and pull between reaching for new opportunities and holding on to traditions. It has been a constant imagining and reimagining of how I can use voice and silence to define who I am in relation to others.

To break the silence

is murder! (of sorts) and a thousand liberations- but also

I have no idea what you're talking about

Maybe if we weren't silent, we would understand?

Said the teacher to the class.

Then She looked out the window

Her words brought the class to its full attention, they wondered if they could keep going.

She did.

Hi. What?!

I love sitting in silence with you guys. Love it!

I love sitting in silence, but I did get more and more anxious as the paper moved around

She exuded privilege.

Her language spoke to wealth dating back as far as the eye could see in her lineage.

But what kind of wealth was it? She felt rich of possessions, yet lonely and empty.

I feel a kind of turmoil I cannot clearly articulate or define but the need for expression of this turmoil is so overwhelming

I just want to know what's going to happen next,

but please tell me in silence.

Here is the facebook I made for the YASP Panel next week. RSVP, add me, and invite your friends!

https://www.facebook.com/events/351048734981604/

I found the questions that Jones and d'Errico asked to be very important but most often neglected when the public and media talk about schooling in prisons. First, they ask about the goal and purpose of education in prisons. This question really asks those who attempt to do schooling in prison to question their purpose, are they there because they see the prisoners as deficient and in need of reform? Or are they there because they believe that the curriculum will provide an opportunity for learning and growth? Then, the question about who educates and what type of education will take place went even deeper. This question really had me thinking back to the purpose of education. Should these classes provide them with the skills necessary to apply and find jobs after their release? Should they focus on exploring the liberal arts and the humanities? Most importantly however, was the way in which we think about and attempt to answer this question. If we have the idea of a prisoner in mind when thinking about which kind of education should be provided, then we automatically fall back into labeling prisoners and setting up a system that already names them as inferior. How then can we strip ourselves of misconceptions about who incarcerated people are, and see them as human beings who need to experience growth just like the rest of us? What is it about incarceration that completely changes our views of the kind of education "they deserve"? And in thinking about this, why aren't their voices present in creating curriculum and programs?

Since coming to Bryn Mawr, I've become very aware of the ways in which I've been deprived of having my history taught in classrooms. I smiled as I read "Popular Culture, Pedagogy and Black Youth" because I too remember feeling like I learned the same things every year during black history month: Martin Luther King and "I Have a Dream". That is not to say that I don't think his contribution was unimportant, but it highlights the lack of effort that goes into teaching anything other than euro-centric curriculum to public school students. I still think it's funny that I had a World History class that only focused on Europe. That is without even mentioning that I learned NOTHING, about Latino culture throughout my time in school. I had no teachers that looked or spoke like me to look up or to go to when I felt invisible, silenced.

I just have a picture of myself in front of the Trevi Fountain. I think that spending four months abroad and being able to travel really opened up my world. I like to reminisce about how liberated I felt there. In that picture, I'm me, and I'm happy and I'm without worry. 

Where does knowledge exist in classrooms? As I read through the articles I became increasingly aware of the ways in which the education system in the US places all of the knowledge in the hands of the teacher, a system of education in which teachers fill their students with knowledge to prepare them for standardized tests. The readings, however, pointed to another way to think about knowledge in the classroom. As Freire put it "The object of the known is put on the table between the two subjects of knowing. They meet around it and through it for mutual inquiry" (pg. 99). Ellsworth put it in other words when she said, "pedagogy is a performance that is suspended (as in interrupted, never completed) in the space between self and other" (pg. 17).

In thinking about this idea of knowledge being something that stands not only between students and teachers, but also between students themselves, I think a lot about the idea of learning as a process, rather than a definitive answer. Learning as a collective journey, in which students and teachers feel a sense of responsibility to share and listen. In my mind, this is definitely a utopian ideal of what schooling is, one that is scarce, but precious. At the same time, however, I question how this is possible within an education system that is based on grading and standardized testing. How can a teacher seek this kind of collaborative knowledge and how can students feel inclined to explore when they must receive " a good grade" at the end of the year?

In questioning who has the power to silence whom, I often reflect on my experience based on my role within my family. I grew up in a very traditional family unit, one that maintains and defends the rules of patriarchy and reinforces the subordinate role of the women and children that exist in it. As a result of these ideals, the silencing of women has never been a foreign concept to me; on the contrary it is what has held the values of my family together. It was the silencing of my mother’s wishes to remain close to her brothers and sisters that resulted in us having to leave the Dominican Republic to pursue the economic opportunities my father wanted. It was the silencing of my aunt that led her to seek government assistance despite the fact that she had graduated from medical school because her husband was uncomfortable with the idea that his wife could be economically independent. It is my own silencing that prevents me from showing my family the opportunities I’ve taken advantage of at Bryn Mawr because they don’t believe that a woman is capable of such success.