Owl's blog

In her piece, Alison Cook-Sather references Khamler (2003) and Gilbert (1989) who suggest that the term "student voice" might not be the appropriate term to use in reference to the "desire for student engagement,

As I was reading both Smith's and Cliff's writings, I was struck by two statements: "'The word, the word above all, is truly magical, not only by its meaning, but by its artful manipulation"' (Smith Intro) and "When I began... to approach myself as a subject, my writing was jagged, nonlinear, almost shorthand"' (Cliff p31), I couldn't help but think of language as a tool that one has to learn how to use. So often do we see people that do not have the opportunities afforded to them to learn how to manipulate language that they get lost in translation. So often do I hear of people, including myself, feeling as though we have so much to say, but do not know how to say it. I find myself asking, what causes this disconnect? If I am answering this question for myself, I would say that my inability to treat language  as something that can be manipulated as opposed to something that manipulates me, has to do with the insecurities imposed on me by my race, gender, culture, ethnicity and ideology. Despite having the education that I have had I continue to be hindered, and I fear that such feeling will always linger.   

Benjamin Franklin Senior High is an image that emphasizes silence for me. As I sat by my computer looking through the photos I had taken this summer, I came across some of my old high school. I had taken these pictures on an evening out with my mother because I thought the campus looked so beautiful.  I neglected to see however, how much of the beauty I saw was due to the silence of no students walking around. When I was a student here I remember always feeling like the students' lack of interest in the school or in academia itself made way for trivial conversations and relationship that cluttered the halls of the school with noise- trivial noise. Now, as I think back on my thoughts, I realize how much of what I found so trivial was voice in the midst of silence. What I found to be so trivial, because it didn't revolve around academia, the poster board image for change and growth, was in fact a response (possibly a response they were unaware they were sending, but a response nonetheless) to media's constant protrayal of the school as an urban public school in need of assistance. Kids were acting out the very image they were being protrayed as: bad kids who are uninterested in education. Althougth I don't know whether this voice was a voice of choice or whether it was a voice that was imposed on the students, I wonder whether either voice is being heard, or whether it remains silent?