In Class/OutClassed

Hello everyone! My name is Morgan Widuch and I am from La Crosse, Wisconsin. La Crosse is a small, yet very beautiful city located right in between the Mississippi River and a range of bluffs. I absolutely love my hometown, for though small, it offers a wide array of wonderful activities; my favorites include biking on the Hixon Forrest Nature trails, hiking up the bluffs, canoeing, hanging out with my friends by the River, and frequenting the local coffee shops located in our historic downtown area. As much as I love my hometown though, I am excited to be in Bryn Mawr and studying here at this beautiful campus.

Through this course, I am looking to gain a better understanding of the education system in America, what is wrong with it, and how it can be improved. I first became interested in this course after seeing the movie “Waiting for Superman” which discusses the problems that our education system is facing today. One of the very important focus points of the movie was the idea that a person’s education is largely dependent upon class.

I am very interested in continuing to examine the idea of class and how we classify ourselves, throughout this course. In our discussion yesterday, we observed that the majority of us tend to classify ourselves by what makes us distinct or gives us our uniqueness. I find it very interesting then, that when we examine others whom we do not know, we tend to first classify them first by that which is easily visible to the eye. 

Hello! My name is Laura James. I was born in Atlanta, Georgia but for the past four years I have been living in Dubai. Dubai is a city in the United Arab Emirates which borders Saudi Arabia and Oman.  I moved there because my dad is a pilot with Emirates. Living in Dubai was the best experience I have had. When I am finished with school I might move back to Dubai or another part of the Middle East or Africa. From this seminar I am looking strengthen my writing skills and learn more about the struggles that different classes have. I am especially interested in the disparities between schools across classes. The issues I noticed in our first class discussion that most of us were nervous about giving ourselves categories that we had no control over. Absolutely no one categorized themselves in an economic class or race and very few people categorized themselves by gender or size. Though, it was good that as individuals we cared more about what was “on the inside” it nonetheless displayed our fear of that type of classification.

My name is Michaela, and I am from Maryland, about a stone's throw away from our nation's capital, DC. I have one sister, Abby, who graduated from BMC in 2010, and who, along with the rest of my immediate family, I am very close with. I have lived in the same house my whole life, and gone to both a few so-so private schools to my better years of education in the public school district, regarded nationally as very competitive and advanced. I have always been studious, and so my education at my high school was very satisfying and rewarding. However, even as I received (or claimed, as we are now tasked to do) my education there, I noticed the discrepancies in the underlying realities of how well diverse groups of students were expected to, and thus did, perform in their schoolwork. Low expectations all too often led to low grades,scores, etc. in a sort of vicious cycle.
This is one of the many reasons that I am so excited to come to Bryn Mawr. Despite our socioeconomic, ethnic, religious, and other classifications that we discussed in class yesterday, we are all here to claim a terrific liberal arts education. Though we may at times define ourselves by these classifications, I believe that within the classroom, our devotion to learning will outwit these pre-set boundaries, and give us the opportunity to express our unique perspectives in the form of discussion, writing, etc.

Hello everyone,

My name is Tanya Hamid and I am from Broomall, Pennsylvania, about twenty minutes from Bryn Mawr College. I am an only child. You can all imagine what it was like for my parents to drop me off at my dorm last week.

Hi everybody! My name is Jordan Schwartz and I'm from Atlanta, GA. I plan to study a combination of sciences that will include a little biology to continue on to law school for bioethics. Also as a huge theatre dork I plan to be in the Shakespeare troupe and having swam competatively all of middle school and high school, I hope to join the BMC swim team. Can't wait to get to know all of you better through the esem :)

My name is Jillian Harmon and I'm from a few different places I call home. My primary home is in Ithaca, NY, where I live with a friend outside of Cornell's campus. I've come to love Ithaca for its quirky hippies who walk their pigs down the street and beautiful gorges that integrate well with the city and connect me to nature. I also live in Spencer, NY, a rural one-stoplight town 30 minutes from Ithaca. This is my home town, although I feel little connection to it. Lastly, my birth mother is from the Philippines, but today she lives in Chicago. Growing up in three distinct environments (small city, rural town, giant metropolis) gave me a lot to reflect upon as I was growing up. I've always been curious about the way people see themselves within their environment and the cultures and attitudes of each of the places I've lived. Listening to viewpoints ranging from democrat and liberal (Ithaca) to republican and conservative (Spencer) have really led me to challenge what I believe in and why I believe it.

I’m Elissa Matheny.  I grew up in Durham, New Hampshire, a small university town.  However, this summer my parents moved to St. Louis, so now I have a new home in the Midwest, quite a different experience from New England.   I’m really excited to be in In Class/Outclassed because although I’ve never considered myself interested in becoming an educator, I’ve discovered a recent fascination for learning about educational reform in America.

I’m Jody Cohen, teacher of one of the ESem sections, and I’ll introduce myself by sharing a piece of my educational autobiography.  I grew up in a suburb outside Washington, D.C.