This image is from an episode of West Wing, where people bring in a map of the world that is upside-down and explain why it changes everything. The initial reaction, of course, is to laugh because it's such an odd idea and seems so trivial. However, once I began actually looking into this after our class discussion of "world travel" and perceptions, I realized there is actually something to it. For one thing, the continents are re-sized more acurately, but also it does make you think about the relationship between North and South and Top and Bottom. Even if you don't realize it, I certaintly didn't, constantly seeing the US as near the top of the world, or at least above other countries on the map has an implication of power and importance. Imagine if we were no longer North America, but South? Besides the fact that it sounds weird, are there any other reasons we would object?

While listening to the TED talk I found myself both agreeing and disagreeing with this idea of a "single story". Initially I agreed because frequently there are single stories or party lines that get fed to us and when you actually research the topic you find out that there were a million other voices that got ignored in favor of one idea. However, it was that thought that made me question the conclusion even as I came to it. Is an idea a "single story" of sorts? When you hear an idea or story don't you automatically internalize it in one way or another and make it different? Even if it's just the difference between laughing at something or not, or agreeing with a statement or remaining silent--doesn't that change the way other people see it (or hear it, read it, etc.)? 

On Thursday I worked with a student on her college essay. She asked me to read it over and provide feedback. After reading the first paragraph and skimming the rest I immediately thought this won’t do. Her story was not compelling enough and did not highlight her agency. In addition to the missing “wow” factor it lacked an inviting introduction and presented no hard-hitting obstacle she overcame that communicated her resiliency and strength. It failed to do what I was told a “winning” essay would do, which was, captivate an audience by telling a story.  In trying to help improve her essay I immediately went to my email and began sifting through my inbox to find samples of college essays given to me during my junior year as well as my own “mission statement” for her to use as a guide. As soon as I opened up that document for her I regretted how I was handling the situation.

On Thursday I worked with a student on her college essay. She asked me to read it over and provide feedback. After reading the first paragraph and skimming the rest I immediately thought this won’t do. Her story was not compelling enough and did not highlight her agency. In addition to the missing “wow” factor it lacked an inviting introduction and presented no hard-hitting obstacle she overcame that communicated her resiliency and strength. It failed to do what I was told a “winning” essay would do, which was, captivate an audience by telling a story.  In trying to help improve her essay I immediately went to my email and began sifting through my inbox to find samples of college essays given to me during my junior year as well as my own “mission statement” for her to use as a guide. As soon as I opened up that document for her I regretted how I was handling the situation.

On Thursday I worked with a student on her college essay. She asked me to read it over and provide feedback. After reading the first paragraph and skimming the rest I immediately thought this won’t do. Her story was not compelling enough and did not highlight her agency. In addition to the missing “wow” factor it lacked an inviting introduction and presented no hard-hitting obstacle she overcame that communicated her resiliency and strength. It failed to do what I was told a “winning” essay would do, which was, captivate an audience by telling a story.  In trying to help improve her essay I immediately went to my email and began sifting through my inbox to find samples of college essays given to me during my junior year as well as my own “mission statement” for her to use as a guide. As soon as I opened up that document for her I regretted how I was handling the situation.

When Freire discusses how learning becomes “techniques, naively considered to be neutral, by means of which the educational process is standardized in a sterile and bureaucratic operation” I step back to analyze what goals public education has and how these goals have been sterilized. I question what the intent is for public education today. Pressure to perform on standardized tests are causing the classroom to be centered around the test. But what are the goals of the test? One could argue, such as myself, that tests funnel students into reproduction of socio-economic class status. Tests do seek to also gauge whether a student has mastered certain material. To use standardized tests to judge whether a student knows how to read then makes literacy a standardized and sterile activity. Centering a classroom around the assessment tool does not provide in-depth experiential education on a topic. As educators I believe we should focus on the goals of the tests not on the tests themselves. How can we shift the focus off high-stakes testing when salaries, school funding, and schools remaining open depends on test results? How can our students be successful on tests without us teaching to the test?

One of my biggest questions for many years of my life has been, “what grade do I want to teach?” It has never been a question of IF I’m going to teach, but rather where I will be along the education spectrum. Throughout middle and high school I desired to be a Pre-K teacher, then moving up to include Pre-K through first grade. Upon coming to Bryn Mawr, the question arose all over again and I thought I had settled on third grade and had been complacent about that decision for about half a year, but have recently been questioning and re-evaluating things again. My recent thoughts had been that I wanted to have an impact in a place in the students’ life where it was more content-based, as the toddler years tend to be more about teaching social skills.

I’ve been working at Thorne School (the pre-school on campus) for the past two years and have loved my interactions with the children. Last year I was thinking that while I like working there, I wanted to have a different impact on children. But this year, I seem to be going back to my previous choice. This past week while reading books to children at the school, I was noticing how their vocabulary repertoire was building through those simple interactions as they continually asked for clarification on the meaning of words that they were unfamiliar with. It got me thinking that I love that, helping build their understanding and witnessing their desire to understand, and how important that can be at that very young and tender age.

This week I wanted to focus my blog post on the value of education.  I am currently taking an economics class at Haverford entitled Microfinance.  The first segment of the course is on poverty and this past week we have been focusing on education.  I think most people in the developed world would argue that education has value but what about the people on the other side of the world whose children have been in school through fifth grade but still cannot read a simple paragraph?  Literacy is a difficult tool to develop but some progress should be made in five years.  The majority of families around the world are educating their children but how much are they actually getting in return? How can families below the poverty line in developing countries measure this value?  How do parents decide whether or not they should send one of their 4 children to school for 15 years, or send all of their children to school but only through basic primary education?  In this class we have been looking at how literacy is defined and its cultural value.

I was having a conversation with one of my friends who is currently taking an ASL (American Sign Language) class at UPenn.  She was telling me about a talk she has to go to and our discussion really got me thinking about some of the themes in this class.  

First, she introduced me to the word "co-equality" which according to Webster's online dictionary means "the state of being equal."  However when she was referring to it in relation to her ASL class it was a bit more specific to context.  This is something we've been talking about a lot in expanding our definitions of literacy; the idea that one can be literate (or equal) in one context does not mean they are literate (or equal) in all contexts and situations.  My friend pointed out to me that the deaf community is one of the few disability communities which is expected to almost completely assimlate into "normal" society.  I say community because the deaf community has their own language and in many ways culture (whereas most other disabilities do not) but it is widely ignored by the hearing community as a whole.  I'm not trying to make a statment about whether this is good or bad, it is simply reality.  It is relevant to this class because as we're thinking about different kinds of literacies and different contexts, I think it is a really good example of how language goes beyond the ability to read and write.  

If anyone is interested in going to the talk at UPenn, here is a link to the description and such:http://bit.ly/wdFcoi