Remote Ready Biology Learning Activities

Your Reactions to the Final Presentations Name: Anne Dalke Date: 2003-12-02 13:50:47 Link to this Comment: 7426

So, friends, we arrive at the end of the semester. Please take time during these last two weeks to describe your reactions to (mostly: what you have been learning from/how your thinking has been expanded by) your classmates' presentations of their final projects.

sex ed for kids Name: Laurel Date: 2003-12-03 11:19:55 Link to this Comment: 7439

The little kids books were great, thanks so much Megan. Something I noticed is that all of the books still associate sex with reproduction education...how babies are made, etc. We are still squeamish about teaching sex as pleasure to little kids. In my Vic. Lit. class we've been talking a lot about the sexualization of children. We don't want to grant them sexuality, but we sexualize them constantly. Were the Brave New World folks on to something?

Seniors and Sexuality Name: KB Date: 2003-12-03 22:39:15 Link to this Comment: 7453

I think Garron's research project on the sexuality of seniors is a great one. I found her survey and our small group discussions to be quite interesting and useful. It sparked a thought in my mind that wasn't brought up in class, but that I wanted to share on the forum. I waitressed this summer at a restaurant in a beach community on Long Island, where many wealthy people from NYC would vacation. I can not tell you the number of old men I had come into the restaurant with significantly younger women. I swear, so many of these 70 year old men still considered themselves to be the Wall St. playboys they were eons ago. It was such a common phenomenon out there, that these old men were still viewed as extremely sexual and desirable (I'd argue this was so because these men were filthy rich). Yet, I really did not see the same with old women. There are plenty of wealthy older women out there, so why weren't they prancing around with younger men?

BMC and Relationships Name: Sarah Date: 2003-12-04 12:51:49 Link to this Comment: 7461

I just wanted to post some of the questions Catherine and I raised today during our presentation. We would really appreciate any feedback you all might have. The main questions are:

Is the language of healthy/unhealthy helpful, necessary, restricting, etc.? What information do people need to identify when they're in an unhealthy/abusive/controlling relationship, or when their friends might be in one? How can this information best be distributed? What are the particular dynamics of the BMC culture that we need to take into consideration in attempting to provide this sort of information? Should we be providing information per se, or would it be better to have some sort of discussion forum? How would we get people to participate?

Okay, that turned out to be a lot of questions. Answers to even one or two would be lovely. :-)

final presentations: comments on week one Name: Anne Dalke Date: 2003-12-04 14:37:22 Link to this Comment: 7465

I'm very much enjoying these presentations; thank you all for telling us about your final projects. As you talk, I find myself struck by how very embedded "sex education" is in the larger culture:

• how limited Ingrid's teaching is (given the much larger social interventions which are needed to keep such courses from being required);
• how guided Garron's pamphlets need be by the "reality" of being a senior, how much they might actually change what is;
• how Megan's books showed us that children in 1957 (like children now?) were instructed "not to talk with other people about their bodies, unless you are sure they think like we do";
• how the "healthy/unhealthy" relationships Catherine and Sarah talk about are never simply dyadic, by deeply informed (distorted?) by familial ones, as well as by other ("helping"?) friendships;
• how "gender roles" and "missing discourse of desire" which Heather and Tia want to bring into the classroom need to take account of "how we define success...."

Anyhow: these are very large tasks we are taking on, w/ many ramifications. For one of them, take a look @ the link to the faculty-staff discussion I mentioned today, about Measuring Success after Bryn Mawr.

random musings... Name: Sarah Date: 2003-12-04 18:24:54 Link to this Comment: 7469

I wanted to respond to various things here. First, to answer Heather's question, the discourse of desire was definitely missing in my elementary, middle, and high school sex ed classes. It would have been nice to know that sex would feel good, that I could choose to have sex, and that masturbation was okay (although I did get these message from other sources--I was a voracious reader). I internalized the fears of getting STD's or becoming pregnant to the point where I definitely had firm boundaries in the beginning of my current relationship (and still have a couple boundaries left). I agree that these boundaries are based on fear, but at the same time I think a little bit of fear is healthy...getting pregnant is extremely scary to me at this point!

This makes me think of the roleplay that Anne's group did in which Jeff got dumped because "a relationship without sex is not a healthy one". I had a huge problem with that statement...I agree that if there's no sensuality or erotic touching at all there might be something wrong (and you'd probably have a friendship instead of a romantic relationship), but in my view condemning every relationship without sex is just as bad as ultra-conservative Christians condemning every non-marital relationship WITH sex. I can say from experience that it IS a huge problem when expectations for sex don't match within a relationship...while a partner has the right to say no, the other partner is going to feel unfulfilled.

As to Katie's comment about why old men get young women, I would say it's mostly the money...also the possibility that older men may be more mature than younger ones (ie more intellectually stimulating, more generous, more wise about life). Then of course there's the societal idea that women grow uglier/saggier/wrinklier as they age while men grow more "distinguished". (Ergo men are always looking for younger models.) Plus there's that whole biology thing we read about several weeks ago...could it be that urge that women feel to be provided for? I know we shot the biology thing full of holes, but you never know. :-)

Thoughts sparked by Tia and Heather's presentation Name: garron Date: 2003-12-04 21:34:06 Link to this Comment: 7471

First, I want to thank all four presenters today. Thank you Tia, Heather, Catherine and Sarah. I really enjoyed class today and appreciate the work you put into your presentations.

Okay, on to the thoughts sparked by Tia and Heather's presentation . . .

I must agree that the discourse of desire is missing in a lot of sex education. As for my praxis site, I think Planned Parenthood has tried to include desire and the joy of sexuality to some extent in a couple of their Teen Times curriculums (the cirriculums we use for our site visits), but maybe we could use more discourse on disire. . .

At first I thought to myself that we couldn't include more discourse on desire because we only have limited time and we have really important information to share about birth control, stds, pelvic exams etc., but the more I think about it the more I think about it the more I think that maybe more attention needs to be paid to the discourse of disire despite the importance of the other information we disseminate.
Why?
First, maybe sex educators and should see educating about the enjoyment, pleasure, and desire sexuality as more important that they/we currently see it because it is important part of sexuality.
Second, perhaps if more time and energy was spent on the discourse of desire in sex education students would be less likely or tune out valid health information because they would have the impression that they are receiving a more balanced and well rounded education about sex.

Why isn't the discourse of desire included in more sex education?
1) Lack of time
2) Fear of funding cuts for teaching "controvertial" issues
3) Fear a discourse of desire will encourage sexual activity, the spread of stds, teen pregnancy, etc.
4) ***I think a lot of sex education programs see themselves not as a program to teach about the broad range of issues and feelings associated with sexuality, but as a PUBLIC HEALTH services. Sex educators see their/our jobs as the dissementors of public health information in order to limit the spread of STDS (especially AIDS), and lower the number of unwanted pregnancies. Disease and pregnancy prevention are the goals. Are these the proper or appropriate goals? That's for another web posting . . .

What I do want to make sure to say in this posting is that I think a good and effective way to address a discourse of desire is through fiction. I think Judy Blume single handedly taught tens of thousands of boys and girls, women and men that desire is okay, that sexuality can be pleasurable even without penatrative sex, and that masterbation for both genders is common, normal, and acceptable. What I'm trying to say is that I think that at times fiction can make a point or provide information much more effectively than statistics.

I have more I want to say, especially about educational theory. Kindergarden through 8th grade I went to a school founded on the teachings of John Dewey. My experiences at my grade school cause me to have some thoughts regarding the questions Anne asked regarding assessment of "success" when looking at nontraditional educational spaces. I have so much to say, but I'm late going home, so those thoughts will have to wait for another time.

Thanks for listening to my long entry.

Relationships Name: KB Date: 2003-12-09 15:01:10 Link to this Comment: 7490

I just answer some of Sarah's questions regarding educating the Bryn Mawr community about healthy relationships. I have several thoughts...hmm, where to start?

I liked Catherine's comment about how all too often on this campus, there are programs that aid students after the fact, as opposed to before or during. I feel like if a student on campus is in an abusive relationship, she is not going to seek out help and/or admit that there is a problem until she is ready. And I don't think you can force anyone to to admit any aspect of themselves or a relationship they are in until they are ready.

With that said, I can't help thinking about the harm reduction concept presented to us today by Ali and Laura. If we can't force someone to accept that they are in an unhealthy relationship, then maybe all we can do is educate with the hope that it will prevent someone, or open someone's eyes to what they are dealing with.

I also think that in order for anything to be ameliorated, it needs to be discussed. In terms of unhealthy relationships, I don't think it needs to be soley abusive relationships. It can encompass friendships, student/professor relationships, and worker/boss relationships. So, creating a forum on Bryn Mawr's campus where students could discuss anything about relationships would be ideal, in my mind. Perhaps offered monthly, students could discuss the fight they're having with their best friend, their parents' need to be overprotective, or their how to confront a boyfriend who is making fun of women's colleges.

Those are just a few ideas and thoughts...hope they help!

the language of rape law Name: Anne Dalke Date: 2003-12-09 16:03:18 Link to this Comment: 7492

I'm learning so much from your all's final presentations; thank you for all you are teaching me. Here's what my brain picked up in the first two presentations today:

Anjali very usefully reconceptualized sexual aggression as a men's issue. I found myself wondering, though, whether the sort of treatment programs she was describing even begin to approach causes (or cures); I'm afraid they intervene much too late into social and psychological structures that need to be attended to much earlier in life--and that the motivations for self-change need to be intrinsic, not extrinsic.

In her analysis of the language of rape law, Jessie called my attention to three things:

• the typification of raped behavior (the need of the victim to present herself as victimized/traumatized);
• the adherence to the "standard of utmost resistance, " the need to prove lack of consent by not abating in resisting; and (relatedly, and most strikingly);
• the use of language in which the self is portrayed as an ineffective agent: women must displace themselves as the subjects of sentences (as subjects) to get convictions against their aggressors.

Now THERE's a Catch-22.

Name: Anne Dalke Date: 2003-12-09 16:09:45 Link to this Comment: 7493

Continued musings about today's in-class presentations:

I have a lot of questions about the ideal of harm reduction which Ali presented: I wrote about this before in a posting on Harm-Reduction, Risk-Taking and "Bloodchild," in which I expressed my reservations about its relationship to the core value of my teaching: exploration and the risk-taking it encourages. Basically, I was worried that if one BEGAN from the postiion of "do no harm," then one might not arrive @ new ideas or actions, for fear of hurting another (this idea has come up repeatedly in the diversity discussions, most recently in a conversation about mutual empowerment: committing ourselves to accepting the risk of both offending and being offended in order to learn new things/expand our worlds....

That's why Laura's (too-hurried; sorry, Laura!) presentation was SO striking to me: her claim that "harm reduction" for sex workers could not be limited to making condoms freely available, that it had to include mutual education and shared information: now THAT sounds empowering! In our CSem this fall, Paul Grobstein and I used an essay he wrote, called "It's Not Just My Problem, Friend," which lays out pretty well the paradoxical effect of learning how to think: yes, it's dangerous and risky....but/and you'll feel safer doing it!

thanks Name: Sarah Date: 2003-12-09 23:10:51 Link to this Comment: 7495

Thanks for your thoughts, Katie. One other question: is anyone in this class in the Rainbow Alliance group on campus? Would there be any place on their website or perhaps at one of their meetings to incorporate some stuff about violent relationships happening even within the lesbian community?

Name: Catherine Date: 2003-12-10 22:53:54 Link to this Comment: 7502

Hello Everyone,

First off, thank you to those who had ideas/suggestions for The Women's Center of Montgomery County, Sarah and me. They are inspiring.
Well, I wanted to put out some final ideas out there, and see what you all think. Basically, to introduce Healthy/Unhealthy relationship issues to Bryn Mawr's campus and the Women's Center, we were thinking that there needs to be a lot of involvement from our campus' different organizations. If we try to introduce conversation about this topic in many different areas, there are more chances that someone who needs the education will receive the message. For instance, Sarah and I were talking to HAs/Customspeople, Counseling Services, Peer Mentoring Services, Community Service Office, etc.
Another idea we had was for the Women's Center to create a web site for college students so that they could hold discussions from all around and it would be a safe environment to let out any opinions, ideas, and so on. Perhaps if it became wanted/necessary, we could establish a Bryn Mawr website specifically for our student body.
The table tents idea mentioned in class was great; Sarah and I both think that it is a good way to reach out to students. But do you guys think that we should put something like hotline numbers, where to get help on campus, general information on these or some sort of intervention method, like asking very touchy questions, to really hit the reader hard?
There is a national domestic violence month (October), and I was thinking that our school has unique ways of portraying and dealing with different issues; could a theater group possibly do a serious play on healthy/unhealthy relationships?
One thing that would be great is also if the school's administration itself would get involved. Could there be mandatory training for HAs, customspeople, and should they be dispensing information to incoming freshwomen? Could there be 2-3 discussions and lectures sponsored by the college? When an issue which interests many students and has a tie with the healthy/unhealthy relationship concept arises, should we have someone immediately put together panels and discussions?
The last idea I really want to put out there is a bit of a stretch, and much more idealistic at this point. It would be great to have some sort of workshop for couples (not sure whether one person or both should show up), and singles workshops. Just talking things out and outlining the basics for a healthy relationship, in a fun environment would be nice. This would not be advertised as 'trying to figure out whether you're bound for an unhealthy relationship.' As we've already said in class, prevention is what we want to address.
Also, what did you all think of our activity in class? We want to install something in the Wellness class but are unsure that we have the authority necessary to implement anything. We were thinking of asking for the Women's Center's help on this.
Anyway, I would love to hear feedback from the class. Please feel free to contact me by e-mail (crhy@bmc). And on a side note, Sarah and I thought that the Planned Parenthood activity of handing out slips of paper, some with diseases and other things written on them to show the statistics was a brilliant idea, and maybe we could incorporate that somewhere?
Hearing about everyone's Praxis placements was interesting; even though I did not get to try out all of the getting some information through fellow classmates was nice.
Thank you for a good semester!

Exploding With Comments.... Name: Grannis Date: 2003-12-10 23:40:44 Link to this Comment: 7503

The presentations (and the ensuing e-conversations) I have listened to thusfar in class have been SO interesting that I'm just bursting at the seams to talk... so, prepare for a crazy posting....

Megan,Garron and Ingrid: Although I was absent the day all of you presented, I spoke with some of my classmates about your presentation, and have been quite intrigued by the web postings pertaining to your projects. It sounds like Ingrid's teaching is very limiting-- or rather, the curriculum from which she is teaching is constrictive. Why? Is it because planned parenthood wants to maintain boundaries in the classroom by avoiding a "discourse of desire" and instead using a "discourse of biology and public health" in speaking of sex? Garron, your comments in the posting you did on dec. 12 spoke perfectly to these questions of mine. Your statement that perhaps the discourse of desire is avoided b/c educators are afraid such a discourse will increase sexual activity is all too true, I fear--- this makes me nervous. It seems like by neglecting to adopt a discourse of desire in sex-ed, only the negative and "scary" aspects of sex will be emphasized. And in this case, I think students will be less apt to realize what a powerful and IMPORTANT act sex really is, that it is not something to be taken lightly on any level (health, emotional, intellectual, whatever), and this undermines the effectiveness of the sexual "education."
Megan, I remember earlier in the semester, I flipped through one of the books you were using for your final project. I was extremely intrigued by its representation of sex- not about desire at all, but about the physicality of sex- growing up, puberty and the differences in sex organs, the use of it for making babies, etc. It stuck to such a "cookie-cutter" ideal of sex--- perhaps, the image of sex that is least likely to be challenged by society. I know that in my sex ed courses, I learned nothing about the importance of consensual sex: the closest thing to it that we discussed was the violence of rape. Back to the inside outside phenom: using violence and rape to define consensual sex. Interesting.

Now, on to Heather and Tia: Having read Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paolo Freire about three times (I think it's one of the most influential texts i've ever read!), I found your presentations fascinating. One thing that kept coming to mind was something we read earlier this semester in our anthologies: the piece about sex-ed by Julia Switzer and Amanda Chudnow. Out of curiosity, how are your classrooms set up? Is there a blackboard? Are there desks? How are they arranged? I meant to ask, but we were pressed for time :-). It sounds like the sisters' program is really breaking free from the banking system of education. This is exciting- it ought to make what you're instilling in the girls more meaningful to them.

Catherine and Sarah: First of all, I am (kind of) involved with Rainbow Alliance, and Lindsay Rowe is an acquaintance of mine. I would recommend getting in touch with her... there is a website for RA and I'm sure we could host relationship info on it.
Anyway, in response to some of your questions:
***Is the language of healthy/unhealthy helpful, necessary, restricting, etc.?---I believe it is difficult to try and classify a relationship in terms of such a binary model. "Healthy" and "unhealthy" to one person may be completely different for another, so I think trying to come up with an objective checklist of criteria for determining whether a relationship is healthy/ unhealthy is constricting. However, I do think it is productive to provide people with resources that encourage them to examine whether or not they feel COMFORTABLE in their relationships, and if so, why not.

***How can this information best be distributed?--- In my opinion, the best way to distribute this info is by word of mouth, in the form of advice to friends. I think pamphlets tend to be impersonal and very limiting; personally, I am turned off by pamphlets. I am rather averse to "soapboxes" and prefer it when people speak directly to me with conversational language.

***What are the particular dynamics of the BMC culture that we need to take into consideration in attempting to provide this sort of information?--- Take into consideration that BMC students aren't always very big participators in workshops and seminars- unless, that is, they offer a chance for students to vent together. So with this in mind, I would suggest getting in touch with Dr. Kerr at the Health Center and possibly organizing some kind of support group for people dealing with difficult relationships on campus. Group therapy could be very beneficial- even if it was student-led.

***Should we be providing information per se, or would it be better to have some sort of discussion forum? How would we get people to participate?---I would definitely advocate a discussion forum.... letting people share their own experiences and relate to one another is a wonderful way for (effective) healing to take place.

Moving on to Anjali and Jessie..... Anjali, while your project sounds wonderful in theory, I just can't help wondering if it would actually have that much of an impact in practice. I agree that even just preventing one case and saving one person from the trauma is valuable, but where would the funds come from for something like this, and how could we ensure that it was presented in a manner that catered to the target individuals? I agree with Anne.... I think we need to intervene at the point of prevention, and try and fix the root of the problem.
Jessie--- I never considered the "role" that a rape victim is expected to play. How interesting... and disturbing. This is something that we really need to examine. Out of curiosity, how frequently are lie-detector tests administered to the parties involved in rape cases? That would be interesting to know....

Finally, Ali and Laura: Harm-reduction sounds like a very powerful concept... like a very effective way of helping people cope without trying to force them into conforming to some objective standard of what is "normal" or "healthy." However, in regards to what Anne said, I see how it could potentially be limiting if used in an educational context (whether emotional or intellectual).

Well, that's a lot of posting... sorry, but i was bursting with excitement.
*grIn*

Impressed Name: Megan Date: 2003-12-11 15:59:07 Link to this Comment: 7510

I wanted to let you all know how impressed I've been with all of your presentations. I wish we could have delved into them deeper because each one was so interesting and engaging. I could tell that everyone had spent a great deal of time thinking about their topic and were really interested in creating a unique project. I wish you all the best of luck as you work towards completing your portfolios.

Reactions to "Women's Wisdom @ Work..." Name: Anne Dalke Date: 2003-12-12 21:53:38 Link to this Comment: 7518

First: SUCH pleasure @ all the verve and energy generated by the four of you guys working together: I very much liked seeing the product(s) of the synergy between Katie, Laurel, Laura and Ro.

Next: was VERY struck that your exploration of sexuality in the workplace led you so quickly into an analysis of the existential nature of power, of what Katie described as women's conflicting desire for and discomfort w/ having agency.  It makes a lot of sense to me that "where you stand depends upon where you sit," that women w/ power in the workplace enjoy sexual play there, while women w/out it wish for an "asexual" space.

Where I started to have questions, though, was w/ the proposal that "women should" explore a "new discourse" of power that attends more carefully to relationships. I was put in mind, as Laurel was talking, of the most recent discussion in the diversity series, at the end of which it became clear that a particular "disability" of women's interactions may actually be our "huge fear of offending and being offended, so that we seldom talk to one another about what we really think"; we observed in that conversation that "if our primary concern is comfort, then mutual learning will not happen."

With that discussion still ricocheting in the pool table that is my mind, it wasn't clear to me, for instance, just how the "integrative system" you all described could actually achieve mutual empowerment : does "re-evaluating ideas of success" mean (for instance) a loss of individual achievement--as success is conventionally defined? I'm okay w/ that. But if it means a reduction in individual exploration, well...I'm far less enthusiastic about that possibility!

Listening to Laura's description of how lesbians play roles ("sports buddy"?) outside the matrix of "mother/daughter/wife" to which straight women so often find themselves confined at work, I was put in mind of Jakki Rowlett's senior thesis on Anais Nin, which I'm now directing. In her opening section, Jakki talks about the ways in which desire makes women powerless: if you want something that your partner does not need, you are in the "one-down" position. How to re-negotiate that? How to make the relationship reciprocal: by somehow denying what it is you know you want??

Also of particular (and quite-related) interest to me was Ro.'s explanation of how "being morally superior boxes you in," becomes a "self-afflicted handicap" because it denies you the possibility of change or negotiation.

Thanks, once more, for all the learning: I took a great deal of joy in seeing it enacted, and in learning from it in turn.

presentations week one: healthy and unhealthy rela Name: Jessie Date: 2003-12-14 20:22:23 Link to this Comment: 7525

I'm worried that I'm in an abusive relationship. My partner controls everything I do, who I can talk to, where I can go. I can't go out to the movies with friends or she'll tell me I'm not paying her enough attention. Usually she'll want me to just stay with her and do what she wants instead (usually study). When we do things together, she makes all the plans, and it's always the same thing: painting picture frames, snacking on chips, drinking smoothies. I can't have a pet because she won't allow it. She won't let me keep certain things in my room, not even a toaster oven. She won't even let me read my own choice in books. This fall, she's only been letting me read books that have to do with Film Theory, Acting, Latin, or, strangely enough, Sex. She says it's all for my own good. Or, in her words, "I don't mean to sketch you out. It's just because I want you to get an amazing education. Don't be such a tool, man."

Yes, my relationship with Bryn Mawr, I'm afraid, has gone bad. She won't stop threatening me. If I don't finish my gym credits by the end of next year, she'll disenroll me. If I don't cite properly, she'll kick me out. Sometimes it's even senseless, trivial things. She won't let me use certain staircases or say certain arcane Greek words. I sometimes wish I could leave her, but as she reminds me, if I do, I'll be disadvantaged in this mysoginist and class-based society we live in, and subjected to the downward tracking system inherent to a patriarchal, capitalist culture.

I have a plan to leave her by the end of next week. But somehow I have the feeling that I'll come back to her within a month... it just seems like I can never stay away for long... If only she could be as charming as she promised back in my high school days...

presentations week 2: rape and the legal system Name: Jessie Date: 2003-12-14 20:27:41 Link to this Comment: 7526

I really support Anjali's proposal of sex ed for all convicted sex offenders. Ideologically, this would shift the blame from victims to the assailants and make the latter expressly accountable for their actions. Limiting sex ed to self-selected criminals, rather than all convicted offenders, purports an idea of there are a few sick men and the rest are okay. It lays the blame on deviant hormones rather than on more complex, perhaps intrinsic, perhaps cultural factors. This idea is exemplified by the use of the "behavioral treatment" Anjali was talking about – though faulty hormones may have something to do with it, to lay all blame on this is to simplify and downplay what I think is a huge cultural problem.

Grannis: really good question. In order for a rape report to be accepted by the police, the alleged victim has to submit to whatever form of legitimacy tests the police require from her, including medical examinations, psychiatric evaluations, and lie detectors. Though polygraphs are not officially required, they are not expressly banned either, and they are frequently employed. And moreover, if the alleged victim is asked, she must comply or her case will be declared unfounded. I agree, I think this is a pretty clear indication of who our society's investigates for blame in a rape case.

role playing Name: Ali Date: 2003-12-19 12:44:03 Link to this Comment: 7559

First of all, awesome job everyone! What will all do now without our biweekly sex talks?

I've been thinking about Jessie's presentation in relation to the Ro/Laurel/Grannis/Katie's presentation. In both the question arises whether it is (morally) right and/or beneficial to play into a predesigned role. For the victim of rape, Jessie has shown that a woman MUST play into a role of hysterical, violated, tramatized otherwise she will be discredited. Her experience is only valid if she is weakened by it. With the former, if a woman plays into a role she can either flourish (use her feminine privilege as a tool to fight to the top) or fail (becoming just another female stereotype). Language plays a huge part in these roles and what especially bothers me is that "proper" languge is necessary to categorize rape.

Just a passing thought, hope it sparks questions within you.

Name: Date: 2003-12-19 23:53:25 Link to this Comment: 7568

thanks to all who said they enjoyed our presentation.
to answer grannis' question at sisters, the classroom is really just the library, with 4 long rectangular tables set up in a circluar fashion. the girls do some writing, so that tables are a good thing, plus i think keeping some type of set up from a typical classroom is good, beause the girls are pre-adolescent, and a bit hyper, and sometimes need to be reminded that while this program is fun, they still need to listen and respect each other.

i must say that i really enjoyed every presentation thati saw. i felt like the Sisters program has been talked about soooo much, so it was nice hearing from everyone. i enjoyed the role-playing in women's center presentation. i thought it was interesting how all the different types of relationship are connected and can play off of each other. it was alos nice to see how in some groups the boyfriend wasnt alway automatically seen as the bad guy.

i also enjoyed hearing about sex from a legal standpoint, as was the case with jessie and anjali's presentations. i think anjali had really interesting thoughts about how to rehabilatate sex offenders. prizon rehabilitation is a very hot topic for me, because i think the current prizon system is horrible. so it was nice seeing someone who has ideas about how to make persons who commit crimes effecient members of society again.

Name: tia Date: 2003-12-19 23:53:49 Link to this Comment: 7569

thanks to all who said they enjoyed our presentation.
to answer grannis' question at sisters, the classroom is really just the library, with 4 long rectangular tables set up in a circluar fashion. the girls do some writing, so that tables are a good thing, plus i think keeping some type of set up from a typical classroom is good, beause the girls are pre-adolescent, and a bit hyper, and sometimes need to be reminded that while this program is fun, they still need to listen and respect each other.

i must say that i really enjoyed every presentation thati saw. i felt like the Sisters program has been talked about soooo much, so it was nice hearing from everyone. i enjoyed the role-playing in women's center presentation. i thought it was interesting how all the different types of relationship are connected and can play off of each other. it was alos nice to see how in some groups the boyfriend wasnt alway automatically seen as the bad guy.

i also enjoyed hearing about sex from a legal standpoint, as was the case with jessie and anjali's presentations. i think anjali had really interesting thoughts about how to rehabilatate sex offenders. prizon rehabilitation is a very hot topic for me, because i think the current prizon system is horrible. so it was nice seeing someone who has ideas about how to make persons who commit crimes effecient members of society again.