I really enjoyed all of this week's readings, and found them to be very thought provoking. Reading Hill's Hip Hop article was especially interesting given the connections between the article and the panelist, Jay Fluellen. Something that Mr. Fluellen mentioned in class was how he tried to tailor his curriculum to his students, so when he went to a school with a big Latin@ community he used Hispanic music. Similarly, Hill talks about his class on hip hop that had a majority black student population, and how all the students (Black, Black but not "real", and non-Black) felt that the class was geared towards Black students.

The articles written by Emanuel and Silverstone present two classic viewpoints representative of the medical approach to patient care vs. the social work approach. The medical approach is to tell a patient what is good for them and then to do everything they can to arrange services/treatments that will point the patient in that direction.The social work approach is to be patient-centered: to listen carefully to what the patient says that they want, and then support them in achieving their goal. It is no wonder then, following these two different approaches, that Emanuel is instructing us all to give up the ghost at 75 while Silverstone is suggesting that we all live in our own homes for as long as possible.

This is an interesting (if rather old and a touch biases) short thought piece by Deborah Tannen on the issues of marked versus unmarked categories, in the context of gender. http://faculty.georgetown.edu/tannend/nyt062093.htm

So, I chose to have class inside last Thursday and I would say that I thought we had had a pretty productive class period. For me personally, although I was engaged, it was a bit distracting because the journalism student shadowing Anne was tying and it was kind of loud in my ear. I'm not sure if the person sitting on the other side of her felt the same way, but sometimes I felt myself being drawn towards what she was doing and zoning out for a bit. But, otherwise I thought we had a pretty good class. The discussion wnet very well to me and everyone was awake and alert.

This article made me consider especially how not only international students, but students of different SES backgrounds have different access and different conceptions of culture. The world of academia seems to, whether overtly or not, promote a singular kind of culture.

How do we teach students to recognize and be interested in the different kinds of culture that exist within our divided, diverse community? Are there academic ways to bridge the gaps presented by socio-economic cultural differences in providing opportunities for students to interact with others with different backgrounds?

Can we provide more opportunities in the academic space to question the socioeconomic implications of the canon and how those expectations of knowledge might divide our community?