Stereotypes and risk

Today we discussed the stereotype threat that the A&K readings covered. The stereotype threat is very real. It can either put pressure on a student to preform above the grade to prove the stereotype wrong or will decide not to really try because they have always been told they can't.
I kind of understand how they feel, I was in foster care where everyone thought there was something inherently wrong with me. I had to work twice as hard to prove to the teachers I was not a bad person. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGEUVM6QuMg This is a link to a video that has Dr Steele in it talking about this threat,

Racism today

In class we took the voting Louisiana voting test. If a class of 10 college seniors and the professor can not pass it how were blacks who were not allowed an education supposed to be able to? That was the point at that time. It was not about being able to vote competently it was about keeping blacks from voting period. This is a link that talks about the test and the voting tax. http://specialcollections.tulane.edu/PolyEph/Poll.htm
Another subject for discussion in class was what makes race? There is no one true test of race therefore race is a conundrum. What really makes us who we are has nothing to do with the colour of our skin or our ancestry. Stereotypes and racism need to be eradicated. I liked the way Mr Smith de-constructed race in the wu reading, it made his students really think about prejudiced and stereotyping people. The question of who is qualified to teach about racial issues was also brought up. I am not sure there is a right answer for that question.
In the A&K readings the failure of Brown V Board of Education was discussed. We spoke on how moving students out of poor areas did not help and maybe we should reverse the process and move richer kids into the poorer schools might help. We discussed different ways in which to make school funding and resources more equitable. We did not come up with a solution but we had some good ideas.

different is not always so different

This week in class we discussed racism in schools and different ways to combat it. Starting children learning about and being aware of racism at an early age may help combat the belief that different is bad. I liked the me pocket idea that was brought out in the WU readings. I also got a taste of what students whose first language is not English go through. I tried very hard to understand Kerri's instructions but just couldn't. When I asked her to translate she said no. I felt really stupid. One thing we touched upon but was not a main focus in class that I would like to explore further is Gardener's theory of multiple intelligences. This theory is important for teachers to understand so that they can build curriculum that will help all their students learn. Here are a couple of links that explain the theory and have some links to tests like the one we did in class.
http://www.businessballs.com/howardgardnermultipleintelligences.htm
http://www.angelfire.com/mi3/howardgardner/