In the Service of What

I found this article to be enlightening and shed light on the importance of service learning and the pros and cons to the different strategies to utilize service learning. In my high school experience we had to do a service learning project and I found it very enriching. It instilled in me a great joy in helping others. I worked at an elderly home and really connected with some of the people there and it felt great helping them. I felt part of the community and I really felt like it was possible for me to make a difference. It really showed me that I had skills that could be used to help people and that is a feeling one can not always get in the classroom.

I am including a short video, it is just from a charity organization that shows examples of kids working on projects together, but I found it true that it is helpful and builds character.

Gender and Education topic: Lack of Male Teachers

The article I researched was by Johnson on the lack of Male Teachers in the workforce. It is seen that only about 1 in 10 teacher is a man. In many schools without male teachers, the children my not have a male role model, especially of the child's father is not present in his or her life. Some of the reasons men decide against teaching are to do with the low wage, lack of prestige, and especially in early education there is a stigma about men being alone with children. For example, when walking down the road, if a woman sees a little baby in a stroller with her mother and the woman thought the baby was cute and said hello to the baby it would be socially acceptable, if a man saw the baby and mother and knelt down to say hello to the baby it may cause suspicion. It is also noted that society in some ways still believes men manage and women teach. They may think of a male teacher as being soft or feminine for teaching. These are a few things covered in the article and is a very interesting ready.

There is a short video cover the basics of what Johnson is talking about.

The full article can be found here. http://ceep.indiana.edu/projects/PDF/PB_V6N4_Winter_2008_EPB.pdf

Christensen

                The article “Unlearning the Myths that Bind Us” by Christensen was very enlightening and made me reflect on the influence media has on society. I have always thought about how the media affects society and I refused to watch certain shows as I thought they were rubbish, but what I did not realize is the amount of subliminal messages in cartoons. I grew up watching Disney movies and didn’t think a thing of the fact that all the main characters were white, skinny, and attractive. That instills in a child a sense that those are the main things valued by society. Television stations need to take a stand and boycott any company that does not add diversity to their programming, or at least do something to influence the companies producing the cartoons to think more closely about what kind of message they are sending to children.  Nothing in society will change if television stations do not promote a greater sense of diversity in their programming. I believe we can still live a free society with companies allowed to run their businesses how they want, while still having some sense of morality. One of the major problems is parents, their lack of supervision, or flat out not caring at all about the topic. You might be surprised to hear about how many parents just give their children the remote control to the TV and then the parent leaves the room so they can do something else. When the parent leaves the room, the child might switch the channel to MTV. I personally cannot stand what MTV has become and the kind of message they are sending to teenagers. Channels like MTV wield a heavy influence on society and they are not living up to their moral obligations. I don’t even need to list the names of the shows, just turn on MTV right now and think to yourself “if I had an impressionable child, would I want them watching this, thinking it is ok to act this way?”. Getting back on topic of the cartoons, I myself watched many cartoons, and probably formed quite a few opinions based on the hierarchy of characters in the movies.  I have since been able to think for myself and form my own opinions, but still the messages portrayed in the movies have a deep impact on every individual who watches them. For example, let’s say an African American family is going to rent a Disney movie for their child and they take a look at the selection, they predominately see white main characters that their child may have a hard time identifying with, they search for a movie with an African American main character, and may only find a few at best. The child may be forced to watch a movie that they don’t identify with and feel alienated. In this day and age people should promote diversity and make the world a better place for everyone, not just the privileged.

Here is a video I found about racism in Disney Movies. I found it interesting that most of the comments on the video were people arguing that the racism in the videos either do not exist or are acceptable and simple to "get over it."