Since the beginning of the United States, our country has shown a great deal of white supremacy, even to this day. Obviously, the intensity of this powerful belief has drastically decreased over the years, but there are still signs of superiority in America. White supremacy is defined as the belief that white people are superior to black people and other people of color, and though a lot of us may not feel this way, our society portrays it exactly like that. Racial representation in the media is a great example of how society illustrates white supremacy. For example, the news. Every news channel that I have watched, I have yet to come around an African American anchor. I mean there are probably some out there but I have never seen one in my life. But not only are all the anchor's white, but a lot of the "criminals" they talk about are black. I know this is a giant generalization, but being someone who watches the news only a couple times a week, I have noticed these patterns. When a white criminal commits a crime, the news briefly states what crime they have committed, but when a black person does the same thing, they show full on chases, like they are wild animals. In my eyes, a great amount of the news consists of white people talking down to other races, white supremacy.
Another definition for the term white supremacy, is a system in which white people have social and political dominance over black people and other people of color. Our country runs off of this system. Finally, for the first time in American history, we have a black President. It honestly took our country this long? The time it took for the MAJORITY of people in our country to finally elect and accept a person of color as President, is proof that white people have political dominance over black people. The word MAJORITY is capitalized because not everyone has accepted it yet, and not everyone has accepted the fact that black people are and can be better than white people because of white supremacy!
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
Internship #16
Internship Photos & Reflection
Personal Life Photos:
The photos above are pictures of me and the fourth grade kids I work with. This was the day I taught the hands-on, project based lesson. Aren't they adorable?! This picture shows my personal life at my internship because I love working with kids and this is what I wanted to do, so I pursued that desire!
Reflection:
The most significant personal learning experience at my internship was probably when I would see all the kids I helped out and they would all run up to give me a group hug yelling "Ms. Holly!" This was so significant because it made me realize how much I want to influence the lives of children and be a great role model for them. The feeling I got when they rushed over to see me was indescribable, but I loved it. Kids are so loving and that is why I would love to always be working with them.
Personal Life Photos:
The photos above are pictures of me and the fourth grade kids I work with. This was the day I taught the hands-on, project based lesson. Aren't they adorable?! This picture shows my personal life at my internship because I love working with kids and this is what I wanted to do, so I pursued that desire!
Reflection:
The most significant personal learning experience at my internship was probably when I would see all the kids I helped out and they would all run up to give me a group hug yelling "Ms. Holly!" This was so significant because it made me realize how much I want to influence the lives of children and be a great role model for them. The feeling I got when they rushed over to see me was indescribable, but I loved it. Kids are so loving and that is why I would love to always be working with them.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Internship #14
Mentor Portrait & Interview
Portait of my Mentor:
Pamela Volker
Headmistress
Warren-Walker Elementary School
Point Loma:
Mentor Interview Highlights:
1.~Q: How did you come to be in the career you are now?
~A: "I started out teaching in Escondido for 10 years, and during that ten years Mr. Volker was teaching at Francis Parker. We would come home and share our stories about public school, private school, public school, private school; and although I loved doing what I was with the kids I began to realize that my philosophy of education was not in sync with the public school philosophy of education. I realized that I needed to leave public education and go into private education. The story is this: One day when I was so frustrated with the things that were going on in the school district, we drove by a one room school house and i said ""Ray all I want is a one-room school house, if I just had a one-room school house of my own I could teach the way I want to teach and do what i want to do and I wouldn't have to deal with the school district."" I didn't mean it at the time but that's what I said to him. Then, he was at Francis Parker at the time, and before he had gotten his masters degree at USD in administration and was looking for a job as a headmaster. The former person who ran this school, Ruth Sweeney, called Francis Parker saying she needed to hire a headmaster, and they recommended Ray. So she interviewed Ray, saying she was ready to retire and wanted someone who would not only lead the school but buy it eventually. He came home from that inter view and said ""Pam do you remember years ago when you said that all you ever wanted was your own one room school house? Did you mean it?"" I said ""Absolutely, I want out of public schools now!"" So Mrs. Sweeney interviewed both of us and we decided it was something we could do."
2.-Q: What is your philosophy on education?
-A:"Basically it is that my goal for these kids is yes to have a challenging program that will get them into a challenging high school program but to do it in a way that is broad so that they have experience in music and art and all different things and all sorts of experiences so they can see themselves being successful in a lot of different ways. Rather than just put them on a track this is strictly academic, our goal is for them to get to college and see their many talents and many choices, so that's really our goal to help children be all they really can be."
3.~Q: What is your favorite part about being headmistress?
~A: "Having alumni come back! hahaha No really, truly, it is seeing the fruits of your labor. I go to eighth grade graduations and they used to want me to present but I couldn't do it because I'd always cry. So I said ""no I'm going to go to the 8th grade commencement and I'm going to enjoy every minute of it, so I can really see who these kids have become and just experience it."
Portait of my Mentor:
Pamela Volker
Headmistress
Warren-Walker Elementary School
Point Loma:
4605 Point Loma Avenue
San Diego, CA. 92107
Mentor Interview Highlights:
1.~Q: How did you come to be in the career you are now?
~A: "I started out teaching in Escondido for 10 years, and during that ten years Mr. Volker was teaching at Francis Parker. We would come home and share our stories about public school, private school, public school, private school; and although I loved doing what I was with the kids I began to realize that my philosophy of education was not in sync with the public school philosophy of education. I realized that I needed to leave public education and go into private education. The story is this: One day when I was so frustrated with the things that were going on in the school district, we drove by a one room school house and i said ""Ray all I want is a one-room school house, if I just had a one-room school house of my own I could teach the way I want to teach and do what i want to do and I wouldn't have to deal with the school district."" I didn't mean it at the time but that's what I said to him. Then, he was at Francis Parker at the time, and before he had gotten his masters degree at USD in administration and was looking for a job as a headmaster. The former person who ran this school, Ruth Sweeney, called Francis Parker saying she needed to hire a headmaster, and they recommended Ray. So she interviewed Ray, saying she was ready to retire and wanted someone who would not only lead the school but buy it eventually. He came home from that inter view and said ""Pam do you remember years ago when you said that all you ever wanted was your own one room school house? Did you mean it?"" I said ""Absolutely, I want out of public schools now!"" So Mrs. Sweeney interviewed both of us and we decided it was something we could do."
2.-Q: What is your philosophy on education?
-A:"Basically it is that my goal for these kids is yes to have a challenging program that will get them into a challenging high school program but to do it in a way that is broad so that they have experience in music and art and all different things and all sorts of experiences so they can see themselves being successful in a lot of different ways. Rather than just put them on a track this is strictly academic, our goal is for them to get to college and see their many talents and many choices, so that's really our goal to help children be all they really can be."
3.~Q: What is your favorite part about being headmistress?
~A: "Having alumni come back! hahaha No really, truly, it is seeing the fruits of your labor. I go to eighth grade graduations and they used to want me to present but I couldn't do it because I'd always cry. So I said ""no I'm going to go to the 8th grade commencement and I'm going to enjoy every minute of it, so I can really see who these kids have become and just experience it."
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Internship #13
Choice 1:
Post three pictures that show a specific "perspective" of your internship.
The two pictures above show the perspective from customers who are looking to buy merchandise and clothing from the Student Store at Warren-Walker Elementary School. These pictures I took will be posted to the Student Store website, and were a part of a project I am doing to help advertise the school's merchandise. Ms. Frans, the second grade teacher, and I took her students down to the cliffs today to take a photo-shoot of them wearing Warren-Walker customized clothing. We all had a lot of fun and the children loved modeling all the clothes!
This photo shows the perspective of the students I help out, along with the employees and teachers I work for. They have seen me every school day for the last couple weeks and this is what they see. I am usually always smiling anyways, but being surrounded by adorable children and people I grew up with, I can't help but to smile big for them everyday. Also, they see me dressed in professional attire, which shows students and teachers that I am serious about my internship!
This picture shows a unique perspective from the people who attended Warren-Walker Elementary in the 1930's. This picture is a picture of a photograph and shows what the school used to look like way back when it was first developed. As you can see they is just one big dirt patch that went straight to the ocean, but if you look at it now, that area is covered with houses and buildings. My mentor actually gave me the idea to take a picture of this because it shows such a unique perspective.
Post three pictures that show a specific "perspective" of your internship.
The two pictures above show the perspective from customers who are looking to buy merchandise and clothing from the Student Store at Warren-Walker Elementary School. These pictures I took will be posted to the Student Store website, and were a part of a project I am doing to help advertise the school's merchandise. Ms. Frans, the second grade teacher, and I took her students down to the cliffs today to take a photo-shoot of them wearing Warren-Walker customized clothing. We all had a lot of fun and the children loved modeling all the clothes!
This photo shows the perspective of the students I help out, along with the employees and teachers I work for. They have seen me every school day for the last couple weeks and this is what they see. I am usually always smiling anyways, but being surrounded by adorable children and people I grew up with, I can't help but to smile big for them everyday. Also, they see me dressed in professional attire, which shows students and teachers that I am serious about my internship!
This picture shows a unique perspective from the people who attended Warren-Walker Elementary in the 1930's. This picture is a picture of a photograph and shows what the school used to look like way back when it was first developed. As you can see they is just one big dirt patch that went straight to the ocean, but if you look at it now, that area is covered with houses and buildings. My mentor actually gave me the idea to take a picture of this because it shows such a unique perspective.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Internship #12
Collaboration
Part 1: Documenting collaboration
The photos above represent collaboration because these two students from different grades are working together to read a book. The littler girl is a preschooler from one of the classes I worked in, and the older one is a second grader in one of the classes I am working in now. They pair up every week to read.
Part 2: Writing about collaboration
-In the course of one typical workday, how many different people do you directly work with?
In one typical workday I directly work with multiple different people from different departments. At the beginning I only worked with two different teachers, all their students, and my mentor, but now I work with a new pair of teachers, their students, my mentor, the admissions/community relations employee, and the advertising employee.
-How many people are indirectly affected by your work?
I would say that a great amount of indirect people are also affected by my work, like the Warren-Walker alumni, maybe the parents of the students, or even other teachers
Part 1: Documenting collaboration
The photos above represent collaboration because these two students from different grades are working together to read a book. The littler girl is a preschooler from one of the classes I worked in, and the older one is a second grader in one of the classes I am working in now. They pair up every week to read.
Part 2: Writing about collaboration
-In the course of one typical workday, how many different people do you directly work with?
In one typical workday I directly work with multiple different people from different departments. At the beginning I only worked with two different teachers, all their students, and my mentor, but now I work with a new pair of teachers, their students, my mentor, the admissions/community relations employee, and the advertising employee.
-How many people are indirectly affected by your work?
I would say that a great amount of indirect people are also affected by my work, like the Warren-Walker alumni, maybe the parents of the students, or even other teachers
-Describe your direct collaboration with others—how does it go & how does it influence the work?
I collaborate with the teachers I work for, and their students the most. I collaborate with the teachers when I help teach lessons because I do not know the expectations they have for their students, or how they are regularly taught a certain concept. In order to teach lessons to the students, and plan when I can teach my own lessons, I have to collaborate with both the teachers and students. I collaborated with the other employees I work for a lot too, when planning the party, Mrs. Fisk and I would put our heads together to come up with great ideas like what music and if there should be bands. This influenced the brainstorming because I would have never thought to actually get real bands from past years at Warren-Walker, and I think it's a cool idea. I hope my ideas influence the work a lot too because I know the age group and what they would want for a party.
Describe your indirect impact on others through your work—there are probably many people you never actually see who are affected by your work. How does this happen? How does this influence your work?
I collaborate with the teachers I work for, and their students the most. I collaborate with the teachers when I help teach lessons because I do not know the expectations they have for their students, or how they are regularly taught a certain concept. In order to teach lessons to the students, and plan when I can teach my own lessons, I have to collaborate with both the teachers and students. I collaborated with the other employees I work for a lot too, when planning the party, Mrs. Fisk and I would put our heads together to come up with great ideas like what music and if there should be bands. This influenced the brainstorming because I would have never thought to actually get real bands from past years at Warren-Walker, and I think it's a cool idea. I hope my ideas influence the work a lot too because I know the age group and what they would want for a party.
Describe your indirect impact on others through your work—there are probably many people you never actually see who are affected by your work. How does this happen? How does this influence your work?
My indurect impact on other would be with planning the teen party, everyone that participates in that event with be affected by my hard party planning. Also, other teachers and maybe even parents of the children I work with will be affected by my work too, because when I teach the lesson on Wednesday they will learn a new way of learning. It will be hands-on learning and hopefully they will learn a little more than before. This could happen if everyone sees the scores improve after learning a lesson NOT from a textbook, they coud start to take on the project based learning experience. This influences my work because I want to do a really great job on Wednesday and prove that project based learning can teach a lot, and hopefully even more.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Internship #11
Week Summary
Randy
My week was filled with new experiences, highlights, challenges, and memories, being that I had switched teachers, and started new projects. Although it started off with a sad day of leaving Mrs. Songer, Mrs. Thein, and their adorable students behind, I experience something extremely memorable. The first grade kids made me a book saying all kinds of nice things about me, with pictures and everything, kind of like a good-bye gift. It was adorable and this was definitely one of the highlights of my week because I felt like I actually touched the lives of these kids. One girl, Sabrina, wrote "You are the best helper you are also the best teacher's assistant. Thank you for visiting out classroom." This book made me feel extremely accomplished. The next day I switched over to Ms. Frans' second grade class, and Mrs. Huff's fourth grade class. I also began to work for Mrs. Fisk, the community relations employee, and Mrs. Wambaugh, the advertising employee. I divided up time to be with each evenly, which was a big challenge. I had to fit the schedules of four different people, so it ended up being that I had more time in the classrooms which I like a little more. Another challenge I had with helping out four different people is that now I have three different projects going on at the same time and I'm struggling to do them all, but now have a lot planned out. I am just scared for how crazy next week will be, but I'll get a lot of work done this weekend. Anyways, the rest of my week was me observing the students and coming up with a project for the fourth graders, while also planning out and working on my other two projects. Some highlights from this are that I think I can up with a really cool project for the 4th graders and am excited to see how it goes. I then ended the week with my mentor interview which was memorable and a highlight because I learned so much that I didn't know about her. The interview made me realize that if you know what you want, you can achieve it. Overall, my week had some challenges but I'm happy with the outcome of events.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Internship #10
Picture/Caption/Questions
Randy
Picture:
Caption:
This picture summed up my day because all day I carefully observed the student's work by walking through the isles and looking at what they were doing. I realized that their way of learning is standard and completely opposite from the way of High Tech High, they learn a lot of their material through textbooks. This inspired me to ask the world if textbooks are really made to benifit the education of students. Comparing and contrasting the learning habits of my old school to those of my new, made me wonder if there really is a difference in the education of a child based on the way its taught. Basically, I began to wonder if one of the students learns more from a hands on lesson, or a text book lesson. To learn more about this I have decided today to do an "experiment" with the kids from the 4th grade class I'm helping out in. This experiment will be on Wednesday of next week and what I will do is divide the class into two, based on averaged out grades, and then teach one half a lesson from the usual book and teach the other half with a more hands on lesson. I will plan the whole lesson this weekend and run it by the teacher on Monday.
Questions:
I did not post the blog from last night but I have found some information on my mentor. She grew up in Kansas and went to school there until she was ten. Later on she had to move to California for her family and ended up going to college at USD. She began working at my internship site when she got married to the head master, Ray Volker. Some questions I would like to ask her for our interview tomorrow would be:
1. Did you have any aspirations for your career when you moved to California? What were they and did you achieve them?
2. Did your aspirations and dreams change with time? How and why do you think?
3.How was the experience of moving from Kansas to California?
4. Any advice for success?
5. Overall, are you happy and living the career life you want?
Randy
Picture:
Caption:
This picture summed up my day because all day I carefully observed the student's work by walking through the isles and looking at what they were doing. I realized that their way of learning is standard and completely opposite from the way of High Tech High, they learn a lot of their material through textbooks. This inspired me to ask the world if textbooks are really made to benifit the education of students. Comparing and contrasting the learning habits of my old school to those of my new, made me wonder if there really is a difference in the education of a child based on the way its taught. Basically, I began to wonder if one of the students learns more from a hands on lesson, or a text book lesson. To learn more about this I have decided today to do an "experiment" with the kids from the 4th grade class I'm helping out in. This experiment will be on Wednesday of next week and what I will do is divide the class into two, based on averaged out grades, and then teach one half a lesson from the usual book and teach the other half with a more hands on lesson. I will plan the whole lesson this weekend and run it by the teacher on Monday.
Questions:
I did not post the blog from last night but I have found some information on my mentor. She grew up in Kansas and went to school there until she was ten. Later on she had to move to California for her family and ended up going to college at USD. She began working at my internship site when she got married to the head master, Ray Volker. Some questions I would like to ask her for our interview tomorrow would be:
1. Did you have any aspirations for your career when you moved to California? What were they and did you achieve them?
2. Did your aspirations and dreams change with time? How and why do you think?
3.How was the experience of moving from Kansas to California?
4. Any advice for success?
5. Overall, are you happy and living the career life you want?
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