Talking Point 5 (pg 28-32)

    The passage I found most interesting was when the children were saying how the president should help the homeless and poverty. I mean whenever I was a child, I always thought the same thing. I grew up thinking that I wanted to make a change and help everyone who was suffering in the world. The injustice that I felt was going around made me so upset that I grew up with a serious attitude. Though I always had many things to say, I’d bottle it up inside me and I’d be too shy to speak up. I’m slowly changing now and I have more confident. “Clinton said he’d take care of the homeless people if he got elected and look what he’s done,” said a second student. “Nothing” (page 30). This is what all presidents do. They tell us stuff we want to hear and stuff that they’ll do and provide us. Though once they are elected, nothing happens. I could agree with what this student said, because it is true.

Talking Point 4 (pg 20-24)

    The questions I have for this article is, did her children, or students change after she has tried to change their point of view on different people? Are they still the same? How did you discipline them when the questions became difficult? I am sure I have plenty of other questions to ask, but I wanted to say something that I agree with on this article, or topic. I agree that we should teach children equality while they are still young and would be gullible to believe in something with a great backed up reason behind it. Nowadays, people take racism as a joke and not many people get offended by the jokes either. Though is that really the case? I’m sure there are kids out there who are still offended and have fears of being different. In the story, she quoted, “We Respect Ourselves and Others,” (page 23) this quote is basically telling us that not only do we have to respect ourselves and people similar to us, but to also respect people who are different, whom we would never get a second thought that we would actually get along with that person. People in my high school are usually straight to criticize without giving a second thought about the feelings of the person they may be hurting. It is a depressing scene. “We must provide each of our children a world where they are truly valued.” (page 24) I really like this quote. It not only goes to one child, but to all. Every child from different ethnic backgrounds are suppose to feel like they are valued, especially from their parents.

Talking point 3 (pg 15-18)

I like the idea of a multicultural education. The passage I found most important was when she was answering a question on how a teacher could teach a multicultural education. "You don't have to fill your head with little details about what other cultural groups eat and dance. You need to take a look at your culture, what your idea of normal is, and realize it is quite limited and is in fact just a reflecting a particular experience." (Page 17). I really liked her answer on that. It is true that when we think of our own culture and another culture, we think that what they do is very different from what we do. Though what they do is really not as different if you really thought about it. Maybe what we do and another culture do can be similar, but just done in a different kind of way, or technique. People have different styles of creating something, but it's no different from still creating a product. It will still come out the same. The fact that a multicultural education is just not based on appearance, but the acts of the individual student, is what I like, because nowadays what people see is what the tend to judge on. Though to call on the student, hear the answer and judge them then, is what I call a great education. We all have different perspectives.

Talking Point 2

The new questions I have after reading this article is, why would she even point out racism and sexism to the kids? They are at an age where they should be carefree and not worry about things like that. They probably wouldn't have thought much about it if no one had said anything. It has been bothering me that they bring it up so much to children. I understand that you want them to grow up knowing the troubles of the world, but if you teach them to always be criticizing something that they would usually overlook, then they will grow up thinking about that every time they start a new book. I am against racism, because I truly feel that everyone should be looked upon as an equal. The only thing different about people to me, is our personality. No one lives the same, no one truly acts the same, and no one can really think the same. Though teaching this to elementary kids is wrong, if it was middle school students, or even high school students, then I would understand. "But if a child can be shown how to detect racism and sexism in a book, the child can proceed to transfer the perception to wider areas." (Page 10). They are thinking about teaching child to look for racism and sexism in books that they read. To be honest, I think that would pretty amazing, but I still disagree with them having a child learn how to detect it at such a young age. I mean it is good, but they'll be living with it all their life, reading many books and thinking, that's racist, that's sexist. I don't think children should worry about things like that. Maybe when they are older, then sure, but at that age, I'm against it.