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Unit II: Ancient China

http://thecolorofsilk.weebly.com

Happy Election Day!

Election Day For Students:

 'Vote For Me Until I Can'

In a push to encourage voter turnout, Manhattan Country School's 5- and 6-year-olds are asking you to "Vote for Me Until I Can."

"I would like to bring about a change, but I'm too young to play the voting game. Won't somebody hear my plea and go to the polls and vote for me?" the students sing. "Mommy, daddy, take a stand. Vote for me until I can. Sister, brother, take my hand. Vote for me until I can. College students, woman or man, vote for me until I can."

The students' video comes as state officials are hoping voter turnout won't be negatively affected by relocated voting sites resulting from Superstorm Sandy. The New York school teaches its young students the importance of voting, student activism and participation in democracy, according to a school statement.

The video, filmed in the students' music class, was taken as part of the Odyssey Initiative, a project led by three educators that seek innovative educational practices across the country in anticipation of launching a school based on those effective models.

Loewen: Chapter 13

What is Social Stupidity?

March 29, 1985

Dear Mr. & Mrs. W.,

     First, I'd like to commend your daughter for her initiative in approaching me about an alternative exploratory class.

     After a thorough discussion with the Superintendent regarding your daughter's request to substitute industrial arts for study skills, we both feel that such a change is not advisable or possible at this time for a couple reasons.

     First, to allow your daughter the option of changing her exploratory assignment would undoubtedly encourage many others to seek the same privilege.  Second, the exploratory program is designed to provide information for each student in each session, which will enhance and provide for a well-rounded education. Not only do the sessions of art, music, study skills and home economics or industrial arts provide information, which is of immediate value, but each also provides a foundation for future development.

     After discussing the above thoughts with your daughter, I feel that she definitely understands why we cannot make such a change at this time.

          Sincerely,

         Mr. J. B.

         Principal

One of the few things I kept from my childhood was this letter explaining why I wouldn't be the first girl to take industrial arts in our junior high.  It was a ridiculous decision and so is Loewen's observation in this chapter:

 "Girls also dislike social studies and history even more than boys, probably because women's concerns and perceptions still go underrepresented in history classes."

He should heed his own advice - "education and position in society causes some people not to think." All educators, not just social studies teachers, need to provide students with an education that includes the perspectives of those who have been historically marginalized. It does not mean, however, that education should be broken down into categories based on race and gender as if the story of humankind was made up of anything less than our collective memory.

I shared in blog post Loewen: Chapter 11 my sentiments about the illogical intellectual process (social stupidity) that has frustrated me from time to time in the collegiate classroom.  I have also witnessed it first hand outside of the classroom, over the past ten years working as a community advocate in the region.  It does not dampen my idealism now and it never did.  I like a challenge.  After all these years, I am a social science teacher because there is a resounding necessity in our country for individuals like myself, to apply our enthusiasm, our intelligence, and our creativity towards being the best possible teachers we can be for our nation's children.

http://standwithmalala.org/
http://educationenvoy.org/petition

How well a society treats its women is one of the strongest indicators

 of the success and health of a society. 

The lives of girls and women have changed dramatically over the past quarter century. The pace of change has been astonishing in some areas, but in others, progress toward gender equality has been limited—even in developed countries.

This year's World Development Report: Gender Equality and Development argues that gender equality is a core development objective in its own right. It is also smart economics. Greater gender equality can enhance productivity, improve development outcomes for the next generation, and make institutions more representative.

The Report also focuses on four priority areas for policy going forward: (i) reducing excess female mortality and closing education gaps where they remain, (ii) improving access to economic opportunities for women (iii) increasing women's voice and agency in the household and in society and (iv) limiting the reproduction of gender inequality across generations.

Full-Text of the World Bank's World Development Report 2012: Gender Equality and Development. 

http://10x10act.org/

Cantu: Chapters 12 & 13

"If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other?

 If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other?"

Jem Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird

I can't imagine studying racism in a sociology classroom without reading Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.  Nor would a discussion about class conflict be complete without examining F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.  Greenhaven Press, the publisher of the Opposing Viewpoints Series, has introduced a series for the behavioral sciences called, Social Issues in Literature.  Viewing significant social issues through the lens of great works of literature enriches student understanding and broadens the perspective from which they can assess the significance of that issue in society today.

Below is part of a lesson I created using literature to teach diversity:

People who have what they want are very fond of telling people who  haven't what they want that they really don't want it, And I wish I could afford to gather all such people into a gloomy castle  on the Danube and hire half a dozen capable Draculas to haunt it. I don’t mind their having a lot of money, and I don't care how they  employ it, But I do think that they damn well ought to admit they enjoy it. But no, they insist on being stealthy About the pleasures of being wealthy, And the possession of a handsome annuity Makes them think that to say how hard it is to make both ends meet is  their bounden duity. You cannot conceive of an occasion Which will find them without some suitable evasion. Yes indeed, with arguments they are very fecund; Their first point is that money isn't everything, and that they have no  money anyhow is their second. Some people's money is merited, And other people's is inherited, But wherever it comes from, They talk about it as if it were something you got pink gums from. Perhaps indeed the possession of wealth is constantly distressing, But I should be quite willing to assume every curse of wealth if I could  at the same time assume every blessing. The only incurable troubles of the rich are the troubles that money can't  cure, Which is a kind of trouble that is even more troublesome if you are poor. Certainly there are lots of things in life that money won't buy, but it's  very funny -- Have you ever tried to buy them without money?  Nash, Ogden.  “The Terrible People.”  I Wouldn’t Have Missed It: Selected Poems of Ogden Nash.  Toronto:  Little, Brown and Company, 1975.  25.  Print.  Five Questions for the Reader:

 (Class) Is the author a part of the social class he is describing? The author is able to be in conversations with the very wealthy.  This shows that he must have some common social bond to be invited to these occasions (as he calls them).  He uses words like: Danube, annuity, fecund, merited and inherited that demonstrates he has an understanding of how these terms relate to money.

 (Class) Is it the author’s view that money is a good thing or a bad thing? The author has nothing against money itself and is rather glad he has it.  What he does have a serious problem with are individuals that take it for granted and do not notice that others might be having financial, social, or physical troubles. 

 (Community Influence) Why is there a public expectation to hide wealth? There’s a prevailing thought that this goes back to Protestantism’s roots in developing capitalism (Calvinism).  It is considered rude to discuss money openly and should not be done with members of a lower social class.  Obviously, there are many trappings of the wealthy that set them apart visually.  Some of those differences (where they shop, eat, stay) may allow for them to spend openly without condemnation or be taken advantage of by those who could not afford to do the same.  It also keeps the wealthy from experiencing the realities of those outside their class.

 (Socio-economics) What are the “incurable troubles of the rich”? Scarcity (not having enough of what one wants) is something that is experienced by the rich and poor.  These wants and needs are dramatically difference between the classes, but all people experience relationships with others and loss of one kind or another.  If relationships are the most important thing for human beings to have, then money cannot solve for all the problems couples and families face.

 (Socio-economics) What does this poem say about happiness? A recent Princeton University study showed that happiness, as it relates to wealth, peaks at $75,000 a year.  It stated that beyond that amount, more material items could be obtained, but that the general feeling of well being on a daily basis did not improve.  However, life-satisfaction for people did increase as their income went up to this point.  If the median salary for Americans is $50,000 then not only is their desire for the majority of Americans to continue to be productive, but households that have either two incomes or professionally employed individuals are happier.  Education and marriage play a role in this figure.

  Summary:  Poem by American satirical poet Ogden Nash.  Written in the first person, the poem is highly critical of wealthy individuals who are condescending to the poor.  He uses irregular poetic meter made up of rhyming couplets that fall until the very end, in which a rising rhyme is employed to ask the reader a question.  Nash takes liberty with his spelling of some words in order to have a pattern of similar sounds, or assonance.  He uses humor to get across his point of view in an entertaining manner allowing him to discuss what would otherwise be a touchy subject.  The New Yorker magazine for which this was first written, is a publication targeted at high-income individuals mainly living within New York City.  It is known for its witty commentary of popular culture and Ogden Nash was a regular contributor.  The poem was first published in 1933, following the worst year of the Great Depression and I believe that Nash’s purpose was to admonish those who still had opportunity and wealth into considering their responsibilities to the poor (very Calvinist idea - see below).

Reflection:  I chose this poem because I was familiar with the author and enjoy using satire and humor to teach political and economic concepts.  As a future high school social studies instructor, I am aware that students find these topics irrelevant to their current lives and outside their sphere of influence.  This poem would be effective in teaching a lesson on the history of capitalism and the current debate over income inequality.  We could discuss Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations and I could explain the negatives he warned against: informal markets and avarice.  A sociological discussion about what is free will and meritocracy allows for debate and discussion on equity and social class.  Drawing from the poem’s Depression Era roots, the concept of scarcity could be covered and how that affects prices.  As a major part of this discussion, I would teach basic macroeconomic concepts and vocabulary such as: maximizers versus satisfiers, opportunity cost, and normative economics versus positive economics, as it is important for students to understand the difference between feelings and facts.  We could discuss the current state of the national economy and how globalization and technology have hurt unskilled workers, particularly minority teenagers.  I would not go into a discussion about Calvinism and Protestantism with the themes mentioned above, rather I could go back to this poem and its ideas at another time when the impact of the Protestant Reformation on current society was discussed. 

Loewen: Chapter 12

What Do We Know of the World First-Hand?

I was born and raised in central Illinois.  I was lucky to be the third generation of women to have graduated from college, but for all of us it had been a financial struggle.  I married, moved across the country, and worked to put my spouse through graduate school so that we would have an income and medical insurance.  As an equal partner, I chose to raise children as a stay-at-home parent and to move back to Illinois to take care of aging parents on both sides of our family.  

Within days of moving into my husband's childhood home, I experienced first-hand harassment and discrimination as the general contractor on the major remodel of our historic home. Battling bigots who questioned our right to purchase a long-empty home as "out-of-towners" to city employees who didn't want to accept work orders from a woman.  It was a disheartening and frightening time with a small child at home and daily threats to our safety and to our workers.

As Loewen says, "power elite theories seem to explain everything but may explain nothing," and I agree with him that by giving into such theories one can easily absolve ourselves from the responsibility of changing what we see as wrong.

So when I was asked in a coffee house conversation, what I thought about a letter a mother had written to the local paper asking for help - it struck me that my experiences (especially in the coffee house) should be used to advocate for others.  I had spent a lifetime straddling two worlds - one in which (Loewen) "members of the elite came to think that their privilege was historically justified and earned" to another marked by less-than-equal opportunities and social inequality.  Below is the opinion-editorial piece I wrote for the local paper.  Thus, began my last ten years of public service.

I think it is particularly important for social studies educators to be involved in serving their community through public service* and/or to have their students participate in projects that shape their standards of reality, their self-identity, and their political belongingness.  As C. Wright Mill's wrote in his 1956 book The Power Elite:

The knowledgeable man in the genuine public is able to turn his personal troubles into social issues, to see their relevance for his community and his community's relevance for them. He understands that what he thinks and feels as personal troubles are very often not only that but problems shared by others and indeed not subject to solution by any one individual but only by modifications of the structure of the groups in which he lives and sometimes the structure of the entire society.

*Stay informed on the political issues facing education:

 http://dianeravitch.net/2012/10/25/teachers-running-for-office-in-ohio/