Winn in her article argues for a teaching style that incorporatese literacy and justice. She has often heard students say they want to be viewed as valuable citizens and they also want freedom in the classroom. Jer Restorative English Education idea is grounded in restorative justice and includes “circle processes,” demanding collaboration and power sharing. Literature has brought so much death and controversy in the past, and Winn believes it can be used for peacemaking, which is essential for “juveniles” but also for students on a successful education path. She sat into classes to see how educators work in and out of them, and to study the dynamics of students in these settings. She went to groups such as Power Writing and Girl Time to see how marginalized people had the opportunity to express themselves. Winn wants teachers to reexamine how they teach literature and its purpose, A=and how that creates empathetic students. Students can “historicize” their lives in circles and tensions can be mediated through shared experiences.
The article by Ladson-Billings begins with her highlighting the main point of her article from 1995, and the references it has received. She explains that her article had important parts, but education and culture are both always changing so her approach must be altered to reflect that. She dives into why she studied African-American students, and how she found these subjects in order to get data that worked well with her past article. The new theory is “culturally sustaining pedagogy,” which when not used can lead to “academic death” of students and even teachers. Teachers sometimes focused to much on culturally relevant issues that didn’t pertain to the students learning them, and Billings wants teachers to focus on things culturally relevant to the students. When she spoke to First Wave, her idea to evolve this pedagogy was sparked. She engaged the students in guest lectures on campus and allowed them to be able to express themselves in public in an almost “fake” class. She explains the pedagogy again and how authors have pushed her earlier theories to become what they are now. Her past article has “a life of its own;” controlling meaning is extremely difficult. Lastly, she writes that this new pedagogy will meet external performance assessment and community/student driven learning.
The video is about “making” and the prominence the term is gaining. Making has a lot of different meanings, such as humans making food, cars, presentations, etc.– essentially making humans “who we are.” Also, there is the MAKE magazine which began to become a physical event (fair) all over the world, which has now become a “social movement.” This has been great, but has been in the “honeymoon phase,” but she explains that she thinks it’s time to ask critical questions about it. Featured makers have mostly been men (85%), which took her aback since Make incorporates so much language of equality and openness. In the 10 years, there have been no colored/no minorities featured on the covers. The editorial staff as well as the authors of the aritcles are all mainly white men, in addition the audience is mainly middle aged males. MAKE has extremely high prices since a lot of items are robot kits, so it’s hard to have a younger audience. The most common categories for the magazine are electronic projects, vehicles, and then robots, highlighting artistic projects are underrepresented. Marginalized groups are less likely to get degrees in STEM or be interested in it, which is why the audience is full of men. This is a problem because MAKE is being hypocritical, since their language promises being open and accessible, which it isn’t at all. The Maker Education Initiative is about creating every child to be a maker, which is wrong because we “shouldn’t be telling young women and kids of color to become like rich white men.” MAKE is problematic because they hide what they don’t want to show. Buechley ends with bringing up projects MAKE could do to include put to the side groups.
I hate seeing stats like the ones in the video, since as a woman I know that this is reality. I have done some research on the gap between marginalized groups and central groups in any sense, and am always shocked even though I know what to expect. It is so frustrating that there are so many situations where certain groups get pushed down due to who they are or where they come from. I want to be apart of the change that creates more women in STEM and closes the obvious gap between groups. It makes me sad to see that this hasn’t really been changed at all, but I think our generation is the one to do so.
Do you ever feel like your ideas are put to the side? Do you think that this separation is normal, and does that frustrate you? What do you consider “making?”
EDU 185: Gigi's Blog 