Nou led, Nou la

Nou led, Nou la

The phrase “Nou led, Nou la” is Haitian phrase coined during the time of the major disaster that took place in Haiti. A 7.1 earthquake that shook the whole island of Hispaniola and destroyed the country’s capital and some surrounding cities. When I heard this news, I I was immediately devastated primarily because I knew many people with family and friends in the country but mostly because the country already suffers from poverty and now this major earthquake. With a unstable government, Haitians are often taken advantage of because they would appoint leaders into the office who are supposed to help the country but end up only bringing it down.

Nou led, Nou la

The amount of pictures of dead bodies being loaded in to flatbed trucks to be dumped is a site that would stick with anyone. Being trapped under buildings for days being crushed by the heavy walls is enough to dampen anyone’s spirit. Yet it is amazing that there were so many people who were being rescued even 20 days after the earthquake had taken place.

Nou led, Nou la

What words of consolidation can one tell kids who have lost their mother, father, and other relatives to the buildings that crushed them? What words can be told to the mother who lost her whole family while they were waiting in the car for her to return from the building? How does one try to begin to heal the pain that these people are currently feeling?

Nou led, Nou la

As an onlooker from the United States of America, you think to yourself, “What can I do to help?” At times like this is when you really realize how much you take for granted even the simple things in your lives. Yet, it is at times of destruction when we really understand the importance of the people in our lives. So we try to help by sending donations through charities and rushing our doctors and nurses over to the country in need of our help; Forgetting that this country has always been in our backyard. They have always needed the help that we are only currently offering because of their current situation. Why is it that we waited until they experienced so much devastation before we decided to help them when they needed the help all along.

Nou led, Nou la

Hopefully we continue to be of help to these people, our brothers and sisters, in Haiti. As much as we hate to admit it, we are all connected to each other in more ways than one. The simple fact that we are human beings though, should be enough. So as we help our brot-hers and sisters in Haiti we should think remember that this can one day be our great country that will need help of other nations around us.
Nou tout led, Nou tout la.


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Extra credit Emmit till

Emmitt Till
The story of Emmitt Till showed the world how cruel white people were even to children. It is a crazy notion that whites would be so afraid and fearful that they would harm a child who did something as meaningless as whistle. What even makes matters worse is the fact that the killers weren’t convicted but they had the nerve to want to sell their story for about $4000. Did they take some gratification in being tried as the killers? This so called trial proved the injustice in the state of Mississippi back in the 1950s. If the shoe was on the other foot however, I’m sure that the black person would have been beaten, stoned, and tortured to death whether or not his was guilty of the crime wouldn’t have mattered. I look at the current times and I see that we have come far as a whole but there are still some instances where there are minorities that are being sentenced with lack of circumstantial evidence that actually proves the person is guilty. I commend, though, Mamie who was Emmitt’s mother for being such a strong woman and for allowing the world to see the cruelty of the people in Mississippi. She allowed the brutally battered body of her dead 14 year old boy to be publicized. Emmitt was beaten to the point where his face was hardly recognizable. They disfigured him and threw him into the river yet this information was withheld during the trial proceedings. The many questions left unanswered to a people who were starving to know. The Bryant brothers basically got off scotch free like letting people think that it was permissible to kill a black person simply because they (whites) felt as though they were the more superior race. The poem that Prof. McNair shared with the class was one the alerted different emotions in my mind. Thoughts ran rampant wanting to know how could it be in the nature of someone to be so cruel. The whole situation could have been avoided. I guess these brothers were trying to make a point by killing Emmitt. He was merely a boy who did not understand the ways of the south. On a vacation from his hometown he ended up dying in Mississippi leaving behind a lonely mother. What was also disturbing was the fact that no one in the house could do nothing to save Emmitt for fear of being killed themselves. I can’t fully comprehend the fact that these whites just barged into a home that was not theirs and took out a little boy and killed him. If only we could go back in time and gather the proper evidence, force witness to speak and tell the truth and try and convict these men for the killers that they are. I wonder how the wife felt knowing that she was the cause of the death of this child. How did she feel after segregation was done away with? How did she cope with knowing that she was the cause of an innocent life being taken way too early?

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Quizzes

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Professor McNair- Reflection 22

I have had the pleasure to take a second class with Professor McNair. The first time I took his class I was taking Introduction to Education in the fall semester of 2009. When I first told my sister that I was taking the course she asked with what professor. So I told her I was taking it with McNair and she said that she had taken the class but didn’t take any more classes with him because it was way too much work for her to do. I knew that I would love it after the first couple of classes so I stuck around. The fact is, I love a challenge. Honestly, this had been the first time in a very long time that I had felt like I was being challenged in the classroom. The first time in a while that I knew that I had to stay on top of my work because the professor was no walk in the park. By all means I mean no disrespect about that statement. My favorite teachers were always the ones who would assign work that had meaning. Not to assign work for the sake of assigning work. I had two teachers like this previously. One was Kathleen Serio who I had as an English teacher for grades six through eight because I was in the gifted program. She allowed me to discover my love for English. Not to mention that she had also taught two of my older brothers. We were reading books that were not meant for our grade and she coached us to our understanding of the material learned. Kind of like what Prof. McNair does in the classroom discussions. The second teacher that I had that made a great impression in the book of my life was Dr. Nerry Louis. She was my twelfth grade honors English teacher. The class revolved around literature and was interesting at all times to say the very least. Nerry had a reputation amongst the students to be the hardest English teach at my high school. If you earned a C in Ms. Louis’ class, you know that you would have warned an A in any other teacher’s class. She was that tough but I enjoyed it. She was a no nonsense type of teacher who still allowed room for her students to get comfortable. Now I have Prof. McNair to add to my list of favorite teachers. Favorite educators. They are a part of the reason I actually decided to become an English teacher. I want to be able to impact the lives of my students the same way that Prof McNair, Dr. Louis, and Ms. Serio had done in mine. I would also implement some of their teaching strategies that I’ve learned while being their student.
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Romance- Reflection 21

After reading the article by Deepak Chopra entitled “Spirit of Romance” I evaluated that which I called love and basically went along with the steps to see if I had experienced Deepak’s definition of love and romance. Love has no gender. So therefore I believe that it can be applied to same sex as well as heterosexual love. I do not understand why we place so much emphasis on heterosexual versus homosexual. We place ourselves in gender limited boxes and anyone who defies those rule and regulations for gender are cast out and rejected. We base gender on the sex of a person, so what do we say for those who are characteristics of both sexes? Do we automatically cast them out of our society merely because they do not look as normal as we expect them to? Love is a feeling that can be associated with anyone no matter the gender. The fact that we take so much of our time judging other people takes away from what really matters most of the time. It’s high time people in general stop focusing o what really doesn’t count in the long run. Does who a person love constitutes grounds to determine whether or not that person is a good citizen or a bad one? The four phases of romance which include attraction, infatuation, courtship, and intimacy can happen to human of any gender. Needless to say that this doesn’t mean that they can be of any age. To me, the only thing that should matter when it comes to love is a person’s age as well as their mate. I believe this so that we can prevent pedophiles from thinking that they are in love with a four year old. And age should only matter up until a person is considered an adult and then after that they are free to do whomever and what so ever they please. But homosexuality versus heterosexuality should not matter when it comes to love. I don’t believe that anyone can tell a homosexual couple that they aren’t in love any more than you can tell a heterosexual couple the same thing. I’ve seen some examples where people would think that a homosexual relationship is different from a heterosexual one. It doesn’t differ because both couples can experience cheating, arguing, intimacy and etcetera. Hopefully we can one day reach a state of peace where who a person is in love with doesn’t generalize their personality or characteristics.

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Transsexuality- Reflection 20

My understanding of intersexuality as been expanded after reading the article “What is Intersexuality.” An intersexual is a person that has characteristics of both sexes. To be more specific they have one ovary and one testes. They are called hermaphrodites. To be honest, I’ve heard of hermaphrodites and I knew that they were born with both gender characteristics. I wasn’t aware that there were pseudohermaphrodites for the different types of hermaphrodites depending on which sex genitalia they had more characteristics. I always understood it to be that they were very rare and sometimes hardly happens. I also know that often times parents for these children end up choosing their child’s sex and then providing them with steroids and hormone pills so that the child can grow properly in to the sex that was chosen for them. Trannies, transsexuals, Lady bois are all the same thing. They are men who dress p in women’s clothing who basically feel as though they were placed in to the wrong genders body. These men often get sex changes and they have breast implants in order to give the outward appearance of the woman they desire to be. I’ve never met anyone who has become a transsexual but that doesn’t mean that my mind is not open to them. I believe that there may chemical imbalances within thie person to make them feel the way they do and I wouldn’t want them to be unhappy in their own skin. There isn’t anything wrong with seeking happiness. Others believe that changing your sex is a sin against God because he has created in his own image. God also gives us the feeling to want to be happy and complete and I feel that if a person feels like they would be complete after doing the sex change surgery then why not let that person achieve the happiness for which they strive? The study of these topics have been useful in the sense that they provided me with more in depth information as to the intersexual and transsexual life. Not only that, it also allowed me to be able to call hermaphrodites intersexuals. Intersexuals sounds much more pleasant to the ear than the afore mentioned word. Growing up you hear a lot of people make jokes about intersexuals and transsexuals and tease each other about actually being one, not knowing the severity of the topic and the situation. It must really be hard for people who classify themselves of either one of the two groups to live in such a close-minded society.
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Same Sex- Reflection 19

What are my thoughts to the cause of homosexuality? This topic is one that called for a lot of thinking and evaluating of beliefs and values that are of my family. Not necessarily mine considering I have yet to really develop my own thoughts on many of the things I was raised to believe. First and foremost, homosexuality has been around for a very long time because it is even spoken about in the bible which is one of the oldest written literary works known to man. It is said that ONE of the reasons that Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed was because of homosexuality not to mention all of the other sexual immoralities that caused the city’s destruction. Some people fail to understand that homosexuality was not the only reason for the city’s destruction. This is only what we have come to know because of what someone else written. With that being said, we cannot determine the truth as to why the city was destroyed. The bible is a piece of work that many authors collaborated stories and made No one knows what was really said and done in those times because there isn’t anyone who is alive to tell their story and even if there was, it would be so many people speculating that it would be less of a hassle to just disregard what is said. I believe that people of the same sex that seek a relationship with each other was defined as something that is supposedly “bad” out of fear by the general population. People are always afraid of what they do not know and this is just an example of that statement. People place too much of an emphasis on gender and gender roles. Feelings can develop for whom ever, who are we to judge someone and tell them they are wrong simply because they are a part of the minority group? My views on homosexuality were impacted by the study of this topic only in a sense of enlightenment. The new information learned allows me to keeps my stance that people should have the right to be with and love whomever they please. It shouldn’t be society’s prerogative to place itself in the lives of each of the inhabitants only to try and rule them with the negativity in their words and actions. As for thinking what the actual cause for homosexuality may be, I do not have a stance. I’m not sure that it was caused by anything in particular. Saying that it has a cause makes it seem as if it is a disease or something. I’d like to believe that homosexuality has always been around and that people have always chosen their lifestyle and some people even have their beliefs that they were born the way they are which is not highly unlikely being that people are also born straight.
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Backyard Islands- Reflection 18

The information provided in the article “Tale of two Islands” sort of clarifies what many people have been saying all along. Miami Florida is a very diverse place that is home to many immigrants. Amongst those immigrants there are Haitians, Dominicans, Cubans, Jamaicans, etc. Of these immigrants, the Cubans stand above the rest when it comes to getting permanent residency in America. America tends to be more lenient to immigrants from Cuba than from any other country specifically Haiti. Cubans have the Wet Foot Dry Foot policy on their side which basically says that if they reach land before the Coast Guard can get to them then they are able to stay and have permanent residency. Though when those immigrants who travel from Haiti via an overfilled small passenger boat, they are denied and sent back to their country; A country that is one of the poorest countries in the world if it does not already hold that title. Even though Cuba is governed by dictators, they aren’t in the most horrible of situations. Haiti has and is still suffering from poverty and lack of a stable helping government. Not to mention the recent earthquake that happened that has devastated what was left of the declining country. The U.S has offered to grant temporary protective status to the Haitians that are already in the United States and that can prove that they have been here before the earthquake happened. They have been granted this for only eighteen months which seems preposterous to me. The government provides the immigrants who can pay to get a temporary social and residency card which will allow them to work legally for a year and a half. I wonder what the government will do when the eighteen months have depleted. Will they ship all of the temporary residents out of the country? Now many would say that the United States are being racist because of the fact that it is so easy for Cubans to get their residency and to get their official papers than it is for a Haitian who may have traveled the same way that the Cubans travel to the United States which is by boat. I think a case can be made for charges of institutional racism against Haitians by the United States. Why is that a country would deny one country’s immigrants while other they grant refuge? If you’re going to allow one, allow the both of them. Or to make it simpler, simply allow no one. But do not refuse immigrants from a country who suffer from poverty only to take in immigrants who feel their government is being too mean.
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rACING AGAINST Racism- Reflection 17

I’ve learned many things about both race and racism that opened my eyes to a whole new world. I also realized that many people do the unthinkable because of their and and for their racism against other races. White people feared their inferiorirty to blacks and therefore there was slavery that controlled blacks and made them the inferior to the whites. After the blacks moved from slavery because of them beginning to speak up and hold uproars about their race they went to segregation with the abolition of slavery. But even then white folk still felt like they had to prove that they were better than blacks by causing lynchings and killings if a black person so much as looked at their wives. I’m baffled at the fact that there were many people like Emmitt Till, a child, who was killed because he whistled at a white woman. I don’t understand what makes people think they are so much better than others they believe that their fecal product has a scent of roses in bloom. The ethnic cleansing done by the Serbian military to the Bosnian people was another baffling event in history because while they felt that the Bosnians were not good enough to dwell in the same territory as their race, they still made it a point to rape thousands of the Bosnian women hundreds of time. The way I understand that is these women were good enough for your men to pleasure themselves but not good enough to be left alone to live and stay with their families? For fear of their own race being overthrown and becoming the underdogs, many of these military personnel became leaders who lead their people to kill others and think that it was permissible. I wonder about the people who were merely kids when these major events in history took place. How they grew up believing that their fathers and brothers and uncles and grandfathers were doing the right thing by killing all of these innocent human beings. See, I think this can be very juch avoided if there were people back then who decided not to tell their child all of the misconceptions about people of different races from theirs. Even now, I think of black children who will not befriend anyone who isn’t black. Sometimes I wish I knew what they were being taught in their homes by rtheir parents about the other race. I doubt that we would ever reach a point where we can be done with racism and prejudice. Although humans beings have a brain larger than animals, sometimes we revert to our prehistoric beings and think as though we have a brain no larger than a pea. As the age old saying goes, “Be the change that you want to see in someone else.” I just wish everyone knew that phrase.
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Cleansing Ethnicities - Reflection 16

After reading and learning about ethnic cleansing and genocide I realized how lucky and blessed that I am that I didn’t have to endure the atrocities that the people of Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur had to experience. To make matters worse, the genocide in Rwanda was the most recent of them all. The pnly thing that is more disgusting than knowing that this happened so recent is the fact that there were other countries in the area and the United States that could have stopped this genocide form happening. When I had the opportunity to watch Hotel Rwanda I was already briefed that the events actually happened and was not from someone’s imagination. What does it take to stop an event like this from occurring? How many more people have to die before we realize that prejudice has done enough damage? One thing that I have learned is that theses prejudicial and obscenely cruel acts only stem through fear. Fear is by far one of the most powerful emotions that one can hold. It has the power to make people do things that they would normally not do, but if someone fears of their culture’s decline, their group, their family, or even themselves, they evidently hold the power to do many things. One can never stop learning about the human race and the ill-mannered things that they are capable of. I can only imagine the paint hat these victims have felt and even that is not enough. The genocide in Rwanda, the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia have the same output. Merciless killers who gave themselves the authority to kill these human beings. There were over two hundred thousand people that were killed in Bosnia by the Serbians who had leaders that even ordered for some villages to be “cleansed” more than others because there were more Muslims living in the territory. After the cleansing, only then was it safe for Serbians to live in the “freshly” cleansed territory. Who are they to judge and say who should be cleansed? Sometimes I wonder where was the logical thinking government in these countries that basically allowed these things to happen to their people. These events can be prevented if people understand that not everyone is going to be alike. This only proves that people only fear what they do not know. If everyone was supposed to be the same I would think that they would have been created the same by the superior being (God). Or even if they do not believe in God they would understand that if people were meant to be the same then all the apes in the world that evolved into human beings would have been the same.
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Entombed -(Reflection 15)

The Holocaust was a terrible situation that happened to the Jews at the hands of the Nazi regime. Putting humans in concentration camps and making them live in ghettos and branding them with marks only to use them as scapegoats from their own problems. Sadly, the Jews were not the only victims of the Holocaust. Gypsies, homosexuals, Soviet prisoners, as well as mentally and physically disabled persons were also annihilated. There were four major killing centers where victims were killed almost immediately after their arrival by gassing. They were loaded into gas chambers and were killed that way. Treblinka was physically the largest killing center of the four. The people who claim to not believe that the Holocaust happened are too ignorant and I believe they are simply blinded by their own cruelty and stupidity. With so much evidence, how could one deny such a horrific event. Though the slaying of Africans didn’t have as much killings events like these in history shouldn’t be denied. There are witnesses and key role players who admitted being a part of this. Would so many people lie about the same thing? Why would so many people have the same story? I feel that these people should really try to open their minds about the Holocaust. Alive today there are some people who have written books about their life during the Holocaust so I think it is crazy and ignorant that there are still some people who believe that the Holocaust didn’t take place. When I was in middle school I had a teacher, Kathleen Serio, who assigned for everyone in class to read a book called “Entombed” which was about Bernard Mayer and forty five other Jews who lived underground and were lucky enough to survive the Holocaust. They were saved by a non-Jew who was nice enough to let them in his home. The reality in the life story of Bernard Mayer that was depicted in his autobiography lead the reader to feel as though they were living during the Holocaust themselves. At least that was how it made me feel. I felt all of the raw emotions of pain and hurt as the journey of life underground took place for Bernard. With the life story of a man who was able to write and share his story that contained the gruesome details of the Holocaust, it shakes me to believe that there are still some people who believe that the Holocaust isn’t real. Hopefully they are able to get the chance to read and to educate themselves with our history.
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Prejudice- REFLECTION 14

The fact that Jim Cole wanted to look at prejudice differently from the normal way people evaluate other things such as rape automatically caught my attention. His intentions were to look at the people who are acting upon their prejudicial dysfunctions rather than those who are victimized by their actions. He spoke truth in saying that we learn many of our prejudices as children by simple stereotypes that are learned in the home. With these learned stereotypes the children row into adults making decisions and plans based on the stereotypes they grew up on. In the article Beliefs, Values and Attitudes, prejudice is described as the most problematic of all negative attitudes. The article provides a good description of each of the negative behaviors that are involved in prejudice. These behaviors are sometimes so etched within us that we do not even notice when they are being displayed. The article provides good information about prejudice. The author made a statement that fear is the most responsible element in prejudice and the behaviors that are associated with it. The author also points out human beings connection and relation to familiarity. Humans like things that are familiar so they automatically associate things that are familiar to be good. On the other hand, humans dislike and have an outward negative disposition about things that aren’t familiar. Those things which ar different aren’t good and they definitely aren’t accepted too well amongst people. This is evident even in babies. For instance, I live in Miami and my sister has a little girl named Alyssa who is a twin to her brother Nathan. I see them all of the time and so the know me and know my face. My niece who doesn’t live here came from Tallahassee from school during her Spring Break and came with me to my sister’s house to see the twins. Alyssa didn’t even want to come to me because my niece was in the room, but as soon as my niece left Alyssa flew into my arms. I thought it was weird at first but then I understood that Alyssa didn’t know who my niece was even though we were all family. I doubt that Alyssa’s behavior can be considered prejudice since she is a baby. The fact of the matter is that even babies, when in the face of something that is different to them, tend to think that difference is not a good thing and won’t have anything to do with it.
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Who Am I? - Reflection 13

After reading the article “Understanding the Self” a few concepts stuck t me. These concepts hold many truths in what I think of and some of the beliefs that I hold. One concept was, “To thine own self be true…” This is a quote that I heard a long time ago and I’ve repeated it and tried my best to live by it. To me, it means that many things tend to change and not be what you expect them to be and though you may face different things in life stay true to who you really are. Sort of like not forgetting about from whence you came. Another concept that stuck with me was that Goffman believed that often times our mannerisms are simply a “front” that we put up in hopes that it will satisfy the expectations we feel others have for us at the moment. One of the most important concepts that I got out of reading this article was at point number two when the author was describing how humans typically are. One of those points was that “We protest loudly about those matters in life that offend us but remain silent and even unthankful about those things that please us” and I thought to myself that this is so true. People are typically ungrateful for what they have and they often times don’t show appreciation for the good in their lives. I also understood that at one point philosophy and psychology were considered one until psychology evolved enough on its own to be considered a separate entity. Another concept in the article that I gave some thought to was whether or not there is only one self or multiple selves that make up on person. This statement may bring some controversy because people will only believe that they are one self. In reality though, the article made a point by putting out that if there was to be a video camera that followed you throughout the course of one week we wouldn’t only see one self. You would act differently in different situations amongst different people. It’s not that you would be a completely different person each time but there would be slight differences. So it may be safe to say that there is more than one self. I know that I do not act the same around everyone. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I suffer from some type of disorder. It just means different times different behaviors; I’m not saying that I act like a completely different person each time. Now that would just be a disorder.
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Old Sigmund- Reflection 12

Freud’s work on the Theory of Personality is considered important even by those who do not agree with him because he provides them with a base that they are at least able to counter. Other theories of personality often develop only after the there is something to argue against. So even if many people didn’t agree with his personality theory, Freud affected and held importance to them all. Many of Freud’s theories put an emphasis on a driving force that many people tend to disagree with which is sex. Freud basically didn’t sugar coat any of his theories and was very blatant with his ideas. Sometimes people don’t want to believe the truth about mankind. Mankind has a lot aggression and they are driven by a lot of sexual desires. Freud even figured why we go to college to get a degree is actually so that we can attract a better mate with whom we will have offspring that will continue our bloodlines. Everyone wouldn’t look at life like that. But there is some truth to that because with a degree we want to marry someone else who has a degree that way raising children would be a simple since money is coming in from both parties, the child will want of nothing. According to Freud we have different parts of our personality that develops at different stages from birth. They are the Id, The ego and the Superego. The Id is developed at birth which helps the parent to acknowledge the child’s need. When the child’s diaper is yet, or when the child wants to be fed they cry to make that known not paying any attention to reality. They just know that they need to be satisfied at that point in time and make no bones about showing it. The id only cares about satisfying itself and no one else. After about three to four years the Ego is developed and that when reality becomes a part of the personality. The child then understands that other people have feelings as well so reality as come into the picture at this point. The ego still has to be able to satisfy the Id , but it does so understanding that someone else has feelings and wants to be satisfied just the same. Freud goes on to explain the Superego as the part of us which has moral values and constraints. Basically this is the little voice, what we sometimes call it, that tells us what is good versus what is bad. People often hear this as their parents voice knowing that if their parent was there they wouldn’t choose the bad thing to do. Overall, I think that Freud has some pretty interesting theories and though some areas of his theories are false, many of them are true.
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Beliefs -Reflection 11

The thing that strikes me as most important while reading Beliefs, Values and Attitudes is the idea of values itself. Values help to determine a person’s behavior, thoughts and even conditions of being whether desirable or undesirable. Being a teacher, we would have to deal with these different values that each student brings to the classroom and we have to understand that each student isn’t going to have the same values even the ones that we believe to be the most generic. Values are decisions that help us to choose what is classified as good or appropriate behavior. Being that each student will have different values, not only will some opinions differ from my own, but they will also differ between each student. This may cause different situations in a classroom so as a teacher, I believe that we must learn to help our students with the acceptance that not everyone will think like them. The values that people have learned in their homes, families, and traditions will determine how they behave in public and assist them with making decisions in the classroom. Not only will their values be different, but also their attitudes and beliefs. Some children are brought up to believe stereotypical things about other cultures that differ from their own. Being a teacher in a diverse classroom will be a task in itself besides the idea of actually teaching them. I would have to say that the most important thing that I’ve learned after reading the article is that though we are raised with a set of instilled values and beliefs that determine our attitudes, we do not have to stay that way for the rest of our lives because a change can occur within our beliefs, values and attitudes which can allow us to reach multicultural awareness/ consciousness which is the state where everyone should strive to reach being that it would allow us to be enlightened individuals working towards the greater good of the society rather than working against everyone else in the society. Along with positive beliefs and values we also have negative ones that are instilled in us from within our culture and these beliefs are rooted in fear and ignorance. With a change in beliefs overall we would be uprooting the weeds of prejudicial actions and feelings that were once rooted and we can continue on the journey towards multicultural awareness/ consciousness
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Including Everyone (Reflection 10)

Even before reading the article, one can gather a lot of information from the title of it. The title basically lets the reader know that the information in the article will assist with teaching and including all of your students opposed to just one set. The article “Teaching for Inclusion” is a very helpful article in the sense that it gives a lot of insight for a diverse classroom. Classrooms in modern times are always diverse opposed to earlier in the times when teachers didn’t have diversity and weren’t trained on how to handle diversity in the classrooms. If anyone was different from the majority of the students in the classroom, the student was more than likely sent to the guidance counselor for lack of a better way to handle them. With the new information available, I would hope that the average teacher is much more in tuned with his or her students. Luckily we have evolved and matured as a society that we do not have to rely on guidance counselors to handle those kids that rent a part of the norm that we are used to. If that was the case, in a classroom in modern times almost every child will be sitting in the office of a guidance counselor because of their difference. Diversity is a part of the average classroom today. Another point in the article was that the teacher should get to know their students. I believe this is true because getting to know the student will benefit the teacher and the student. The student will be comfortable in the classroom and will be able to do their work accordingly. One thing I would definitely want to implement in my future classroom is setting up ground rules for discussions. Of course I would want everyone to be able to express their own opinions but I do not want it to be expressed at the cost of another student’s opinion. I also feel that by setting these ground rules into play, there would be less controversy especially when controversial topics are being discussed. Another important point that was found in the article was the inclusion of humorin lesson plans and different topics. Humor is a gentle place to walk on because many people do not find the sme things funny. I’m certain there will be topics that you would have to add humor to try and ge the students involved in it but the humor being used may be offensive to some students and not others. So do you just leave humor out of it all together? I am hopeful that in my future classroom I am able to distinguish between the small things like good humor and non offensive humor from bad humor or offensive humor. I am willing to dedicate my time with my students to learn them and their patterns that way they feel comfortable but still knows that the teacher is in charge of the classroom and not them.
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(Reflection 9)

I never knew that there was a difference between awareness and consciousness. I always thought that being aware meant that you were conscious. After reading Transformation: Awareness and Consciousness I learned a few new things. One of those things was that awareness and consciousness are indeed different. Awareness is more than just a thing of the mind and it is not mental. Consciousness on the other hand is of the quality of the mind and is very much mental. Consciousness is also thought of as one of many levels of awareness. The author made a point in describing consciousness and awareness. One point that stood out to me was the example of a person sleeping. When a person goes to sleep their consciousness is also in a resting state. Even though they are asleep they are still aware of sounds around them. This is why people are able to be awaken out of sleep when they hear alert words like “fire!” or when they hear “Help!” The author also went on to say that awareness is the like the background amongst all that happens whether or not we realize it. According to Colin Wilson, there are eight levels of consciousness seven of which he described but the last one he was silent on it and didn’t describe it. This information is new to me being that I never imagined that someone would describe so many levels of consciousness. We are learning about awareness and consciousness for the purpose of transformation. These two things are very important while on the journey of transformation. When we have reached a level where we are both aware and conscious not only of ourselves but of others and their beliefs and opinions at that point is when we can be considered multiculturally aware and understanding that we along with everyone else that inhabits the world may not have the same beliefs and values. Being able to understand our differences and accept each other for them brings us to a point where we are more elevated that some people who feel that their opinions are the only ones that matter. After reading these articles and understanding their concepts, I hope to reach a point where I am transformed from my current being to a much mlore enlightened and aware being.
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Having "The Talk" (Reflection 8)

Ive never really thought about how my parents taught me about class neither about how my social class differs from everyone else. Growing up, I had it very easy, never wanted nor suffered for anything really. My home is a nice size house with four rooms 2 bathrooms and an add on room as well. We have a big backyard and swimming pool and we live in a decent neighborhood. We’ve been living at the same house for twenty-two years and never experienced any necessity like water and lights being turned off. Yet my mom would always say that she was broke. Every holiday everyone always had new clothes, shoes; everyone’s hair was either cut or done by the salon. Yet when asked for money, my mom would always say that she was broke and she didn’t have any. I finally learned that when my mom said she didn’t have any money that was basically code words for she wasn’t giving you any even though she did have it; Only for necessities. Living by the standards of the media, I would say that we were a middle class family. The media didn’t play a big part in determining that, I learned that from seeing the lack of things in other homes and families. I learned to be grateful at an early age and never to be unappreciative because there was always someone who wanted it more than yourself. With the understanding of my gender, of course there were the main things like pink is for girls and blue is for boys but it didn’t go much further than that. I remember being amongst some of my friends and they would talk about only doing inside chores like cleaning and dusting, when at my house, chores were chores, no matter what the gender was. The girls were outside raking the yards, boys were cleaning bathrooms. There were never any limitations. We also knew that girls and boys didn’t have the same privates and you weren’t supposed to let anyone see. That’s as far as it went with understanding of gender in my household. As far as sexual relations were concerned, I never learned about it from my mom and dad. I learned from friends who had learned from their friends and cousins and so on. And then all the myths and such were corrected in biology classes and in human growth and development classes and from me reading about it on my own. I’ve never really heard of island parents teaching their kids about it. You basically just knew when you came of age that you were not to show up in your mom’s house pregnant or that would be the end of days.

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Transformer We Are (Reflection 5)

In the articles entitled Culture: What It Is and Transformation: Creating Context, the author provides the reader’s with information on how many within the same human species are very different ; this information inst totally new to me. And it isn’t too far-fetched to believe that there are some people who believe that everyone in the world is just like them; holding the same opinions and truths as the next person. The author assists his readers with understanding that people have very different points of view that stem from different roots. The author also points out one of man’s greatest flaw, and that is to judge. Everyone does it a great deal of the time. Sometimes it is done and people aren’t even aware of it. By suspecting something without actually knowing and then allowing oneself to believe and react like what you think is actually true, then that is a form of judging a person. For instance, there are many older people, who, when they see a young person with dreadlocks in their hair and they happen to be a person of color, assume that this young person is out to do them harm. They often clutch their bags and plce their hands in their pockets making sure to hold on tightly to their wallets. Who’s to say that this young person is even thinking to do such an ill-mannered thing to another person. But far be it from them to actually think to say just maybe this person is simply minding their own business. I’ve learned that compassion, tolerance and, acceptance are all apart of understanding human diversity. I also learned as much as I believe that I do not care about something and that it has no affect on me, I still would have to generate an opinion which will determine that I do. This rang true because I realized that as much as you don’t like someone or something how you feel still rings true in your expressions whether you try to show it or not. In “Transformation: Creating Context” the author also talks about something that many people try to do and it is very evident and that is to reinvent oneself. To reinvent oneself is basically to try and change physical state and one’s thinking state. This is a simplified version of a definition of transformation which the author strongly emphasizes. After transformation has taken place, one can be an enlightened individual. Yet, what transformation is good transformation?
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Reflection 7

Rites of passages are important because they are supposed to teach the individuals who is partaking in the ceremonies how to be a proper adult and a good member of the society. Rites of passage ceremonies aren’t the same as formal education but they are similarities. Formal education is meant to teach the individual about their culture and to lead them into the path to become proper members of society. The rites of passage rituals and ceremonies do this collectively. The endurance of these rituals allows for induction or acceptance into the culture or tribe. In the readings of the articles titled The Sambia, Sitting Quietly, and Facing Mt. Kenya are insights to the different rituals from different cultures. In The Sambia, we learn how the Sambian people practice their rites of passage ceremonies. They believe that tingu which is semen, carries the necessities in changing from a boy to a man. The Sambian boys practice fellatio on other boys and are instructed to digest the tingu. They are not considered homosexual amongst their culture since they grow up and lead very heterosexual lives having wives and many children. Our beliefs in western culture would be to first call them homosexuals though they are strongly against be called homosexual. In Facing Mt Kenya, the children participate in many dances and are separated in two huts, boys and girls. In these huts, they learn many of the tribe’s secrets. They then gather in a circle,(the girls) with their legs opened and an older woman comes around with a sharp knife and cuts of their clitoris. The girls must sit and endure the pain without making a sound. This ritual is also followed by the boys who are also circumcised with a sharp knife. Not only is this painful, but it can be medically unsanitary. The kids are sometimes liable to die from infectious diseases. Imagine an old person performing any type of surgery on someone. For one, their hands shake way to much for it to be steady. What if they cut something that isn’t supposed to be cut? Another thing is the excruciating pain theses individuals must suffer. There are circumcisions done in the United States but they are done when at birth when the person is still an infant. These young boys who have already begun to develop biologically have to endure a lot of pain to be accepted as a man and a good standing citizen in the tribe. Honestly, if it was up to me, I would just walk away from the tribe; family and all. The rites of passage ritual in Sitting Quietly aren’t too farfetched. The twins are taken away by a mythical legend into the forest to become men. They are taught the basics to survival in the tribe and those who complete are men. They even get new names. Not bad at all. The author made the story exciting by having the readers believe that the children were actually being eaten. Analogies are wonderful and the author uses them brilliantly. All in all, different cultures have different ideas on what is considered to be norms. These rituals teach loyalty, dignity, respect and teach the individuals about becoming model citizens. These things are done so that the culture can be carried into the next generation. Without tradition there is not culture and these rituals display that.


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Thoughts on Little rock (Reflection 6)

Sometimes when you hear of things that happened you may often wonder how it could really have been like that. Well, at least I know that I do. When I hear and read of all of the ill-mannered people who commit acts of cruelty it amazes me yet doesn’t surprise me. Sometimes I even think that if there happened to be a time that comes to pass that people believe they won’t have any consequences at all for their actions, then the world would be in a lot more trouble than it is now. As kids, I think that the nine students endured more than they could handle. If I had been in the same predicament I would have more than likely cried every day. I don’t think that I have what it takes to stand up to such cruelty. Not only were these kids being teased and taunted by kids their age, but they were also being shunned by parents and teachers alike. The riots that took place as they were walking in the door were enough to make anyone go mad. Having to be escorted to do something as simple as walking in the door to school is outrageous. But at the same time, having guards to escort me into school, knowing the type of person that I am, I would have felt very important and liked the attention. Good or bad, attention is attention and it would be nice to know that I affect so many people to the point where they feel threatened enough to riot at a school. It means that I destined for greatness. If everyone likes you all the time then something has got to be wrong. These people should have at least understood that they were saying these slurs and shouts to mere children who did nothing but desired an education. What if the shoe was on the other foot? I’d like to think that they wouldn’t have wanted to have their child face that type of pressure at such a young age. I remember when first hearing of this story and being so angry that people could be so much anger and filled with hatred for mankind. These children, along with their parents, fought for what they believed was right and doing so led the path to a long line of desegregation within the schools until it was abolished all together. They should really be commended for exemplifying such bravery. As for me, if I were one of those nine, I would have probably been one to want to chicken out at first but after experiencing it once, I would have more than likely realized that the things were saying would have been repetitive and after hearing once, it’s like hearing it one thousand times. Racial slurs, as does anything else, seem to get old and sometimes they get old before we even know it.



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Reflection 4-Diversity

Many students who are studying education would question as to why they are required to take a human diversity class. I have been in different situation that has helped me with both tolerate and accept within diversity. In colonial times, diversity in education was very rare. There wasn’t much diversity in the schools because the students in the school were normally from the same colony and within the same district. Integration had yet to take place. After integration took place in the schools and desegregation took place there were many issues amongst students and the faculty at the schools. It was harder for the African American students to succeed probably because of all of the stress from being the minority at an all white school. The teachers had even responded inappropriately to these children and also contributed to them feeling the way that they did. Had those teachers been trained in how to deal with diversity and not to expect that every child would come from the same type of home they would have understood how to deal with them. Taking a diversity class in modern times will not only benefit the teachers but it will also benefit the students who are being taught. Unlike the teachers in colonial times, current teachers have to do more than just deal with students of different races but we also have to deal with students who may be homosexual or transgender. That isn’t the only contributing factor in diversity. There are children who have different ethnic backgrounds, different beliefs on what some people may consider as norms. There are also many different views on religion. When placed in a classroom after having the training to not only tolerate but also accept the fact that there is a diverse set of students that are going to be taught, modern teachers will be able to handle what may seem like difficult situations with agility. I feel that I am well prepared for many different areas especially in homosexuality. Not only am I tolerant towards homosexuals but I’m connected with them as well. I’ve never been one to disregard someone else religious beliefs for that of my own so I believe that I am prepared to handle the beliefs of others while knowing that I do not have to incorporate them with my own. I’m not certain on whether it is appropriate to say that I was raised to accept everyone for who they are because it wasn’t like there were discussions or anything about them in my household. But I do know that I was raised to not judge others and everyone is going to be different from me. At the completion of this course, I am hoping that I will have undergone a transformation that can better me as a person and will contribute to my success as an educator in the future.

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Reflection 3-Paradigm

Paradigms and paradigm shifts are not a new subject to me being that I was introduced to the subject by an educator a couple of years back. Paradigms are defined as the model that we have for different things. With paradigms, people are able to understand things much more easily and by associating different situations or things we these paradigms that they already have, it is relatively easy for them to handle the current situation. A change or renovations in the models that we have are called paradigm shifts. In one’s life they may experience many changes that will allow them to rethink and maybe even reconstruct some of their ways, values and beliefs. I think it is important for teachers to experience paradigm shifts because not everyone will have the same beliefs as their own. It is important to be able to change and in doing so even develop new outlooks on society. With these new outlooks that have been created, people will e more able to adapt and respond to changes with a quickness and agility that will assist them in their everyday lives. To my knowledge, I haven’t experienced a paradigm shift. Or maybe I have in the past and just didn’t recognize it as a paradigm shift. I am almost positive that I will have one because honestly a shift in paradigms won’t kill anyone; certainly not me. Whenever I do experience a paradigm shift, at least with the knowledge I have now I would be able to take notice in the change that would be taking place. I’ll even be able to use it as an example in my classroom one day when I’m teaching my students. Teachers have to be able to change and experience paradigm shifts because they are educating tomorrow’s future. We all know that a good majority of people learn by example and in this case teachers should be able to lead by example. When the students that they are teaching witness the ease of change in their teachers’ lives, they too will be able to handle things well and be able to go into the world with a new outlook on life. This isn’t to say that these students should throw away what they have already acquired as knowledge but this will assist them with putting the pieces of the puzzle together and utilizing the many different skills they will have retained. If only all of the inhabitants of the world believed that they needed a shift in paradigms in order for their lives to be more abundant and promising with them being receptive of changes.
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Reflection 2

The two articles in question are very informative and at the same time interesting. With previously acquired knowledge, I was aware that transformation was a process that changes one’s thought process and behaviors. I believe that every effective individual had to undergo a transformation at one point or another in his/her life to get to the point where they were able to be an effective person. As an educator, I believe that transformation would be a very important aspect of my career because there are many different things that may not be known to me, but at least with the broaden perspective and point of view it would be easier to accept and to gain new knowledge. In both articles, the author emphasizes that when an individual has sought and reached multicultural awareness/ consciousness they have then reached transformation. Being aware of the differences between cultures, races, people and even gender can assist us with being able to cope and assist the other person when necessary. Being able to understand accept another person’s difference is a great skill. This also goes with the age old saying, Judge not and be not judged. If there were more people who had the skill set to accept other individuals for their differences and not judge them there would be less confrontation and arguments about unnecessary things. It is incredibly easy for us to pass judgment on someone but it is hard for us to learn not to do so. The first article helps to depict what transformation actually is by giving the story of the butterfly. The butterfly starts off as larvae, and then goes into a caterpillar and then moving forward to the chrysalis and then a final result of a butterfly. During the transformation the caterpillar changes and takes on a new shape. Even though the caterpillar and the butterfly have different DNA, scientists have concluded that they are still one. Meaning, as much as a person can change their way of thinking and their behavior, they are still the same person, only renovated. Hopefully, my transformation from being a pre-teaching intern to a certified educator goes as gracefully as the transformation of the butterfly. I’m sure it won’t be too easy, but it’s a path I’m willing and ready to take.



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Reflection 1: New Inventions Impacting the Brain

The material that was required to read for this reflection gives insight to how the human brain developed and broadened with knowledge. With the discovery of fire the prehistoric humans were able to do many things like cook food, scare off wild animals and ultimately became the hunter instead of the hunted. With this change in the food chain, the humans were able to change their diet and add cooked meat to their diet. This change also affected their brains. The result was a growth in the physical part of the brain as well as cognitively. The meat in their diet caused this change. Being a pre-teaching intern, we are asked to read this kind of material because it helps us to more or less understand how the brain works. With the new information learned, the brain grew in size because it changed the way things had to be learned. Having gained this knowledge on the brain, it helps educators learn what they too will be affecting. Educators will also change the way a person’s brain is by teaching that person.. With the new information, the person will therefore go forward with a new insight on things as well as a brain that grew a little more because of the knowledge. Thus after the prehistoric human managed the use of fire, this lead to other changes including the invention of other things such as writing and the wheel. With the both the invention of the wheel and the invention of writing, the mind grew more and more. With this growth, humans were able to think more and also develop better communication skills. At every part in history where a drastic change affected humans, they gained more knowledge and through natural selection the unnecessary bygones were weeded out and then passed on to the future generation or modern humans are the by-products of a lot of growing of the brain and changes in the everyday life of people. As it is to this day, a child growing in modern times has the know how of any average adult on the latest technology because they are born in the technological era it isn’t hard for them to catch on to the new things that are made. This isn’t the same for the older adult who was used to having minimal uses for technology. I’m almost sure that the expansion of our brains will continue to increase because we are inventing new things each day to assist with our everyday lives. Meaning that in the next hundred years or so, humans may undergo another change in life that will expand the capacity of the brain and allow for an even easier and more comfortable way of living that won’t be strange to anyone.



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