Feminism: A Touchy Subject

I am going to start off this post by sharing my own experience with feminism and hopefully everyone reading this will excuse me for my past arrogance. I grew up with two sisters both of whom were very athletic and high achieving, and in a family that really focused on equality between race and gender. Because of this when feminism was introduced to me as a Grade eleven student I really didn’t understand why feminism was such a big deal because I had always grown up being taught that everyone is equal no matter their gender. So when my Grade eleven teacher starting talking about feminism and how male dominated are society was and still is I am ashamed to say that I basically tuned out of the whole lesson. One of the reasons I did this was because of the negative connotations the word feminism had to me because of previous knowledge I picked up from various sources about feminists. I like many other many was given the image that feminists were all “man bashers”. It was easier for me just not to listen because the way I was raised really sheltered me from the rest of the world in a way because I was unable to realize that outside of my home that the society that I was living in was very male dominated. It wasn’t until University when one of my Professor’s was talking about feminism that I actually listened to the points she was saying and began to realize how male dominated are society still is. Now I wasn’t naïve enough to say I had never realized that there was feminism at all in our society but I just thought that the feminism women experienced wasn’t that big of a deal at all. The Professor that finally got through to me explained feminism in a different way than I have ever heard it before and the main difference was there wasn’t the accusation that we as males usually feel when the topic of feminism is brought up. Instead of instantly accusing males she focused more on the differences of men and women and how women were portrayed in the novels we were reading. This brought a whole new perspective to my ideas of feminism and I began to realize for the first time how male dominant are society really was. My point behind this whole story is that I believe that as Teachers we have to watch how we present feminism to our students. Many of these male students associate the word feminism as a direct accusation against them because they are male because of the negative connotations that society has placed on the word feminism. I believe when you accuse anyone of something that they will automatically shut down and instead of listening begin to look ways to argue their point. Appleman’s textbook gives us an example of a way we can use to help protect against males taking offense to the word feminism instead calling it gender theory. We will also have to careful in the way we present the material that is very feministic because we have to watch we don’t seem like we are accusing are students but instead are just trying to get them to realize gender differences and how they are created. By helping are students become more knowledgeable about ideas such as gender roles, and how gender is created we will hopefully help students become more aware of their gender place in the world along with other peoples gender place in the world.

Social Class Lens : Appleman

"For students to be able to understand themselves and each other, they need to be able to contextualize their knowledge in terms larger then themselves; in other words, they need to be able to place their own particular situations and the texts they read into a larger system or set of beliefs." (Appleman, 54). Canada has claimed to be a country that has accepted multiculturalism for many years but it seems to be just lately that we are beginning to deconstruct the Eurocentric views that have been expressed in the curriculumn and the classroom of Canadian students for years. By introducing the social class lens it helps are students understand the culturally diverse communitys that they are now growing up in. Students have now hopefully begun the process of learning about multiculturalism and through introducing these materials the teachers will be providing background information of the cultures that are being studied. By doing this we as Teachers will be able to help the students understand the values and traditions of other cultures. By gaining these realizations of different perspectives hopefully the students will be able to do what the quote says and place their own particular situations and the texts they read into a larger system or set of beliefs. By teaching through a social class lense it will hopefully help students understand and appreciate the differences between them and their peers and really begin to realize that although we may all different beliefs but even though they are different all these beliefs are equally as important. Setting up a classroom with these ideals would discourage any one view as right and would work towards helping these students understand that being accepting of many different views is very important.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVg0NgIrFTQ&feature=related

In the Classroom : First Nations Literature

In my classroom in Holy Cross I have experienced a problem that as English teachers I imagine many of us will experience. The unit was on First Nations literature and the students had just finished reading a short story I can't remember what the name was but in the story it talked about one of the characters having a Potlatch. For those of you who might not know what a Potlatch is it is an First Nations ceremony in which the person who holds the ceremony usually a leader or a higher ranking family member holds a feast and gives away gifts. When the students were told this concept there was alot of discussion and most of the comments were along the lines of "That is ridiculous" or "I would never throw a party." These students didn't realize that First Nations culture is based around gift giving and one of the major ways to gain respect in Aboriginal communities is to share what you have with those that have less than you. After the students were told they still seemed to think the idea a little bit ridiculous but began to create more of a reasoning on why First Nations people would throw a Potlatch. This relates back to the day in class when we discussed how you have to look at books from different perspectives. These students were looking at the story from a Eurocentric perspective instead of a First Nations. I believe as English teachers we need to challenge the students preconcieved notions that the mainstream perspective is not the only perspective. As Educators we are going to have to break down these walls and make these students aware of the different perspectives around them and help them realize that everyone is coming from a different background and that just because something is considered mainstream such as the Eurocentric views of the world that does not make it the only way to view the world or even the best way. To end as future Educators we have to work to become more accepting of other cultures and widen are knowledge base so we will be able to then help are students widen their knowledge base. If you believe in what you are teaching its going to help your students believe in it.

Teaching Literacy for Love and Wisdom Chapter One

Base on our classroom learning and teaching over the past half century, we're guessing teachers and students have never had less fun and engagement in real learning than they do now. Leile Christenbury, who recently spent a term as a high school teacher again after a long career in teacher education, found her students "largely preferred not to commit to any sort of sustained intellectual engagement" and saw the classroom as "a barren way station, a locale to pass the time, turn the pages, and get the credit."

Reading this part of the article really began to make me think back to my experience in English through High school and really made me take a look back at what I had experienced and in many cases my experiences rang true to the quote that was taken from "Teaching Literacy for Love and Wisdom." Thinking back my teachers never really pushed us to engage with the material, or atleast not near the same level of engagement that is described in the "Teaching Literacy for Love and Wisdom." Instead my High School English experience consisted of reading the assigned books for the curriculumn, answering questions that were assigned to each specific chapter, and handing in the answers to be marked. We never really engaged in any of are novels for the year as a class but simply answered the questions for each chapter and moved on to the next. I also remember another experience from my grade twelve English class when we were reading and interpreting a poem. The teacher read us the poem and then proceeded to interpret most of the poem for us instead of letting us work out the poem ourselves. By doing this instead of engaging us in the learning of the poem she really disengaged us. I say this because of instead of having to look through the poem and find our own meanings she told us what it meant and really left no area of the poem free to interpret for ourselves. Therefore as a class for this certain poem we really had only the one interpretation which was that of the teacher and it seemed to be discrediting how other students might have interpreted it. Through this style of teaching we were only exposed to the Teachers interpretation and therefore lost any of the other views that might have came up if this same situation was presented but instead of the Teacher interpreting the discussion could have been opened up for the whole class to try and interpret. Both of these experiences that have I have had as a student support Leile's idea that the classroom as a barren way station, turn the pages, and get the credit my question to the people commenting on this article is how are we as young aspiring English teacher going to change this in are classrooms?