Event 1

The event that I attended as a social justice event was the Promising Practices Conference. I decided to use this conference as my first event because I am studying to become an early-childhood & special education teacher and this conference was designed with teachers in mind. It was convenient for any RIC student to get to because it was held here at RIC in Donovan Dining Center on a Saturday morning. At this event I attended 2 workshops which were very informative. The first was about teaching social studies through zumba dance. The teacher along with her student teacher who was also a zumba instructor were able to teach their first graders different continents and facts about the world through different zumba rotations. I found this to be pretty awesome that these kids got so invested with this new fun way of learning. The second workshop I attended was about bringing outside experience into your classroom. In this workshop 2 professional teachers from high schools came and discussed things they have done outside of the classroom whether it was over the summer working on bridges or being a marine biologist on a ship. Both these speakers showed how you can connect this experience to lesson you can do in the classroom and even get the student interested in possible fields they might want to go into in college.

This Promising Practices event connects with Privilege, Power, and Difference by: Allan Johnson, and Interrupting the Cycle of Oppression by: Andrea Ayvazian. How it connects with Privilege, Power, and Difference is because when you become a teacher you’re going to be working with children from all different backgrounds some may be poor while others might be rich and some might be of a certain race while others might be of another. The point is that everyone is different and that’s okay but it is our job as teachers not to treat children different ways but to treat them all equally.

How it connects to Interrupting the Cycle of Oppression is because as teachers we want to have our students know that maybe not the school hallways but the classroom will always be a safe space for students that way they will feel comfortable and be able to be themselves. It is our job as teachers to take on the role of an ally if we see a student who needs someone to have their back we should be there to reassure them. Teachers can also teach their students about what it means to be an ally, letting the students know about this that way if they ever see something going on they will know how to be an ally and have that persons back. 

 Below I have posted a video of the first grade students at the Henry Barnard School doing social studies through Zumba dance which was what the first workshop that I went to was all about.

http://www2.turnto10.com/lifestyles/2012/may/24/health-check-zumba-classroom-ar-1048645 

Random post 2

So sadly today is the last day of us together in our Women Studies class. I'm definitely going to miss it and miss all of you. This class has been my favorite class all semester and I'm glad I took it. This class has opened my eyes and taught me a lot about our society in terms of feminism and how somethings over the years have changed through waves 1 and 2 but this 3rd wave of feminism that we currently are in is hard to fix and get out of.  I wish everyone good luck and greaat success moving on further with their lives and future careers. I'm sure well all do great things some day and have some great people working towards social justice.

To Be An Ally

Hyperlinks
After reading Ayvarzian and Blanchard's articles I felt that it would be good for me to make this post a hyperlink with different websites that talk about allies and ways people can help others out.

www.glaad.org/resources/ally

www.imatyfa.org/parents/index.html

www.alliesinselfadvocacy.org

Another resource that you can use is YouTube to look up videos that talk about being an ally and then if you want to watch it play out they have videos where you can watch someone being an ally for others when they need someone to have their back. 

Croteau Media and Ideology

Connections and Hyperlinks
After reading this article "Media and Ideology" it definitely made me feel like I could relate it to past articles that we read and discussed.  For example it reminded me of the article "What Little Boys Are Made Of" because that article talks about society and the influences things have on boys today. Such as toys and what we teach and expect boys to grow up and be like. 
Another article that I thought about was "Cinderella Ate My Daughter" because this article talked about how mothers are teaching their little girls at a young age to love the color pink, want to be like a princess, and become a housewives based on the toy selection in stores.

These videos posted above are 3 TV shows on MTV that influence teenagers and anyone that watches them.  The shows are 16 and pregnant, teen mom along with teen mom 2, and Jersey Shore, I know Jersey Shore doesn't portray that good of a message. Instead it basically portrays people getting paid to party, drink, and have sex. So teenagers who watch this get the idea that this is okay and they should go along with it.

Election... Yay Obama!!!

 My election experience was probably not like most of you guys. I got to work the polls so my job was sitting outside and instructing people to go once they got into the building. I was set up at Goff Junior High School in Pawtucket, RI from 6:00am-8:30pm. It was interesting to hear what people were talking about after they would finish voting. Some people were talking about Romney winning while others were like Obama's gonna bring home the victory,  4 more years.
Of course I also got to see people flip out when they found out that they don't vote here anymore because everyone in Pawtucket got redistricted. Some people were so upset after waiting in line for 30 minutes to hear this that they came out saying their not gonna vote at all because this is ridiculous. Others just took measures in their own hand by ripping out a sign saying vote here with an arrow point to the entrance door and then throwing it down the sewer.

By the end of the day once we closed and we were tallying up the totals for our polling place I was watching our counters face expressions as each number and person was called. If you don't know what a counter is a counter is 1-2 people who are sent our from election headquarters for each candidate to record the amount of numbers for that person at that specific site.  Many were shocked with the numbers we got for Obama compared to Romney.Obama was up by at least 100 votes. After we got all that settled and we packed everything up I rushed back to RIC to await the announcement of who our next president is  and hear the speeches. In the car I even started debating with my parents why Obama should win over Romney and lets just say the conversation was intense.  Once in my dorm I waited nervously to hear who the next president would be, with my fingers crossed that Obama would pull it off. The second they announced he was the President I was so thrilled! All mt friends that were in the common room watching it with me were just staring at me like I was crazy. I was like aren't you all excited that hes president again for 4 more years? They replied where not that big into politics so its whatever. That's when I realized that what got me so interested and invested in this election was this class and having to work on this election project. Before doing this I had no idea who I should vote for but after examining both sides and issues they stood for I felt like I had a good idea of who I was voting for and felt more interested in watching the debates and rooting for Obama to pull off another win.

Sex Postivity

These 2 websites http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-positive_feminism and http://www.thefrisky.com/2012-05-09/8-ways-to-be-positive-youre-sex-positive/  were very interesting to read and look at for me. I never heard of the term sex-positive feminism used before so I was unsure of what it stood for. From my understanding sex-positive feminism is having sexual freedom, meaning your free to have sex or not and control what you do in terms of sex.  As stated by Wikipedia, “sex-positive feminists oppose legal or social efforts to control sexual activities between consenting adults, whether these efforts are initiated by the government, other feminists, opponents of feminism, or any other institution”.   Sex-positive feminism is against pornography, sex work and BDSM. I really wish that pornography wasn’t so easy to get access to because little kids using the computer might click on something not knowing what it is and a porn site might pop up. Do we really want children to be watching this stuff at a young age?

I thought that Rachel Rabbit White's: 8 Ways To Be Positive You're Sex Positive was a good example for people to ready because some people feel as though sex is a bad thing but Rachel makes sure she states in the beginning, that “Having sex is healthy, but so is not having sex”. It’s all your preference on how comfortable you feel and whether the person is asexual or gray-sexual.  In my opinion she provides 8 well-reasoned points that make you think about sex in different ways that you might not have previously thought about. I know I can say that I definitely was cautious when it came to having sex but luckily the guy I was dating for a long time didn’t push me into anything  instead he waited till I finally felt comfortable and our relationship grew stronger after that.

Cinderella Ate My Daughter- Orenstein

Reflection
As soon as we were assigned to read this piece I was excited because the title drew my interest. Unlike most girls I wasn't really big into the whole princess theme. I was definitely a tomboy who loved playing with the guys. However, I did have a few barbie dolls but I was never crazy over the whole typical fairy tale ending because I knew that most likely that probably was never going to happen to me. To this day I find it kinda funny because all my good friends that are girls there favorite color is pink while mine has always been blue.

Of course I have Disney movies with princesses in them that displayed prince charming coming to the rescue to save his princess, there classics. When  I was little there was a point that I did want to have this fantasy fairy tale world come true for me, however as I started dating I soon  realized things aren't as simple as a fairy tale. Another reason I feel like I wasn't a huge girly girl growing up was because I have a twin brother so a lot of the time I would want to play with him, so we would end up playing GI Joe  together or construction together, but I never would mind.

One thing for sure is that if you are a girly girl who loves princesses theirs nothing wrong with that and if your a tomboy theirs nothing wrong with that either. I say do what ever makes you happy.  When I have kids and if I have a girl I'm definitely gonna let her be her own person so she can learn what she likes and doesn't.

I don't let it bring me down the whole ideal princess and pink stage for girls. I enjoy being my own unique person because if i want I can turn to the Disney princesses to daydream about how simple my life would be if I was one, but  I like the way my life has turned out now. I like that I'm not super girly but just girly enough that I'm not on pink and glitter overload. 

A point I want to add is that shows like toddlers and tiaras don't help with the fact of girls not being like Cinderella. Instead it puts the image even deeper into their minds by having girls dress up with a bunch of makeup and a fancy dress to compete to win a crown. Some of the contestants don't seem like their having fun which makes me feel kinda bad for the child.

I can see where Orenstein is coming from with the fact that now a days girls love and grow up loving pink and princesses based on whats out their in the media and stores. An example, is the little girl I babysit her entire room is pink everywhere with a princess comforter and curtains and princess dolls everywhere.