Education of diverse students in public schools
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Improving Education
Monday, May 11, 2009
The Grapes (or, should I say, the oranges) of Wrath
Extra Credit # 3
One book that drastically changed the way that I viewed the world was The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. I had to read it as summer reading for an English class that I took in junior year of high school. In the book, American farmers are forced to travel across the country to the West in search of work, land, and survival during and following the Great Depression. The region where they had worked had become useless because of drought, and they were forced to leave it in search of better chances.
There was one particular section of the book that had a profound impact on my life. It was the part of the story when companies where burning massive tons of oranges in order to keep the prices up, meanwhile people (migrants, or "Oakies", as they were called) were looking on in sadness, many dying of starvation. This was the first time in my life that I felt a real sense of injustice because of issues like this - and this is still a very real issue in some places. Food is constantly being wasted, thrown out because of excess, while it would be able to feed those who have nothing. Of course I had seen all the commercials of the dying African babies, and had heard about the unbelievable amount of people in the world that live on less than one dollar per day, but I had not understood the major role that corporations and governments often play in these situations until reading this book.
Throughout the rest of the story, there were many other points that stirred anger and confusion in me. The book made me want to reach in and lend a hand to those suffering people. Although the specific characters were fictional, the reality is that these injustices did happen, and still do today. The Grapes of Wrath helped me to know that whether or not the "fat and happy" people are paying attention, there are many people that are faced with horribly unfair situations daily. Now, in my everyday life, I try to be more aware of issues such as this that still continue.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Dancing y el arte
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Religión
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Marriage y "La Familia"
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Gender in Society
It is easy to take the freedoms and liberties that are offered to American citizens, men and women, for granted. Looking at the rituals that are practiced among the Masai brings an awareness of this ungratefulness. The Masai have a strict system set in place as to each individual's role in society. It is known, for example, that every man will serve as a Masai warrior from the ages of 18 to 30. I am thankful that there are more options for the next 12 years of my life in U.S. society than this. In terms of decisions, Masai women especially have virtually no choice regarding what they will do with their lives. At the proper age the women are circumcised and given away as wives, and then live out the rest of their days working for their husbands. They cannot own their own property, or even protest being mistreated by their husbands. A women who cannot bear children is useless to the Masai society. These traditions are obviously vastly different than in the U.S., and could even be perceived by someone from outside of the Masai culture as a gross violation of human rights.
The question then becomes, "Do universal human rights exist? And who decides what these include?" It is easy for an American to look in on the Masai and say that the way that they treat women is wrong; but the Masai do not think it is. Who are we to tell them how they should live their lives? It would be ineffective to march into a Masai village and tell the people that they were no longer allowed to circumcise their women or that they had to let them choose their own husbands. Personally, I believe that education is a key component in this debate. Every person should be given the opportunity to learn about different customs, and then decide how they want to live their own life--but, sadly, this an unrealistic objective.
The value of gender in society is difficult to say. In cultures such as the Masai, it is easy to see how gender is important as the deciding factor for how one will spend his/her life. In other cultures, however, gender plays a significantly lesser role. In Heading Home: Women, Work, and Identity in America, Dianna Shandy and Karine Moe note that in some cultures, such as the Wosho Indians of California and the Hadza of Tanzania, there exists gender equality. Unfortunately, this is not the norm in many societies, including in our own. Although women have been given all of the same rights as men in the U.S., they are still left with many of the "duties" that they had to do when they were not allowed to work. What results is women working just as hard as their male counterparts during the workday, and then returning home to take care of the children and maintain the house. Examples of this can be seen in Global Women in the New Economy, by Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild.
A two-gender system brings challenges in that it does not necessarily encompass everyone. There are those who do not fit the stereotypes biologically or mentally. Furthermore, because many aspects of life are classified in society as pertaining to either gender (ex: pink is a "girl color" and blue is a "boy color"), people get confused when they don't feel that they don't agree with or fit into the particular stereotype. This is becoming less of an issue in U.S. culture today, as people are learning that not everything is a black and white (or as boy and girl) as they once though it was. This can be seen in anything from men and women performing the same jobs (whether at work or in the home) to the distinction between some boys and girls clothing becoming less.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Reflect on the unique history of the United States. Each nation has its own unique history that created its cultural values, political structure, and legal code. After reading the two C&C case studies for the week, how was the United States influenced by non-state societies in its founding? What contributions were made by smaller-scale societies? Were you surprised by these contributions?
In the article 'The Founding Indian Fathers,' Jack Weatherford demonstrates some of the ways that Native Americans helped to shape the current governmental system used in the United States. Native American political entities and organizations (most prominently the Iroquois League) strongly influenced this country's foundation. Concerning federalism, for example, Weatherford writes that "The Indians invented it even though the United States patented it." (CC, p. 285). This shows that without the idea given by these people, who were referred to as "savages," the United States would not necessarily be the nation that it is today. This idea is strange to me, because I always assumed that the Founding Fathers of our country came to America with all the bright ideas, and just needed to get away from British tyranny to set them into action. It does not help to correct these misconceptions that the Indians have never been credited for their help in creating a model for U.S. Federal Government, as Weatherford points out at the bottom of page 289.
Secondly, how do the U.S. cultural values and ideas about “good” government impact our decisions in foreign policy? How can our assumptions, coming from our own unique history, cloud our understanding of other nations’ political systems and values? How might we use our understanding of other cultures and their political systems to better foreign policy?
The U.S. has become infamous for trying to beat democracy into other nations, and particularly into Iraq. Robin Fox writes about this dilemma in the article entitled 'The kindness of Strangers: The U.S. and Iraq.' Fox argues that because government officials believe so strongly in "American democracy," they find it their duty to try to spread it across the globe. Surely other nations would want freedom and equal voices for all members in society, as is the goal of the U.S.? Unfortunately, that is not the case, and U.S. officials have failed at giving democracy a good name for many Arabic countries due to their harsh, non-understanding foreign policy tactics. U.S. history has shown that oppression is wrong; but it took the United States (and other democratic countries) a considerable amount of time to realize this. Supposing that Iraqi values were the same as those of the U.S., the U.S. still could not reasonably expect Iraq to change its policies overnight to suit U.S. desires. This is only heightened by the fact that cultural values in these two countries are drastically different, from the rights of the individual, to the rights of females, even to appropriate marriage partners. To better U.S. foreign policy, Fox suggests that "Before we try to make them over in our image, we should remember how unnervingly recent was our own makeover, and act with becoming humility and caution." (CC, pp. 296-297). Also, Fox writes that we must understand that the "Iraqi People," are really only unified in that the live in the same relative geographic location, and that they put more emphasis on tribal unity than doing anything for the "good of the country." If we remember that they hold these values differently than we do, perhaps we become less impatient with the positive, however slow, changes they are making.