Quotes -All speech is not free

The author argues that " to create a classroom environment that does not replicate the inequities of the "real" world is a disservice to students." She suggests that there is no reason why educators cannot create a separate space where students who have been marginalized are allowed to get the experience they will need to defend themselves when they enter a world after college.The author states that institutions of higher learning already are "white men's clubs".The rules of such a classroom environment are explained by giving two examples. The first example is a professor who invites students to express any view they want to,while the second example was a professor who set explicit ground rules for her classroom. The first professor allows he student's fee speech but insists they back up their comments and opinions.The students were held accountable and fellow students were able to have dissenting opinions and discussions about topics opened up in the classroom. The second professor tells her students at the beginning of her classes on women's studies that she assumes they are there because because they support women's issues.In her classes on black studies, she also expects her students to "object to any denigration of black persons anywhere." The author feels both of these pedagogies are different ways of using an affirmative action pedagogy. The first helps challenge racist views by talking and analysing how these opinions are rooted in privilege and how institutions may be be part of the problem. The second instance ,where students are forbidden to use racist or hate speech in the classroom, also is considered to be a way to use affirmative action pedagogy. This censorship of speech is defended by this quote in the article, "This rule functions to correct an educational history that has systemically discriminated against marginalized voices.Within women's and black studies in particular, this attempt to counter unequal representation is especially appropriate."I agreed with the statement,both pedagogies allow the unheard to be heard.

Argument Aria by Richard Rodriguez

The author, Richard Rodriguez, argues that bilingual educators believe children miss a great deal when they are not educated using their native language but that bilingual educators do not understand the importance of Spanish-speaking children becoming comfortable in speaking what the author refers to as the “public language”. The article tells the story of the author’s time as a young Hispanic boy who is trying to learn English. He writes about how he did not believe he could achieve his goal of speaking English, a language he thought to be a public language, different from the Spanish language of his family that felt so personal and private to him. When his teachers asked his family to speak English at home, he felt everything change as he listened to his family struggle to speak this language. He felt sad, yet this was the moment he resolved to learn English. As time went on and he became more fluent in English, he grew more confident and came to believe what was true all along, that he was an American citizen and that he belonged. But with this new confidence in the public world, the dynamics of the family changed.There was a certain closeness his family shared when the home language was Spanish and he felt this intimacy become different as the English language became their language of choice. His father never became comfortable with speaking English as his primary language and he became quiet, letting his wife talk for both of them and become the public voice of the family. Yet when the author observed his father with a group of Spanish speaking friends, he saw his father’s personality come alive with Spanish words and sounds. He saw his father as confident in a way that was never apparent when he father spoke English. Rodriguez acknowledged the loss of intimacy and privacy his family suffered by trying to assimilate into public society, but felt the loss of “private individuality” makes “public individuality” possible and that this two pronged individuation is necessary for success in the public world.

Quotes from Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community

1. “Public schools in particular have often promoted such “normalizing” conceptualizations of community that are based on defining a cultural center or “norm” and positioning class, gender, race, and sexual Others at the margins.” The author writes about how schools assign positions of privilege and use the phrase “ normal” to describe the usual people and positions of privilege; whites, males ,heterosexuals, and the middle class. He goes on to say that schools use grouping and curriculum practices to minimize the voices of “Others”, but that this notion of marginalization is being challenged by these very people, along with support from communities ,in very serious ways.

2. “ Multicultural education is reconceptualized in terms of crossing or rupturing the borders that separate individuals into neat categories and camps.” The author writes about how we have to look at ourselves as a combination of all the things, the “multiple subject positions ( class, race, gender, sexuality, etc.) that make us the human beings we are and how this will enable us to view others as multifaceted , and not focus on just one aspect of an individual.

3. “ Fourth, it also means that I am inextricably involved in multiple cultural struggles rather than merely one.” The author states that is important that multicultural education includes giving young people a sense of the interconnectedness between identity and culture and to do so will create a sense of community that will further a world built on equity for everyone.
Carlson sees the public schools as having a responsibility to educate young straight men about how they have come to see gay men and women as Others.

Finn: Questions for Class Discussion

1.What is empowering education?

2. What is powerful literacy?

3. What is domesticating education and what does this lead to?

4. Finn writes about social dynamics and mechanisms that have led to the present state of affairs. Discuss some of the mechanisms.

5. Describe the differences of working class schools, middle class schools, affluent professional schools, and executive elite schools and how each type of school produces students who are prepared for life in very different ways. Discuss this.

6. Do you agree with Finn's statement, " Those who are the smartest and work the hardest go the furthest?" Who's kidding whom? When students begin school in such different systems, the odds are set against them." Explain why or why not.

7. What are the main differences in the characteristics of Dialogue and Anti-dialogue chart?


I found this article interesting.The descriptions of the schools and their designation as executive elite, affluent professional, middle class, and working class,the type of student the educators are deliberately trying to create and the future the specific schools have scripted for these students, according to social status, was appalling to me. The information in this article encourages me to help my students receive the education they are entitled to,to help them reach their goals, and to pursue the life they choose, not the one they were assigned to.