Extended comments from Jackie's Blog: Laurea

 

 

I decided to use Jackie's blog post about Lareau. When she said that in her household it was a major priority for her and her siblings to go to school I agree. My parents ever since I was in middle school always made sure that not going to college was not an option and the standard remains with my younger brother. My parents just like Jackie’s, “…always taught me that education comes first.” Especially because when my parents got married my dad only had his associates in accounting and my mother only went to school for cosmetology. Which to be honest got us pretty far, my brother and I could never say we missed out when it came to having a childhood. We went to Disneyworld and Canada to see Niagara Falls but as my dad would always say. “When you leave this house I want you to live the same or better. But you should be living better since you will have your B.A. in college.” I have to say if it was not for their constant strives to keep us motivated about school. I would not be where I am today. As I mentioned in my other blog there are moments when I feel as if they are pushing me to the edge but I know that in their hearts they are doing it because they love me and only want the very best. Also because they know that it is when I feel like everything is crashing down when I pull myself back together and do even better.

 

Understand Youth

Veronica's Context Map

    Home

• Big sister
• Safe
• Great relationship with my parents
• Silly
• Sarcastic
• Open book
• Chatter box
• Hyper
• Comfortable

       School

• Tired
• Always learning
• Hungry
• Sometimes fun
• Never ending homework
• Socialize

       Work

• Serious
• Organized
• Fun
• Multi-tasking
• Productive
• Chatterbox with other student workers

      Church

• Leader
• Peace
• Happiness
• Relaxed  
• Sing
• Complete

       Friends

• Loud
• Silly
• bubbly
• caring
• happy
• chatter box 
• I can be myself 

As I was creating my context map I realized that as much as I wanted to think that I am the same person everywhere I go. I am not, and that is okay. The reason why is because when you are at work yes you want to have a bubbly personality but you also want to be able to maintain professional so that your boss takes you serious. Or at church since I am a youth leader yes I can have fun and associate with the youth but I also have to be able to have certain boundaries and know that if I make a mistake because I am a leader I have followers who look up to me. Also when I am at home I do have the opportunity to be myself but at the same time because my parents see school as a top priority my conversations with them tend to always lead back to how I am doing in school. We have time to have fun and watch television as a family but we mostly talk about school and where I see myself in 5 years or more. They are the ones that keep my feet on the ground whenever I feel like it is impossible but at the same time because I have to be strong all the time around them about school I rarely have a moment to let myself go when I am having a hard time. Which is why I am thankful for my friends, they are the people that I can cry to and express my sadness or stress to and not feel judged. Instead they always tell me empowering words or give me my favorite type of hugs which I like to call "bear hugs"

     
  

Resiliency, Positive YD, and Critical YD

I remember when the Professors and Youth in Action came and spoke to us about Resiliency, Positive development, and Critical Youth development. And how we had to take a short written survey about our identity status and explain a story that has a an emotional attatchment to us. It could be something that either excited me, puzzled me, or caused me to work harder at being me, or perhaps make me sometimes feel that I am not myself. Afterwards we would turn to our neighbor and discuss our story and then figure out if we were diffused, achieved, forclosed, or moratorium. Then we walked towards the corner that was labeled with our identity status and took turn sharing a shorter version of our story to our group and figure out the connection between all of stories.

So my story was when I was in the 9th grade at first I was very close to 8 girls, based on how people treated them and how they treated others they were known as the popular girls. When you are a freshmen in high school all you really want to do is fit in. Especially if a year ago you just moved to Providence, RI from Florida, and the year before that I was born and lived in Queens, NY. So finding a group of girls that I could actually fit in with for four years was very important to me since I moved so much. The only problem was, that I was friends with girls that were popular only because everyone was scared of them. You were either friends with them because you were scared or enemies because you decided to part ways. Since I was the studious one of the group they never made fun of me and called me hurtful names, because they knew how much value I added to their grade point average. Until one day, I will never forget and until today it is something that it does not hurt me but it does make me wish I never became their friends. I was extremely shy they probably would of never noticed me. But it happened no way to turn back now. So that day during 4th grade I was in my English class and the main girl of the girls was looking around the room trying to find someone to make fun of, it was a daily routine that never went unnoticed. She stopped at me, and said some really rude comments about me and just like that the entire room erupted with laughter. Without me giving my eyes permission I started to cry and my face turned extremely red, and because she realized how embarrassed I was she enjoyed it and kept doing it. In the hallway, in the cafeteria, in each of our classes because when you are a freshman you take the same classes besides electives, then goodness for electives. I tried getting help from my teachers but unfortunately there are so many students in a classroom that they could miss so much in a matter of just turning around or stepping out to discuss something with a teacher between periods. I also tried getting help from a school counselor but she only made it worse by inviting the girl to one of the appointments we made and just when the humiliation died out it begin again since the girl went to class and told everyone that I went to the counselor. My parents never found out since back then they both work 8am-5pm jobs so by the time I came home with my brother who is 5 years younger then me, my eyes were completely cried out.

I turned to my neighbor and explained all of this to her and then told her what my identity status was in this story and I said diffused. The reason that I believed that I was diffused in this story is because I felt helpless and even though I tried going to teachers and the school counselor it just made it worse. I also feel like because I just wanted to belong and follow a group, I was losing my identity.

YIA Documentary: Reflection

I really enjoyed how Adeola the executive director of Youth in Action not only explained and gave evidence on why she thought Youth in Action was a great place to be, but she also included other YIA youth and allowed them to be able to contribute and share their experiences. Who better then the YIA youth or alum to explain their experience and how YIA helped them grow from being close minded and believing that they are too young to have any bright ideas, to being leaders of certain groups. And because I have been there every week I am a witness to this amazing program. From the moment I walk into YIA and join and participate in their deep discussions my views, my thoughts, and beliefs become challenged. It is truly amazing, especially because there are times that if my classmates are having a discussion I tend to shy away, but when I bug-in into their conversations they really make you feel comfortable with what you have to say.

I also like how they give each other space to grow, Erroll the director of the YIA programs explained that every time a youth or even the director of YIA created something the adults and the youth gave deltas and pluses. “We decided to use a YIA team tradition called the “Plus Delta Hot Seat.” It’s basically an opportunity for everyone to give and receive feedback on contributions to the team and areas for growth. A piece of newsprint with a person’s name on it is set up with a column for pluses (strengths and contributions to celebrate) and a column for deltas (areas for growth). The person is asked to leave for a few minutes so the team can begin to discuss their pluses and deltas. Then they’re invited back to join the discussion. Now I know it sounds brutal here on paper, but believe me, the whole process comes from a place of love and respect.” The fact that they are not afraid to stretch themselves and challenge themselves for the better gives me so much respect for Youth in Action.

One of the YIA youth that impacted me the most was the story of Marlie Board Co-chair. “When ideas flow at YIA, relationships form and minds are opened. In fact, regular debates help us build from dis­agreement, which is an important part of what we do. I remember one day Izzy, Chris, Olu, and I had a debate about faith. It was pretty emotional – with Izzy who is agnostic, Chris not believing in a higher power, Olu a Muslim, and myself a Christian. Ordi­narily with such different backgrounds, it could’ve been an impossible discus­sion to get through. But this is one of the many conversations I cherish at YIA because it changed me. My core values and belief in Christianity are the same, but I have a different perspective because now I fully understand all of their views too. ” The reason her experience caught my attention is because of the way she discussed how even though she had a certain belief it should not intervene with having a good friendship with other YIA youth. That she should still be able to give them the respect they deserve just as she would like to be respected for what she believes in. Most adults unfortunately do not believe that youth have the maturity to handle the situation the way Marlie did. I always knew that youth can become great leaders such as Marlie. Sometimes being a leader doesn’t always mean that you are in charge it also means that you step back and look around and see if people are scared of you or respect you. It means that you have a firm understanding that maybe you are so focused on what you think that you may be losing out on many opportunities to learn about people’s culture and what makes them who they are such as youth in Youth in Action.

                                                                             

 

Find this on YouTube and thought this was pretty cool, simple but straight to the point on how we can help youth feel more empowered where ever they are:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biTdR3OA46A

Aruguement: Corinne McKamey

Corinne McKamey argues in her case study about the differences between being a researcher and a teacher. She realizes that by being the type of teacher that is willing to fight for her students’ rights, she “loses” power from being a researcher.  She also focuses on the different understandings of what it means to be someone who cares and someone who does not, and understanding the meaning from immigrants.  

For example “She cautions a teacher’s gaze may function to regulate student’s behavior, for example, holding students quietly seated in classroom rows, and may also function to limit dialogue between teacher and students.” Which in certain classrooms there are certain teachers that feel good about that, they believe it is not their duty to not cross boundaries. Whereas there are other teachers that, “For example, a teacher might care for a student by asking about her emotional wellbeing…”  Another scenario is when Mrs. McKamey helped ‘save’ a student from wasting time outside an auditorium, “…one of the first days of school, I met Nam, a Vietnamese immigrant student. Nam had been sitting in the auditorium for two days waiting to be transferred to a high school closer to his home…” Since no one in the school had no idea what to do with Nam, Mrs. McKamey decided to use her power as a teacher to help Nam get to where he needed to go and he did. The interesting part about this is even though it was a good deed Mrs. McKamey felt guilty and ashamed, which is when she felt that her, “…decision to help Nam resulted in gains for me in a teacher role and losses for me as a researcher (Luttrell 2000). In helping Nam, I gained sense of power and control through making decisions and actions within a familiar institutional logic.” I never thought about it that way, I never truly realized that researchers had a certain image that if it was challenged could end up costing a huge damage. I honestly would see it as people that were very interested in finding out information and they would ask a ton of questions and do a huge case study on the topic. 

After reading this case study it opened my eyes to realizing just because one person might think asking a student about their day or helping them get help like Nam might seem heroic; but you cannot just see it in your own perspective. In order to work with youth you really have to make sure that just because you think one thing is acceptable, you have to sometimes step back before offending youth to the point that they never want to come back to the program. At times it might be hard because as we discussed in class it is normal for someone who has a degree to be given more respect and attention because of its power of being in a higher education level then someone else. But just because you do, does not necessarily mean that you have the right to have a close minded way of thinking and allow the youth to take charge.      

Hamster

Hamster

I was looking through different gadgets and found this. And wanted to share it with all of you. Isn't this so cute? :-)

Arguement: Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

“Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.” As I was reading the article “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” by Marc Prenzy; one of the main topics he discusses in his article is about not being afraid of re-inventing certain topics. When it comes to teachers; there are certain teachers that say this is impossible to teach unless I give an hour lecture about the history of Africa. Prenzy says that, “…we have to invent, but not necessarily from scratch. Adapting materials to the language of Digital Natives has already been done successfully.” He believes that when you are “…teaching Digital Natives…invent computer games” to get the work done even if its “…for the most serious content.” Which I agree with, sometimes it takes a little imagination in order to bring something that tends to be so boring to most of us that are Digital Natives more interesting. Plus as a teacher, isn't boring to teach the same thing, exactly the same way, over and over again? Yes I am sure it might be time consuming to try to recreate something that appeals to the upcoming digital natives. Although, wouldn’t it be great if the students in class are actually eager to learn in class? Prenzy presents it as, “Similar rethinking…” that “…needs to be applied to all subjects at all levels.” This includes Education and the workplace. Prenzy brought up an interesting fact about how for many students the subject Geography is very boring and outdated and a lot of memorization involved. Although as he mentions “…there is no reason that a generation that can memorize over 100 Pokémon characters with all their characteristics, history and evolution cannot learn the names, populations, capitals, and relationships of all the 101 nations in the world. It just depends on how it is presented.”

 

I was reading this article by John Page and thought it would be a great way to summarize why Prenzy and I think its crucial to incorporate Technology in Education.

The Ten Fundamental Reasons

for technology in education

 

 

Reflection: Child Labor and the Social Construction of Childhood

 If we truly realized how privileged we are,especially when we were kids we would appreciate life much more. Seeing each of the pictures from the article “Child Labor and the Social Construction of Childhood” one by one made me feel extremely hurt. It is sad to know that there are many children in the world today that are treated as if they are “useless human beings”. That is what it honestly makes me feel, because in order for someone to be 100% fine with this type of treatment is astounding. I felt it even more after class when my classmates and I brainstormed about what it is to be a kid? What does it mean to have a childhood? To many of us we felt that it was playing Barbie’s, or playing tag, maybe even sitting around a table with family and playing a game of monopoly on family nights. 

When I saw the boy from Indianapolis getting paid $.75 an hour and how he started work at 6am that broke my heart. It was extremely sad to see how these kids were mistreated, and doing jobs that were very dangerous for their age. I also felt heart broken when I realized that most of them could not go to school because they were so tired from their jobs. It is sad how it took people in congress about 38 years for the “Fair Labor Standards Act” to pass in order for the children to receive some sort of protection. It is strange how even though, “Children working in Factories or mines were redefined as inappropriate and even exploitative and cruel…” they still allowed it to occur.

Why Blog?

 

 

 

 

1. A limitless way of communicating with others.
Especially loved ones if distance separates you.
You can learn about the world through it
The options of hypertext, links, formal writing and videos are all available through blogging. It connects to the future of learning better than using traditional methods.
It’s always there and you can see your progression.    

 

                                                                            

                                   

About me

Hi my name is Veronica Gomez. I was born in Queens, NY until I was in 6th grade. I moved to Kissimmee, FL when I was in 7th grade. Then I moved to RI when I was in 8th grade. So I guess you can say I never had a middle school experience. I am majoring in Youth Development and have a minor in English. I am a PASS worker for Seven Hills Foundation which is basically almost like a social worker. I meet with a client and we basically go over a plan that the clinician wrote.