Blindness

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Blindness_poster.jpg

Watching this movie trailer in class was completely disturbing. I looked around the room and people were shaking their heads during it showing complete disgust with the idea of this movie. The way they show blindness as an epidemic to be contained was appalling. It's terrible that the "hero" in this film is the wife of a husband with blindness that leads them and saves them. She is not blind and is the only one shown who can save these people and make a difference. I feel as though this showed that the blind people in this movie were incompetent and is completely offensive to people who are blind in real life. I would absolutely not support this movie by going to see it and it makes me sick that someone would actually think it was okay to produce this movie. No one would ever choose race as an epidemic so why would we think it's okay to choose blindness as an epidemic that needs to be contained?

LGBT

I am extremely happy that I got to witness this LGBT meeting on Wednesday night. I loved that they really addressed issues that will help me a lot as a future teacher. I really encourage everyone to sit in on a meeting with this group because I thought it was extremely beneficial and informative. Not many people are comfortable discussing such issues but I think that it's important to open up and become aware of diversity. There were four different leaders in the front of the classroom each offering a unique experience to share with us. The first leader was a teacher from a New York school where she had many students in her classroom with gay or lesbian parents. The second leader was a lesbian women who works for MSU and is in charge of a group with issues of sexual orientation. The third was a man with a lesbian daughter who had a daughter (his granddaughter) and some issues she had at school with two moms in her family. The fouth leader was an MSU student who was a gay man in the college of education. I really loved how diverse the leaders were from one another in their situations they've experienced.

I really enjoyed the first leader who worked in a New York school because she gave us examples of how we should be cautious when dealing with diversity. She stated that we need to be careful on mother's day or father's day and possibly make it a day where we celebrate someone that is important in our lives instead of including or excluding certain people. I thought this was a great idea because many teachers wouldn't necessarily think about this and how it might affect some students. Coming from a family with two moms, I can especially relate to that issue and how confused I was as a kid. It would have definitely been easier if my teachers were aware of these kinds of situations.
Also, I think it was a great point when she said that things are made into bigger deals to the students when we as teachers make them more dramatic than they really are. If we are just up front and honest with the students, issues won't get blown out of proportion.

I encourage everyone to attend one of these meetings! Everyone was extremely kind and helpful, wanting to answer as many questions as we had. They also handed out a sheet of definitions to clear up some confusion we might have which I thought was a fantastic idea! I will definitely be attending another:)

The Bronx Masquerade Class Discussion

http://www.nikkigrimes.com/books/bkbronx.html

I really enjoyed reading this book and discussing it with my group. I believe that The Bronx Masquerade touched on numerous diversity issues, not just ethnicity. This text included kids that struggled with learning disorders, kids that desperately just wanted to be loved, overweight students, etc. I think that this text is a great book for children to read because there are countless ways to relate to a specific character or learn from certain characters or themes in this book.
During our class discussion, I know quite a few people had an issue with the fact that Nikki was putting certain issues and connecting them with a person based on the color of their skin. Some people thought that this is putting negative stereotypes with these ethnicities and is unfair. After our class discussion and semi debate, I read the Nikki Grimes' website which explained reasons as to why she wrote the book the way she did. She said that she actually knew people like this and the teacher in the story who organized the poetry readings was a real person and was her friend. This made me think twice about our discussion in class. I understand where people were coming from saying that Nikki is putting negative stereotypes with certain ethnicities but at the same time, she was just writing about actual experiences that have taken place in her life. Reading her website and seeing her very own perspective made me realize her point in writing this story. She has a great theme she tries to portray in this text overall and that is you should not judge someone on based on outward appearances. I honestly enjoyed this book and loved the fact that every character in the story had their own voice and shared their own experiences.