Cultural Insensitivity

I am honestly appalled by the amount of cultural insensitivity that I see as I watch various classes as part of my internship. This is especially present in the World Literature class which my CT teaches. Specifically, there is a pair of boys who seem to take every opportunity to mock the cultures and people they're reading about. While watching a video about the horrible treatment of widows in India, these boys danced in their seats in a caricature of what they think a Hindu dance would be. The did the same while watching a video about how some families in India kill their children if they're girls because of how expensive girls are to raise in their society (this is due to the dowry they pay the husband's family at marriage even though the practice has been outlawed).

It astounded me that these two boys would be in the classroom, laughing and dancing as such horrific practices were explained to the class.

I see the appropriation of culture every day, it seems. The Native American dreamcatcher has become some great symbol of the hipsters. I've seen girls with tattoos of dreamcatchers who couldn't even explain to me what it was. I see bands using battle headdresses on clothing as part of their merchandise lines. It seems that there is very little awareness of the difference between appropriating somebody else's culture and being respectful of it.

What's even sadder is that most of the perpetrators I see are people who could be labeled as "privileged white upper-middle class." These are the same students who think violence is cool and who can't keep their hands off their phones for more than five minutes. One student even outright admitted that she gets anxious if separated from her phone. I'm going to stop here because I could write whole novels on the problem of cell phones in school.

But for now, I just want to remind people that just because you think something is funny because it's not your culture and you're not used to seeing it as normal, doesn't give you the right to mock it.

Culture These Days...

My students had to turn in their final papers for the quarter last night by midnight. I received papers from all but two of my students, but surprisingly I got a paper from the one student who consistently fails to hand in his work. It was a very nice surprise to wake up and have an e-mail from him in my inbox with an assignment attached. We'll ignore the fact that the e-mail looked like this:

I don't know what exactly it is about the "yolo" craze, but it bothers me like almost nothing else. Oh, well. At least I got a paper out of him. The two who failed to hand in work will get stern talking to's when I see them again on Friday.

Time, Time, Time

These last few weeks have been so hectic. I taught the King Arthur unit in my CT's other section of British Lit (the section I don't normally teach) so I was teaching two classes instead of just one, which was a system shocker. That, plus the additional hecticness of Junior standardized testing which has rearranged the entire schedule of classes for the high school has just led to me being a discombobulated mess.

The King Arthur unit went pretty well with the other class. I was slightly disappointed to find so many kids not willing to turn in their work, though. I only usually have one or two (though granted, that's about 1/4 of my class) who fight me when it comes to turning in work. But over half of this other class didn't turn in their paper assignment. I was also a bit put out when, during our debate on media accuracy in portrayal of the Arthurian Legend, most students didn't want to participate. In addition, they struggled much more than my students did in the debate.

I have 8 College Prep level students in the class I teach. In a class of 22 (11 Honors, 11 CP) students, they were unable to come up with the same caliber of argumentative evidence and work as my 8 CP kids. I was very disappointed (especially in the Honors students).

As for what this week holds, I'll be continuing to work with my CP students on their Medieval Romance argumentative compare/contrast essays. I'll also be popping in to guest-teach a class on Alice in Wonderland with my CT's Children's Literature class today. I'm really excited for that because anybody who knows me would be able to easily say that Alice in Wonderland is my favorite story of all-time.