The Praxis of Pedagogy Day 36

I started off all the classes by reading from "Animal Farm." It's unfortunate but we won't get to finish it. Then I talked to all of them about the final project and about them presenting next week. They are going to be giving presentations next week and some of them still don't have anything.

In my Asian American studies class I started off with pulling sticks and asking questions about Orientalism. Sometimes when this class is awake they are a really fun and interesting class. Today they were awake and talking. Pulling sticks and talking about Orientalism got us into an interesting conversation about race and racism. It revolved around the question of power in race. In some theories about race it is put forth that only white people can be racist. People of color can say and do things that perpetuate the racist system (through prejudice or stereotyping remarks), but they cannot be racist because they don't have the power to be. An analogy would be where not everyone is a capitalist but they can do things to support the capitalist system, but ultimately not everyone has the power. So then the question became what about a white person in Africa and the people there were clowning on the white person. I threw in the case of Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe, and the transfer of land ownership from white farmers to black farmers. Should we see racism as the totality of experience and power being exerted upon a people. Are blacks in Zimbabwe being racist? Or are they only supporting a system of race. Is race defined through the group on top? We talked about the social construct of race in the US and how any bit of African blood in you and you were black but you had to have a certain % to be considered native american. This was to enslave blacks and take land away from natives respectively. All interesting questions that I told them that I did not have the answer to but had my opinions that I tried to support with arguments and examples. I said that everyone will have different opinions and that the best you could do was back it up as persuasively and as best as you can. Then we tried to finish up and read more of "getting together."

In my US history class we made up questions for a short 100 point test tomorrow. This class really didn't do too well on the first test so I was giving them another so they could get more points. Next year I need to give more tests that are shorter in length. Then perhaps a comprehensive one towards the end. But I wasn't so well planned out and didn't really know where i was headed sometimes this quarter. This was my first quarter. I've been reflecting on how I did this quarter and I think on a scale of 1-10 that I did perhaps a 4 or 5. I think that the best thing that I have done is to create positive relationships with students and some classroom management stuff. But in terms of getting grading done and organization and better lesson plans and stuff... not so good. My pedagogy needs a lot of work. But I think that if I have time to plan things out better... it'll be ok. I also didn't know the timing on things and things that I thought would go well didn't.

In my multicultural ed class my goal was to listen to some Michael Eric Dyson and then break stuff down with them. But his stuff is waaaaaaaaay too intellectual for them. They are only in the ninth grade for the most part and can't understand half the words that he uses. This turned out to be a big flop. Poor planning. Note to self... NEVER do this again. Thing was that they have been so into Dyson before (when I read about gangsta rap from his reader and when I played the talk between Cornel West and him on "Street Knowledge") I thought they would dig listening to him. But he was too much for them and I hope that I haven't turned them off of him. Plus the recording was so bad that they couldn't hear sometimes cause Dyson was too far from the mic. So then I had to come up with an impromptu talk about the struggle. You know the struggle that I'm talking about... the one that's against oppression and all the forces in society that seek to stop us from being more fully human. This didn't work out like I thought. Very bad class I gave today. Tomorrow they will be working on their final project so I didn't want to get into anything too heavy today. I should have prepared a seminar for today.