The Praxis of Pedagogy Day 53

Interesting day to say the least. I started off with students doing SSR and typing tutor. Typing skills like other skills greatly vary. There are some that can type and some that don't even know where to put their fingers and are doing the two index finger action. So from now on I will have SSR with typing tutor on Mondays and Thursdays. They need to practice and feel comfortable reading and typing.

So in all my classes, I introduced them to Cornell Notes. I want to standardize this across all classes so that the students have a format for taking notes. Then in my first period, I had them copy down vocabulary words in Cornell Notes format. Next, I talked with them about Ancient Greece and Rome, while I took Cornell Notes on an overhead with them. To draw their attention to Ancient Greece I said that we would be reading poetry by Sappho tomorrow. Then I told a little bit about Sappho from the island of Lesbos. Then I talked about pedophilia, Greek history, and judging other cultures and times. Can one say that pedophilia is always wrong or is it acceptable in Greek life because that is their own particular cultural practice? I don't have the answer but I wanted to throw the question out there for them.

In my 2nd period class, I had the students take down different vocabulary words and then I started to talk about the Opium War. The use of drugs to cripple a people is a tactic that works. Opium was illegal in Britain but the British had no problem supporting the "businesspeople" that sold opium to the Chinese. I talked about the effect of opium on the Chinese then I brought it to modern day and the effects of crack on the inner city.

In my 3rd period class, I broke people into pairs to find out information about 6 of the 7 Asian countries we will look at for our Asian American Studies class. Then I gave them atlases and made them find geographical information in Cornell Note format about that country. Class ended with that.

So the big deal was in my CTM. One of my CTM is also in my history class too and I asked to look at his composition book that he was taking Cornell Notes in. I was pretty shocked to find him referring to Chinese as Chinks in his notes. So I called his mom and she apologized profusely and then told me that his dad was going to pick him up and would speak to me. The student started to argue with me over it saying that he never said it out loud or called anyone that and that he didn't think that I would look at it. He was completely missing the point. This coming right after we had our reading on Undermining Oppression. Then he started to argue saying that I used racist slurs in class. However, I was using racist slurs in an academic point to talk about oppression and domination. Not even close to being the same thing at all. I talked to his dad and it will be interesting to see what happens.

It's interesting because I've encountered more anti-Asian sentiment from black people than white people. When I was teaching elementary school, the kids would call something strange or foreign "Chinese. Then they had their Chinese jumprope which was rubbber bands woven together. Then last year I had that offensive picture drawn of me and a student by a black student. Trip out.