Mike Male's Article vs. My Bias

I have to say that I was definitely intrigued by the readings for this week. Mike Males made some very thought provoking points in his essay about "bashing youth," and many of the points that he made spoke directly to my personal biases. I believe/believed that children - young adults(mostly 16-24 year old males) especially in poorer neighberhoods were responsible for a majority of violent crimes - and I tacked this belief up to lack of wisdom. I thought that younger males might not be old enough to notice the significance of their actions. I've known many people who have been mugged- and it has always been a group of teenage boys doing the muggings, and I've known at least two victims who were mugged at gun point. It seems like gun violence is up (I'm not sure if that's true) and the easy accessibility of guns along with a young, immature, and poverty-stricken youth is a recipe for bad things. In relation to the rap wars of the early 90s, Biggie once said something to the effect that back in the day people would settle disputes with their fists whereas now everyone seems to have a gun. The problem: Bruises heal but taking a life is forever. --Personally, I believe that it takes a certain amount of wisdom to understand the gravity of what a life is, wisdom that some youth might not have.

But then after reading chapter 7, I was surprised by many of the statistics including the fact that 30+ year olds were responsible of most homicides, and that it is primarily adults who vicitmize children, not children who victimize other children. This article just shows me a few of the areas in which I am going to have to open my mind if I am to be an effective teacher.

Also I would like to comment on the "Two Sides, Same Bias section" on page 124. I have alsways been all for handing out free condoms, etc. and I always thought it was silly to teach abstinence. Teenagers and adults aren't going to fight natural urges because a class told them not to. But then Males brought up the fact that "...even if every high school boy abstained from sex or used a condom, most "teen" pregnancies would still occur." The problem that Males points out is ADULT males victimizing CHILD females, which is a cyclical problem that continues to perpetuate itself. Again, it is the adults that victimize the children, not the children victimizing other children.

Adolescence as a Social Construct

Being primarily a history student (and hoping to be a high-school history teacher) I was quite surprised by much of Chapter 2 as well as the whole of "The Social Construction of Adolescence" section. I have never really given any thought to the idea of puberty being as much of a social construct as a physical one. In fact, just last week in class when we were asked to come up with some concerns about teaching in the middle school environment, practically the first thing that came to my head was dealing with all of the tumultuous hormones that middle school entails. I understood this as a given and never questioned its relevance or truth. After reading these sections I am open to the idea that although physical changes are occuring in youth at this age, it's neither fair nor true to characterize all the students by this simple fact. How the changes are dealt with is just as important as the changes themselves.

Also, the idea that adolescence was first spoken of / studied in the early 20th century as a way to subjegate minorities and women while boosting the white male's position in society was surprising. Another fact that I found interesting was that the idea of adolescence only exists in developed countries where an education is possible before a young person enters the workforce. Obviously, barring malnutrition, people in all countries develop at around the same time and in the same way, it's just the makeup of a society that determines how these changes are dealt with. Being that this is such an important time in someone's life, I'm surprised that these facts aren't common knowledge.

Kumashiro - yet another response

As I would expect from any essay written on educational theory, Kumashiro's "Toward a Theory of Anti-Oppressive Education was a bit dry and wordy at times - however, I'll allow that the man did make some excellent points. I appreciated his use of the word "Other" and although I havn't necessarilly heard this exact terminology before, the topics that he brought up were very similar to others that I have discussed in a previous Currins class, as well as English 225 (I believe that was the number).
Anyway, I have read a few of the other responses and I do agree with the notion that Kumashiro was perhaps a bit negative with his assessment of the weaknesses of his 4 "anti-opressive" teaching methods but I also thought that there was some subtle optimism as well. First, it seemed to me that he listed the 4 methods in order from weakest to strongest - each method sort of building off of the strengths and weaknesses of the previous. Kumashiro made the point it's not enough to simply invoke empathy for "others" although it is a start. It is also not enough to simply incorporate "others" into lesson plans a couple of times a year when it is convenient - when in fact every lesson plan should be made as relevant as possible to all students at all times. (This of course is much easier to say than to do) Going further with this idea, I agree with Kumashiro's critical ideas about traditional teaching on page 39. He says "Critical pedagogy needs to move away from saying that students need this/my critical perspective since such an approach merely replaces one (socially hegemonic) framework for seeing the world with another..." I personally believe that in the middle school (or especially high school) setting, a good dialogue that involves student opinions and experiences is essential to everyday learning. A teacher is just a human and has the capacity to be wrong at times and should be open to other ideas and opinions. However, I'm sure the difficulty comes when trying to be open but at the same time retain an important authority over your students.
Finally, being a "non-queer" (I use this term half jokingly - this guy really liked the word queer) white male, I specifically liked when he spoke of privelage in pages 35-37. It's much easier to think of "others" as being under-privelaged and to attack the issue of oppression from this angle as opposed to looking at yourself as privelaged. It's easier to try to help other people get more - that is until you yourself are told that you might have to give something up - even if it is only just and right. I would be interested in hearing any other thoughts on this subject.