Don't be a tourist...

Well, I'll start with "A Class Divided." I was honestly impressed with the results of the study done in the short film, and couldn't believe that within hours children had learned to discriminate. By telling the students that the color of their eyes made a difference in their intellegence and the way they should be treated in society, they became divided. It was interesting to see that in a short day, the third graders really understood what it meant to be discriminated against. The superior eye color felt better, and began teasing the other children because they were not as fortunite. This was strange to me that this happened in such a short amount of time. In one day a classroom full of friends, turned into enemies and at one point a child even punched another for the segregation between the two groups. One of the children described their experience in the lesson as being a "dog on a leash." If third graders can come to the conclusion that race is not a factor in intellegence and humanity, others can learn as well. Racism needs to be taught in a more concrete way, rather than by simply discussing the outcome. When students are in that situation, they have more empathy for others who have felt the same way. I can't imagine how those children felt, because I was never taught anything like this in my past educational experiences. I came from a prodominately white area, as did the kids in the film, and never really experienced multiculturalism. It amazes me even more that at the reunion the previous third graders still remember what it felt like and are embracing other cultures as adults. I wouldn't consider myself as a racist or someone who discriminates other cultures, but it is important to learn and embrace about other cultures and not just be a "tourist" in someone else's.


In the article by Hade, I learned that one of my favorite childhood movies, The Lion King, could be seen as gender specific and condescending towards females. This upset me, but after reading the two point of views by the author and his daughters, I understood why I didn't want to believe this horrible interpretation. The author was looking at the story from an educational stand point where his daughter was looking at the movie/story as a form of entertainment. Looking into more of Hade's side, I can now see the issues that he brought up. For example, he points out that the female lions are obviously stronger and could have taken the power from Skar, but waited until Simba returned. Simba was given the right to govern or control at birth, and the other characters didn't want to interfere a powerful male. After reading this I thought to myself, hmm I wonder what other children's books and movies have a similar theme. As he explains texts are multi-layered and have "implict as well as explicit meanings." I think that it's interesting that he used such a common story/movie to open his point with because I think it hits home with a lot of people. The Lion King was even the first broadway performance I saw, and since then have fallen in love theatrical productions. The Lion King implies basically that the role of women in society is to wait for a man to save them because they are uncapable themselves. From all this, I learned that the way we look at certain aspects of society such as race, class, and gender effect how we interpret different pieces of literature. So I guess the main question is how do we teach this? We need to appreciate other cultures, embrace them for their differences, and teach students the important aspects of differences so that they can be more understanding and tolerant of others. One way to do this is by relating to the students in the classroom. In my 9th grade class, we read a novel called "Tears of a Tiger." It was a pretty modern book, and it discussed the black culture in an urban area without degrading or appearing too stereotypical to black cultures. I loved this book, and to this day would suggest it to any teacher to use in the classroom setting. It was so beneficial to read it, especially in my town because I came from a white high school, and black culture was something foreign to me. After reading that novel, I had a deeper apprecation towards the African American culture. Additionally, I believe that as teachers we need to teach our students how to read other types of genres. Multiculturism is not any different, and sometimes we may need to be more bold with our lessons so that our students understand why we are studying something that might have spelling or grammatical errors on purpose. Hade suggests that if we teach the students to become tourists in another culture, they aren't really learning anything. Students need to understand the importance, but sometimes this requires a little push towards the right direction. On strategy was by comparing two books with a similar theme and seeing how they related. I really liked this idea, and I think that this could work with a lot other pieces of literature as well.