Today in my Life
Today was a busy day in the Sells-Jaros household.
Willow took her first driving lesson. Yikes.
And I facilitated my first dialogue on race.
These are exciting times.
* The semester is almost over. I have to grade speeches and then I have to grade finals. I will not miss this time of year when I am teaching in public schools. I was a little sad today about my career change, but I’m excited about the TBR program this summer.
* Teaching argumentation has been difficult for me this past week. One of the debate topics is affirmative action. It has been very hard hearing white students struggling with their own racism, trying so hard not to offend people and to be politically correct, while they are supporting institutional racism. It has been hard to hear students of color unable to adequately address the refutations of affirmative action. Both sides of the debate are preaching to the choir and no one is communicating across racial lines, so I don’t feel like anyone is really learning anything about the topic, -or- about arguing in a way that changes people’s minds. It makes me sad.
* My contemporary public address voted to watch Wedding Crashers as their case study. Being the power-to-the-students type of teacher that I am, I had to agree. We watched it in class today. I can’t wait to hear what the students will say on Thursday. Alot of them commented in its sexism and they struggled with thinking of the movie as sexist while being entertained by it. It’s a struggle I can identify with. I think the movie is funny as hell despite the fact that it is completely heterosexist.
* The dialogue on race is dealing with health disparities, so it is not the usual dialogue on race. It’s a lively group. I’m looking forward to next week.
Related posts:
Yo Laura! I also still struggle with how to approach discussions of race (particularly as it relates to the battle flag issue). Have you seen this stuff on “White privilege” by McIntosh and Jensen?
http://tep.uoregon.edu/resources/diversity/instructor/instructorprivilege.html
And a cool look at CRASH whilst throwing around theory:
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/34837/?comments=view&cID=108869&pID=107752
Avante!
~Shaun