reflection 1: art making chap.2, Desai (2010), Hylan (2010)

In each of the readings I noted a call for relevancy of pedagogy in the classroom: racial relevance, socioeconomic class relevance, gender and sexual orientation relevancy, etc. Each article stressed that in order for today's teachers to bring effective and meaningful experiences to the classroom, the students must be taken into account, and with them their contexts. Reflectiveness on one's own practices, prejudices, and awareness seems a large part of what was discussed in the articles as well, not only for practice on the teachers part but also on behalf the students.

The chapter in the textbook was more or less a recap of what last semester's class was about, but stressed the use of cultural and social relevance, personal relevance, as being essential to effective classroom experiences, art making or otherwise. The student examples that the textbook supplied were impressive, and the notion of personalized art making really resonated with me. Even though I recall this as part of last semester's discourse, I felt the real stress was on "big idea" art making, something more secular that occluded my personal passion. This chapter helped remind me that the deep inspiration that is necessary for real art making starts as a powerful and individual experience.

While reading the Desai article on colorblind racism, I thought back to Chapter 2, and how relevancy to the students one teaches plays a powerful role in change and education. Creating lessons where students confront racism they feel towards someone or feel is targeted at them might be one way to confront racial blindness with personal connection. Because of my own experiences, I found the notion of contemplating and exploring "whiteness" an interesting idea, in terms of what this means as far as my advantages, my anxiety, my politically correct phrasings, and my initial reactions to members of other ethnicity. Awareness of my own awareness of my skin tint versus that of others has always been both a point of curiosity and discomfort for me. This article roused my reflection on that awareness again. I found that I agreed with a lot of what Desai writes about. The tendency to avoid provocation of that uncomfortable topic of racism, to view every one as a person without racial context, to view racially implicit information in multicultural friendly media, all plays into supporting disparaging differences in class among different races by either ignoring the differences or covering them as simply normative conditions. It made me think, "How can we address racial differences and racism without being "colorblind" and simultaneously promoting the unbiased?". I was also unpleasantly somewhat surprised by the list Desai gives as a record of current attitudes towards race, including feeling of reverse racism against Whites, implicit laziness in other races, and unfair government favors towards minorities or those races who do not poses power. All of the assumptions listed in the article have been things that I've heard from parents, teachers, and others in my communities for as long as I can remember, and all of them said with the notion that these assumptions were "just the way things were" and even sympathetic towards "those people." I would have liked to see Desai discuss more about biases against multiple races, or when racial biases are unnecessary. I believe in qualification and achievement on equal terms. I acknowledge that the starting points between races are unequal and agree that they need to be equivocated. I do wonder, though, about things like race-specific scholarships, or even handicap specific ones. I do think that need should play a role in academic awards of financial assistance, and based on percentages minority groups are of higher need. I also recognize that we have the freedom to make any type of scholarship for any specified requirements. I also think, though, that biases are perpetuated by scholarships that ask for handicapped applicants only, or Hispanic applicants only. In certain areas, being blind to race and conscious of need seems more appropriate.
Does assistance in race specific programs perpetuate the bias and power play against the underprivileged? Does it reinforce power and a feeling of superiority for those of the White middle class? If guilt, shame, fear and self-consciousness are confronted in matters of racism, will some of this go away, will it be easier to make social strides for justice?
When will we discuss nepotism?

The danger of assumptions is something that Hylan discusses in her article on pedagogy. Assumptions are a part of identity, of who we are and how we understand others to be. This starts at a very early age. impressions from media, family, school all form a child's beginning makeup of a world view, which includes power plays and normalcies in regards to races, genders, sexual orientations, and other differentiating and minority areas. I am very fond of her idea of critical pedagogy, and personally find it even more important than conducting culturally individualized class lessons and atmospheres to better suit the student body. Not to say that I underappreciate making class relevant to the given group, but arming any group with the discerning abily to think ciritically can make any group, regardless of background, capable of disecting and forming their own understanding of social injustices and how to change them (is this a symptom of racial colorblindness?). I believe critical thinking and analyses, with reflection, is essential to any learning.
        One of the points Hylan makes is about how curriculum is typically based on White history, experience, and normalcies. I have been aware of the unbalanced Western diet of our school systems, but I had always accredited this to the idea that the modern world was based largely out of what European history has built and spread around to contribute. While it has occurred to me that the rest of the non-western world has been somewhat alien and unknown to me, I never gave much thought to the idea that what had relevance to me, a middle class White Female American, might not have relevance to those even in my same county, let alone country. The idea of teaching to a group of students as fits their needs in terms of understanding through identity was shiny-new and intriguing. The examples Hylan provided of this method working made it all the more curious. At first I was somewhat skeptic that suiting education for a given culture would work, because it at first sounded like what would be learned would differ from what most daily lifestyles and jobs require in the functioning American society. Her idea seemed to counter the very foundations of what the education has been, which is part of the problem: "has". I thought about the flaws in society that must also be changed, and how to go about changing them, where to start. With the next generation of society members is a pretty important place. And in terms of what would be learned through this different take on teaching, the basic functions and skills, wouldn't really be lost either. Necessary adaptation was my conclusion.

Just as an aside, I was unable to find the fourth reading, Cahan and Zacur (2011), on reserve in the library.

Marion Bolognesi, artist blurb

I've stumbled across her periodically and i like her work. I love portraits , females, and watercolor.