Multicultural @ MindSay

The rage is relentless, we got move it with the quickest (Rage against the Machine.  See right through their right white and blue disguise.  Keep raging against the machine.  To stand up with your fist in the air a “fuck the system” in your mind you have ascended to dissention.  Feel good my friend because with out the critical awareness we would be lost in the comfortable, yet ignorant bliss of control, dominance, oppression, and be forever comatose to the world around us (See Orwell’s 1984).  Our fist is not meant to be a weapon but we must protect ourselves.  Raise your middle finger as an extension of your angst, turmoil, and relegation to slave.  Yell from the top of your lungs and bottom of your “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me.”  It is not out of pure hate, but anger.  A distinction between the tow is critical.  Anger is the natural emotion that we feel when we are discontent.  Hate is the frustration of not being able to understand the system of oppression upon us or those that are different from us (See Sleeter and Grant, 1994 Ch.3 “Human Approaches” in Making choices for multicultural education).

We have become silenced slaves.  We feel our tongue has been removed or that is no longer needed so long as we are fed and provided for (in equal or equitable terms in debatable).  The use of our voice is not to communicate disdain but to request, wait fuck that, demand, take, and fight for our freedom (Paolo Freire in Pedagogy of the oppressed).  Emancipation is the greatest gift of all.  Perhaps you emancipate yourself through education or “momentarily” emancipate your mind through illicit potations.  Nevertheless, an enlightened sense of self coupled with community is true elation, a momentarily lapse into what some may call “heaven” (not directly referring to Christian heaven but the metaphysical pane of stillness (Eckhart Tolle’s A new earth: awakening your life’s purpose), contentment in ecstasy, and libratory movement of the essential soul.  I want to feel myself with my community as free and harmonious.

Freedom is not governmental it is individual, yet it is a state we try to obtain as a physical apparatus.  The free mind can never be caged or imprisoned in such a way that the mind because dulled into a dreadfully declined state much like that moments before death.  If we can free our minds (as cheesy as the Matrix movie was) then we will free ourselves.  Yet, I would maintain that freedom is a balancing not an absolute gift to be obtained and forever known.  We can break the body as well as the soul.  When we have broken both we have left man (in oppression) with nothing more [to break] short of exterminating him. 

How much can we talk about oppression, change, freedom, and revolution?  How long can you maintain it?

Life will eat away at you if you have the burning inside cause by an enlightened understanding of what is and can be.  I dream of a different.  It is within my heart and my writing that I discuss these topics.  People ask me why I do and don’t do certain things.  As I will assert and have discussed, there must be a genuine cause.  I do not support speculation or “preemptive” movements nor do I participate willingly in vain charity, sometimes deemed as radical movements.  There must be an understanding and strategy outlined.  That which we do in haste, masked as spontaneity, is often done without considerable thought of consequence.  Being and living the pedagogy of humanity requires me to understand consequences and to practice/exercise embracing that rationality.  Though quickness of thought and judgment are needed in certain times, wide spread or mass movements that seek to be popular rather than those that are purposeful are without true cause.  We were meant to live for so much more…..but we lost ourselves (Switchfoot, Meant to live).

  Antonio Garcia

Indiana University

agarciaj@indiana.edu

Monday, I begin 15 hours of classroom observation.  Now, 30 years ago, I student taught for a semester in a second grade.  I enjoyed myself, but decided it was more inclined toward older students.  Time passed, as it always does, and now I am assigned to a 9th grade class.  I will be with two different teachers in a large "city" school.  I received this information yesterday from the school principal.  He was quick to remind me that this is not a rich suburban school, and that I may encounter "varient" behavior.  I chuckled silently.  "Does he realize where I deliver pizzas?  Of course he doesn't!" 

As an observing student, there are several points upon which I am specifically asked to observe and write "reflections":

1. the physical condition ~ Are there computers for every student? every classroom?  Is there toilet paper?  Is it warm enough? too warm?  Are textbooks handed out daily, or handed out to be returned at the end of the semester?  What equipment is used in the classroom, in the library, or in general? 


2. reading ~ How is reading handled in the classroom?  Do the students read aloud, silently in class, or asked to read at home?  Are they held accontable for their assignments?  If so, how?  What types of readings are used in class?  Are the readings multicultural?  How do the students respond to the reading?  What are some of the theoretical aspects of reading in the classroom for 9th grade students/teachers?  Are there strategies involved in dealing with the readings located in theory?  How might my classroom observations affect the way I plan to teach?


3. writing ~ How is writing dealt with in the classroom?  In class or out of class writing assignments?  Are assignments within a specific genre or across genres?  How is grammar handled?  How are multicultural students accorded a space in the classroom?  What role, if any, do dialect writers have in the classroom?  What is emphasized - what is omitted?


4. discipline ~ How is discipline handled in the classroom and the school?  What strategies does the teacher employ to maintain "control"?  Are these strategies effective? Why/whynot?  Give some expamples of how discipline is used.  What, if anything, did you see on display in the classroom? 


5. demographics ~ Gather pertinent information about assigned school via the computer.  What are the numbers for income, race, number on school lunch program, PSSA scores overall?  Is there more specific info regarding racial or socio-economic performance on PSSA's?

I am looking forward to this experience.  It will be Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, then Mon and Tues of the following week.  Should be an education!  :P

okay today was the multicultural fest our dance was fine the only thing i disliked was the fact that i had to put on this canroll it's like dreadlocs but it hurts a lot well i guess if you actually live somewhere where you have this made on your head everyday it doesn't hurt but...if you don't it does i still have a headache from it!

we had to put that because the country we had to represent was JAMAICA! i loved it =) we danced this

song that said "in the island of jamaica everybody loves banana!" i really like it..

umm what else..

well i saw a girl that was with me in school when i was little she looks totally different i almost didn't recognize

her the good thing is my face has never changed so if you saw me like 7 years ago and you see me now you'll

know who i am inmediatly .

and also i had a henna tatoo since it was a "multicultural" fest there were all sorts of stands and in the india stand there were this girls which made you a henna tatoo i got 2...

i hope they last

and another good news tomorrow is a FREE DAY!!!! because we had this thing today so we dont have

classes tomorrow...

umm well i dont have anything else to say..

oh..i got this i dont know how to say it in english it's like a zit xD i dont remember the thing is it's there on my forehead and it hurts but i can't squeeze it cause it'll leave a mark i hate it damn you ice cream why are you so

delicious but yet you give this things on my face that leave marks !

my back hurts and im here back at this fuckin apartment were i dont do anything else because my mom wont let me because we just moved to this city and she doesn't know much of my friend so she won't let me go anywhere because she says she doesn't know the ppl and if she doesn't know them i can't go but then i introduced her to some of my new friends and i tell here mary did watever and she's like which one of your friends was mary? i dont remember here and im like the little dark haired girl and she's like i don't remember...

and im like ....

my headd hurts..!!

uh well bye ppl ive got to take a bath