Blogs

Learn about Nicole's MTF (male to female) journey.

For our final presentation, Jordan and I created a virtual scrapbook of the class. We highlighted the best parts of the past. What we found was that the best parts of the experience are not neccesarily the funnest part of the class. I feel the presentation went well, I was worried that our presentation would not go well and wouldn't go over well but not to fear. I liked seeing my classmate's faces as they say themselves in pictures and in quotes. All in all, the presentations went well with each flowing into the other. We ended on an indefinite note but that's okay because we will hopefully continue to see each other next semester and perhaps continue our classroom discussions outside of the classroom.

While last night's performances were really touching and funny, we all know that they went far beyond that. They showed our sense of agency to go into the world with the knowledge we've gained and actually make a change--whether that change is simply modifying how we will personally operate in the world or taking our knowledge to a broader audience through teaching, playing games, noticing bias in youtube videos, or rapping. The only thing I hope is that our efforts don't stop just because this class has. I hope we continue to keep what we've learned in our minds far beyond this class and our years at Bryn Mawr. In my group's performance, we didn't get a chance to share what Robin Kelly said, and that is that we can't change the media until we change society; and we cannot change society until we change ourselves. It is only in this sort of cyclical pattern of “making new people” that we can “make new television.”

From y'day's New York Times Opinion Pages, on the unaddressed link between poverty and education: Class Matters. Why Won't We Admit It? 

Wow. Was i amazed? More than. I loved the various presentation formats of all the other groups.  Chandrea has already summarized our group objective. I based my slam/speech whatever it was, on the phrases that stuck with me throughout the class - words i will still remember a year from now.

Scarcity

Time-poor versus money-poor

Rich shame versus poor shame

Room size versus pocket size

class - bridge - divide

The questions at the end were meant to provoke thought, especially the 'Can we really bridge the class divide?'. I asked the question in the hope that our conversation does not end up as 3 months of academic noise and freshman memories, but as something more concrete - that changes the face of class at Bryn Mawr.

This was an extra class in its own right and a unique learning experience for me. The piece on space made me remember the discussion we had on ownership. I remember how i moved from answering that i could claim full ownership of my dorm room to doubting myself, when someone pointed out the issues involved in claiming a space you share?

I noticed that in the creative assignment, some students came out and identified with their class. It was therefore interesting to me when Chandrea said after the performance that she might as well flaunt hers. It was a 'go girl' moment for me.  And for 5 minutes I enjoyed the thrill of changing class with the wheel game. I could go on and on, but there's other stuff to do.

Mfon

My performance is inspired by my previous perception about the United States. Before coming here, everything I knew about this country was through the media. Through this class, I recognize that the US is not always as dreamy as I thought. There are a lot of downsides. Furthermore, I also realize the importance of the media to form my perception about the society and this perception is somehow stereotyped and biased. And I think most people all have the same problems. It is easy to make assumptions and judgement about other people based on their apprearance and language. This powerpoint aims to make me and the rest of the class to correct the wrong perception and become more impartial

For our final performance, we decided to do some slam poetry! We all wrote about different aspects of our E-Sem experiences and from various perspectives. Mfon also did a crossword puzzle about the packing problem. Some other topics included learning about banking education and our own perceptions of our socioeconomic statuses and realizing our responsibilities as Bryn Mawr students to bring up touchy topics like class to campus and make them relevant to our peers. Our poems were personal and allowed us to share what we learned from this E-Sem and how class mattered to us back then and how it will matter to us in the future. I remember discussing the project with my group and all of us being unsure about which area about the broad topic of class we would be writing our poems about. It's a complicated subject!

I really, really enjoyed seeing all of the final performances last night. At some points, I couldn't stop laughing and at others, I wanted to burst into tears. I've really enjoyed my time spent with this class, and I feel like I've learned so much, not only from the curriculum but also my peers. 

We've spent much of the class identifying different perceptions and stereotypes about every socioeconomic class. We've seen what situations they can lead to, and how to fight them. But what we haven't had a chance to touch on is where they come from. So this is what our group chose to focus on for the final performance. In our presentation, we talked about the media and how it perpetuates stereotypes about certain groups in regards to class, race and the American Dream. We also discussed how easily children are influenced by these media stereotypes, and how they continue to grow up with these negative, often exaggerated stereotypes. To do this, we provided examples of media which portrays different people in certain lights. To conclude the presentation, we offered suggests on how to resist media bias, in an effort to alleviate negative perceptions. We also included a fun animated clip about the going ons of ESem and the consequences of our disinterest in moving the tables!