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She visits

The door is open to the warm fall night.
A figure comes in, on little cat feet.
Whoosh-- and up the stairs.
We laugh.

She returns, circles.
We reach out, pet her.
The classroom: home.

A chance to hear other scholars discuss the intra-actions among gender, sexuality, and other fields.  This Friday, September 30, at UPenn 1:30-6:30 in the Benjamin Franklin Room of Houston Hall. 

From their website:  The Symposium will examine the fields of feminist and queer studies and their intersections with each other and with topics in race, nationalism, empire, and class. The afternoon will begin with a conversation between Professor Heather Love, University of Pennsylvania, and Professor Ann Cvetkovich, University of Texas at Austin. Ann is the author of Mixed Feelings: Feminism, Mass Culture and Victorian Sensationalism (Rutgers, 1992) and An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Culture (Duke, 2003).  

October 2-8 is Mental Health Awareness Week.  For more info on events and programs, check out their website  http://www.nami.org/template.cfm?section=mental_illness_awareness_week

            This week at UC Berkeley there was a huge controversy surrounding an affirmative action-like bill called SB 185 passed by the Senate in California that I think relates a lot to our conversations about class, access, and education so I wanted to share it with y’all.

            Basically, this bill would allow public universities in California to consider an applicant’s race, ethnicity, and gender in the application process and on Tuesday, there was a phone bank on Berkeley’s campus to call in to support the signing of this bill. In response, the Berkeley College Republicans (BCR) hosted a satirical “Increase Diversity” Bake Sale opposite the phone bank with pricing based on one’s race, ethnicity, and gender. Based on statements the group posted on Facebook (links below), they felt the legislation was intended to increase diversity and fill quotas, which officials say is not true. The bake sale offended a ton of students who then protested in the main plaza on campus.

            I read one opinion piece that I felt spoke to some of feelings in our conversations in class. Here are some excerpts and the link to the article:

I just received an announcement about this very relevant conference that is being held at Drexel University College of Medicine on Thursday, October 27, 2011 from 9 am - 4 pm.  Regisration is free.  Please see the website for more information. 

So to go off of what we were talking about in class I want to mention a music center that for me is extreemly unappealing. Perhaps  someshine can voice his thoughts as he is also from Seattle, but we have a building near the Space Needle called the EMP (Experience Music Project) which is a museum basically of Seattle pop music and science fiction (a weird combo to begin with). It has stuff on Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix, etc. It was designed by a famous architect, Frank Gehry.

While this isn't a concert hall, it is a memorial to music and I feel is meant to represent what music was and is. I'm torn with the EMP between extreem hatred for its exterior, and an appreciation with what was done with the inside. The inside is cool. Just as some think that the Pyramide du Louvre is the scar on the face of Paris, I think that the EMP is the scar on the face of Seattle. I can't get beyond the exterior to see the beauty of the inside because of the blaring exterior. I don't know if that means I judge a book by its cover (I hope I don't), but how should I judge this building? By the interior or the exterior? How does the EMP make you feel?  

Since I had my Esem, I have been more and more unsure about how to define the word education. But at least I am pretty sure about one thing; that is education is actually v. at the time one starts to go to school and receive education, the education she or he gets is far more than education. We don’t have many “racial issues” in China, but Kai Davis’ experience reminded me the influence of education on students who so not belong to the “mainstream”. For some of them, being a member of minority may motivate them to study harder and become more ambitious; but for some of them, anger and stress accumulate, which may lead to big tragedy.

 For Rodriguez, being minority is a motivator. As a “scholarship boy”, it is difficult for him to find a place both at home and school. But instead of getting frustrated and hopeless, he spent more and more time studying to in order to attain his goal. Though often feel lonely, being isolated by “mainstream” is generally not a very big problem for them. However, for others, being minority is painful and unbearable. A piece of breaking news happened in china in 2004: four dead bodies of were found in their dorms and all of them were killed in a very cruel way. Surprisingly, the killer turned out to be their roommate, a boy from a poor village of Yunnan province. When the murder was caught by the police, he said calmly that he never felt regretted about killing his classmates, for they treated him in a extremely harsh way, just because he came from a poor farmers family.

At the end of her first chapter, Price notes that her book includes “abundant examples of what can happen when, against the odds, those with mental disabilities find ways to speak, write, dance, and otherwise communicate against the grain of able-mindedness” (57). While reading her introduction and first chapter, I kept thinking about the use of Adderall as a “study aid” by students who have not been prescribed the drug or diagnosed with ADHD, a practice that I perceive to be is relatively common at Haverford (though not talked about openly). I’m not quite sure how this fits into the dichotomy Price has set up between mental disability and able-mindedness, but I’m curious to hear others’ thoughts about non-prescription Adderall and Ritalin use and abuse, especially as it relates to the concept of able-mindedness (when “able minds” are not “able” enough!) and to the Honor Code.

I think education, as it is right now, does not level the playing field. In my latest paper, I talked about how access to education is distinctly different because of the stereotypes that are perpetuated by society about various people from different backgrounds. At the same time, I argued that education may be the very tool that can change this issue of stereotypes in society. However, when talking about education as the tool to do such a thing, I feel that I was referring to a more dynamic type of learning, based on Freirian's theory of problem-posing education. The back and forth relationship between teacher and student that Freire suggests, brings the possibility of an always changing education, with many perspectives being included. The fact that many students and even many teachers bring different perspectives into their daily dialogue and interaction allows for so much growth in the education system, also proposing a way in which the stereotypes and assumptions made of people from different backgrounds can be changed and actually allow for the barrier of access to education to be broken.