Boler: All Speech is Not Free

Boler argues that due to the inequities within our society that all speech is not free. This means that it is valued differently contingent on the speaker. An utterance by one person can cause them danger while another is acknowledged, even applauded to speak the very same idea, while a third is not heard at all. These inequities apply to hostile speech as well.

Boler is concerned with the educators role in using "affirmative action pedagogy" and historicized ethics in the classroom to access and critically analyze hostile speech in a "safe space" where the marginalized voices can respond and be heard. She recognizes that this space maybe "unreal" in that it does not represent the real world experience but that this is the point. The real world is not a always a safe place for the silenced to be heard because "all speech is not free" but in the classroom those voices can be heard.

Boler gives two examples of how the marginalized can be heard in the classroom. One way is to set boundaries and rules that exclude hostile speech so that all time and preference is given to those voices that are not heard in society. The other way, seemingly contradictory, is to allow all speech, all opinions, to the end that "teaching moments" can occur where hostile speech can be confronted, examined, and criticized openly.

Boler gives two reasons for affirmative action pedagogy: that the right to free speech does not protect everyone and often protects the dominant culture's "right" to use hate speech against the minority culture and that there is a psychological affect that hate speech incurs on the target. Affirmative action pedagogy, when used appropriately has two important aspects - accountability for the speaker of hostile utterances and the opportunity for critical agency for the marginalized. In this way the target(s) can speak for themselves and openly confront the speaker instead of having the governing agent "protect the victims." In this case the speaker (who does not speak because they were disallowed from the get go) would never be held accountable or be given the opportunity to examine his/her own beliefs in view of rational discussion within the safety of the classroom with peers and scholars.

Interestingly, Boler discusses self-disclosure as a measure of leveraging power on the part of the dominant culture and to draw attention back to itself. Whereas Delpit wanted the personal experience of the disenfranchised educators of color to be able to use their personal experience to advocate for pedagogy that would work best with their students. They are not in contradiction to each other - in fact Delpit's complaint that educator's of color feel silenced and dismissed when they offer personal experience as proof is a prime example of Boler's statement that all speech is not free, in that the person from the dominant culture is more easily heard and uses their personal experience to position themselves in the driver's seat of the conversation once again. This type of self-disclosure is meant to undermine the marginalized persons and demonstrates the speaker's lack of willingness to recognize power and privilege and their place in the system.

Boler concludes with the difficulties of practicing affirmative action pedagogy in the classroom and how allies and role models are a pivotal part. Her emphasis is on how educational spaces are the place where we can put historicized ethics into use to make changes in how people view, discuss, and treat the minority cultures.

Rodriquez: Aria

In Aria, we have the theme of silence again. Nearly every text we read mentions "silence" in the discussions of how social issues are played out in educational settings. Delpit's silence was between colleagues, Carlson's was the don't ask, don't tell and marginalization of gays, Finn's is the silence of the poor.

Rodriquez talks about a silence that begins at school and invades his family life. He writes about the necessity of being immersed in English in order to learn the language that would grant him access to the public world. However there is also the sadness and loss of his family's intimacy of using the language with which they were most comfortable in favor of assimilation. It seems that there is a choice - be successful in one world or stay tied to the other. Something is lost when another is gained.

Rodriquez seems to think that this is a necessary part of an English language learner's experience if they are to become competent in the English world. I hope not. I think that in some ways his experience does not truly reflect all... but at the same time I know that many teachers attempt to help their students by suggesting that the parents speak English with them. I do not do this. Personally (and because I am a secondary ESL teacher) I believe it is best if the parents not only speak to the children in the first language, but to speak to them on topics of depth, abstract ideas, and the things that the students may not be ready to understand in English, but are ready to talk about in order to broaden their thoughts and give them transferable ideas. I try to let the parents know that this is good for them to share with their children the richness of their first language and that with patience, time, and study English will be learned at school. They can also practice English if they too want to improve it. It is nice for parents and children to learn together. This idea Rodriquez describes when his family is attempting to communicate with English, laughing and in a new way bonding. They enjoyed going through it together.

What I find interesting is that Rodriquez feels that as a young child he could not feel a sense of ownership of English - that it was not his to use until Spanish was taken from him. Is there a better way for ESL teachers to communicate that English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, etc. are all public languages and that anyone can "have" them and use them and enjoy them? I have no first hand knowledge of bilingual programs except that the few students who have come to me from such schools, have great difficulty using English. So, I do feel that Rodriquez's opening paragraphs resonate with my limited experience. I wonder if bilingual education postpones the student's learning of English. Does bilingual education create a "crutch" that the student is always seeking or are researchers correct that the students need to develop both languages in order to develop fully and make true progress?

Delpit would say that Rodriquez's experience is valid and he knows what he is talking about because he lived it. I agree, but also recognize that it is limited by his personality (shy) and schooling situation (Catholic school in 19??) and family situation. There are ways to help our students build their English language and bring with them a richness of identity. I tell my students that they have twice as much (some three times or four) culture because they have the cultures of their first country and language, and the cultures of their new country and language. They need not choose to be successful, but to use all that they have to feel that strength and pride in who they are and where their families come from while being proud of all that they are learning and accomplishing.

Carlson: Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community

Carlson discusses the marginalization of homosexuality in society and therefore within the school system. As the “normalizing community” promotes a dominant and limited idea of “normal” there is a silencing of the “other” or any person or idea that does not fit into the concept of what is normal. One way is through abuse. Since Matthew Shepherd, www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard, people are becoming increasingly aware of gay bashing as a hate crime. However, do we as a society step in to stop this form of hate? www.abcnews.go.com/WhatWouldYouDo/Story?id=7152579&page=1
What about at school? Do teachers speak up and defend students’ rights? Is it addressed? Many teachers are uncomfortable with talking about sexuality with students. Students use “gay”, “homo”, “fag”, etc. as everyday slurs without a thought.
Additionally, silencing is employed – we are familiar with “don’t ask, don’t tell” as a military practice. www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1707545,00.html This is not the only environment where people are asked not to reveal their true selves as a means of silencing gays. Silencing may be the most powerful tool of marginalization because it denies not only voice but humanity. In the film Milk, there is a powerful scene where Harvey Milk asks the gay men and women to come out to their families so that all people could feel that connection to the movement for gay rights. Once it they became vocal, they became empowered.
We also need to remember that separate is not equal in multicultural education - www.usnews.com/blogs/on-education/2008/10/24/a-third-high-school-for-gay-students.html
I could not believe this article when I discovered it… Creating schools for gay students, for me, addresses Carlson’s argument that there is some idea that “the normals” have to be separated from “the gays” for fear of contamination. Homosexuality as a contagion or disease furthers the hostility. After all we refer to people who are against homosexuals as “homophobic”, phobic meaning fear.
Therefore, as teachers, we must address the issue by opening discussions around sexual orientation and that hate, violence, and discrimination are not tolerable. As I have found in my classroom, many students have gay relatives in their lives and once the silence is broken, the slurs and hate subside. We have a powerful obligation to see multicultural education not only in terms of color and religion, but in terms of gender, sexual orientation, and other communities.
For more reading on this subject and to find out what you can do as a teacher in your school:
www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/educatrs/leadrshp/le0gay.htm
www.members.tripod.com/~twood/guide.html
www.glsen.org/

Finn: Literacy With An Attitude

Questions for discussion...

• What does Finn mean by "literacy with an attitude"?
• What are the four mechanisms contributing to the status quo?
• What is the "pretend-school model" vs. "real-school model"?
• How does Delpit's theories compare or contrast with Finn's?
• Would Kozol agree or disagree with Finn, and in what ways?
• In what ways would the Freirean model be possible in your classroom? Impossible?
• Delpit calls the breakdown in communication "the silenced dialogue"... what silences does Finn talk about, what causes it?
• Have you encountered "oppositional identity" in your classroom and how will you "deal with it" in the future having read Finn?
• Using Anyon's schools ( or the teachers in chapter 14) as models - which type of school did you attend, which do you teach in, which style do you think your own most closely relates to, and which is your goal now?
• Do you feel prepared to or how will you try to use dialogue (vs. antidialogue) in your classroom in the future? Would you consider using negotiations, culture circles, cultural journalism, read-around, and /or collective texts.
• Next January/February, how will you address the topics of civil rights history?

Kozol: Still Separate, Still Unequal

I have chosen three quotes to focus on. The first focuses on how we use language to disguise the problem in our segregated schools - "Visitors to schools like these discover quickly the eviscerated meaning of the word [diverse], which is no longer a proper adjective but a euphemism for a plainer word that has apparently become unspeakable." Just as Johnson pointed out that we must use the words, here Kozol is addressing the same issue. If we don't call it what it is, then how can we recognize the problem? However, I think Kozol is putting more onus on society than Johnson, in that it is a purposeful misleading or cover-up going on. After all, the last time people recognized segregation as a societal evil there was civil unrest, protests, marches, and violence. It is like a dirty little family secret that everyone refers to with a code phrase. Our dirty secret? Our schools are not actually integrated. In fact, they are quite segregated with fewer than 10% white students attending public urban schools in the countries largest cities and not in the South - in the North, too - Chicago, Hartford, Seattle, etc.

"This...would not happen to white children." These are the words of a principal of such a school, in reference to the disrepair of the building. This quote has great meaning because Kozol is again pointing a finger. We have allowed segregation to continue and for the inequalities to arise again. If the schools were integrated white parents, politicians, journalists would be ensuring that their children would not go to school under such deplorable conditions. Indeed, they don't. But they also don't try to stop it from going on. Additionally, excuses are made and stalling around issues of economics. Both ideas of there isn't money and money wouldn't help are used to withhold from these "diverse" urban schools. These are lies to cover up the dirties secret of all. That in fifty years we have not gone away from that leaky one room shack school house in the woods, but rather we are moving towards it again. And it begins at two years old with "Baby Ivies" and moves up to elementary schools run like Nazi camps for minimum wage workers, lacking in recess, art, music, and many other programs, where students are prepared for a high school that does not prepare for college, where nearly half of the students will not even graduate.

My last quote is from a student in reference to another student who is upset that she is forced to take remedial/home ec courses instead of having the opportunity to take AP courses. He says, "You're ghetto, so we send you to the factory. You're ghetto - so you sew!" This student much like Kozol is pointing to a conspiracy to keep the powerful and wealthy at the top and the poor and disadvantaged at the bottom. It is difficult not to see it this way when so much evidence is presented. How could "we" not see what is going on? Why are we not taking to the streets? Are we conspirators or do we live in some foggy dreamworld where we believe "The Dream" is real because we aren't forced to look at the problem because we go to different schools and use words like diverse? And we have a Black president - evidence of all our great progress...