Promising Practices :D

On Saturday November 6 2010 I attended my first teaching conference. When I was driving to RIC that morning I was very nervous and excited for what the day had in store for me. I parked and walked inside the Dovovan Dining Center. I needed to check in. I saw that they were grouping by last name, so I went to the “M’s” and stood in front of it. The person at the front of the line was having a bit of trouble checking in, but one of the staff quickly jumped in to help sign the rest of in. After I signed in I looked around to see if anyone was there. I saw all of our FNED class sitting at a couple of tables in the back. We found our seats and were ready for the day to begin. While we were waiting we discussed who was going to what group. It seemed as though no one was in the same workshops. Everyone seemed very excited about their workshops. I unfortunately was not put into my first choice for the workshop, but I didn’t have the energy to go change it. Finally the amazing Dr. Bogad hit the stage with a great introduction at 8:30 in the morning and we were off to our first workshop.

The first workshop I attended was the Visual Literacy workshop with Mary Howkins in Clark Science 106. I thought I was in the wrong place at first because nobody was in the room, but Mary assured me I was in the right place. The room had no heat but in my many layers I was quite warm. The workshop had about 20 people in it. This workshop really focused on what we see in the media and what it means. The main focus of media that she focused on was print ads. First though we compared these two painting to one another.

Virgin Mary     Black Man

We talked about the backgrounds and how they help each person to seem as though they are coming out of the picture and how it helps contracts their skin tones. We mentioned how they are both in the center of the portraits and that stands for power. In relation to power we said how the Virgin Mary is of a high status and that a black man is replicating such a pose shows how power has shifted in the world. Finally we mentioned the man and how he is looking out at us. In the full picture the Virgin Mary is looking down at the host. He is trying to connect with us saying he is not afraid to be who he is.

After this analysis of the paintings we then looked at print ads. We saw in so many print ad things you would never even think of. In children’s magazines the blonde child is always placed in the center of an ad. This is because of the purity of a blonde child and how it represents the average American. We also looked at ethnically diverse print ads. Although most races were represented in the ad, there still had to some hidden message behind it. In all the ads we saw with ethnic diversity the white child was always in the center of the photograph (Like I said before the center of the picture represents power), or they were the only ones looking right at the viewer/ reader. These simple things help us connect with the white child more than the rest of the people in the ad. Here is a sample of what I was saying.

This workshop really related all to Christensen. It was all about the hidden messages in the media and how we may think something is equal when all along it is all a lie. We are teaching these kids through these ads that, yea you can be pretty but if you’re not the white or blonde girl you’re not going to be in the front, you’ll be in the back staring off at who knows what. It also relates to McIntosh in a way; it speaks to the whiteness as an invisible privilege.

After that workshop we headed back to the dining center for the curriculum recourse fair. This I did not use to my full advantage. For someone who wanted to go into Secondary Education with a concentration in English the fair was lacking. It was very much for the elementary school teachers. I did look around to see what they had but no luck. Some of the class and I during that time talked about our experiences in our first workshops. Some people said it exceeded their expectations and some said that the workshop fell short. I could not stop talking about mine and all the hidden messages in things we see every day. During this time I also ate about a trillion of those chewy bars.

Next it was on to the second workshop. After having an amazing workshop I was waiting to have a phenomenal workshop in the afternoon. When I arrived I was greeted by Mary Gormley. I was hoping to work in a group and meet other people but then she started talking about Geography and how it related to diversity. We ended up doing the strangest activities. The first one we all had to leave the room and come back in two groups and look at a bunch of objects. We then had to remember the objects and write them down when everyone was finished. Then we had to draw a map of Rhode Island College. Although I understood the message of that exercise it still dint make that much of an impact. She was just trying to convey that we all think differently and we shouldn’t be penalized for those differences. This sadly did not meet my expectations.

When I returned back to headquarters I really tried to have people explain to me the purpose of my workshop, many could not.  I decided to drop the subject of that workshop. I then went to eat lunch. The lunch was quite tasty for the Dovovan Dining Center at RIC. While we were eating there was a picture on the screen of some small children. It was a small white boy in the middle surrounded by about 10 black children. My friends in FNED thought I was crazy when I told them about it, but right there was proof about what I was saying. The one white child was in the center of the photo which gave him the power and our eyes are immediately drawn to him.

Finally it was time for the speaker Mr. Dennis Shirley.  I was quite excited to hear him talk because I know when Dr. Bogad talks in class I really enjoy hearing her talk about diversity. Well this man bored me to tears. I couldn’t hear a thing he was saying and I blocked him out about 15 minutes into his ramblings. At times he did make some good points. I like that he did mention about two things we should take away from his presentation. He said that we need to know our vision and we need a supportive network without these things, mindful teaching cannot exist.

Overall I really enjoyed the convention. It really open my eyes even more about diversity and what we can do to make our community, our schools, our classrooms one day a better place for all. After I left the conference I looked in the folder and saw we were given a magazine. I flipped though it and it was a very interesting magazine. It had stories in it like we have in class and just lots of ways to make schools more diversified. If we just keep an open mind then the world can be whatever we want it to be.