(no subject)

[greenie_breizh]

I'm still trying to get over my doubts from yesterday and the nervousness I feel because I think the project is turning into something very different from what I'd originally imagined in my head. I just need to convince myself that it's ok and I'll figure out the lit review and everything later. Basically originally I was interested broadly in how teachers teach, and I'm realizing that especially since I need to make the interview shorter, I'm really more interested in how the teachers teach and handle diversity and difference in the classroom.

Basically I'm still not sure what I'm doing. :/

So instead of freaking out, let me share a couple of funny links.
Cats can really sleep anywhere.
Cats fail and grad students.
Alan Tudyk = bacon bits.

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Now a few links stolen from le_canard.
The documentary Girl Like Me touches on how racism intersect with beauty standards. It's mostly bits of interviews with black girls who talk about how they've been made feel about their appearance. We often think that tastes are personal - so what if I like blonde better than brunette? It's a good reminder that tastes are also embedded in cultural bias and in Western nations, that means a certain racial bias, too.
The experiment featured at about 4 minutes is pretty heart-breaking and disheartening. It was reproduced recently and I don't know if I'd put quite the same positive spin on the story. I would love to try the experiment in France, but also to have white children do it, because I'm pretty certain patterns would differ.

And finally, in French, Mr. Haïdari who works at the City Hall in Marseille (he's assistant to the Mayor), talking about why he thinks it's important that we have racial statistics in France. The usual argument against such statistics - that they create racial categories that don't exist - is true in the sense that race is a social construct, but it blatantly ignores that this social construct has very real (psychological and material) consequences today in France (and beyond). Racial categories will never be perfect, but it's a better alternative (in my opinion) to pretending that there isn't a racial problem in France. These categories, we made them up, but today they influence the lives of people of color, and we have to stop ignoring that because it makes us uncomfortable.


That reminds me that this morning I was in a school and asked the head of the school (because he was showing me what kind of information students fill out every year) if he had any same-sex household that had a kid in his school. His first reaction was, "you know, it's none of my business" ("ça ne me regarde pas"). Which struck me as odd. Why would we want these families to be invisible? Is it that strange to imagine that teachers would know if their kids have a mom and a dad, one parent, two of the same sex? Under the excuse of giving people privacy, aren't we really playing into a system that assumes and favors heterosexuality? That's a rhetorical question, obviously. It's very telling that we ask kids to fill out information about their mother and father, but to ask if they have two moms or two dads is a breach of privacy.

Comments

[themegs.livejournal.com]

I agree so much with your last paragraph. I don't think it'd be right for a faculty member to name the students from a same sex household the same way it's not right to list which kids are being raised by their grandparents, an uncle, an older sibling, etc, but there needs to be awareness and sensitivity that kids do not all come from nuclear families. My high school was pretty careful not to say "Parent/Teacher Night" and permission slips said "guardian" instead of "parent" signature, and they tried to be all-encompassing of people's families and situations. I think there's a right to privacy but a responsibility to be thoughtful instead of assuming everyone comes from the same situation.

[meuh-leu.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on your last paragraph, I have this case in one of my schools, and when I did french Christmas cards, I'd written a template on the board which was "pour papa et maman", telling the kids who only had 1 parent to just miss out one of the words. The teacher was really good, she came up to me straight away to tell me that a little girl had 2 mums, and asked me how I would say "to my mummies".
But then when the rest of the staff mention them, it's always on a sort of gossipy tone.
I think the school and the teachers have to be aware of the family situation of their pupils because it influences their lives so much! They have to know about it just so they can avoid blunders and also be able to help in case of bullying or mockery...