In The Service Of What?

This article was easy for me to relate to because I have done so much community service between being in Girl Scouts as a kid and being in High School. In my high school you could not graduate without completing ten hours of community service within one year. For me this was easy because I have done babysitting, pennies for patients, happy baskets; which is for needy people in my town, coached soccer, went to Alabama for a mission trip, Special Olympics, and many more. As this article suggests, to write about your service learning I had to for one of my graduation requirements. I felt like this did nothing for me because I knew the principal was barely going to read it and I was writing it to waste my time because my high school does nothing with them except to see if you did it or not. For other kids it was a struggle to complete this task.  Its sickening how people can not donate 10 hours of there time; even if its spread out, to help someone in need or even to help a good cause.

http://happybasketsri.com/?page_id=8 This is one of the service learning I have completed. I couldn’t begin to count the number of hours I helped with this organization. I have been doing it since 7^th grade. It is a local organization that helps the less fortunate around thanksgiving and Christmas time. Groups of people fill up boxes with a bunch of food for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. Also around Christmas time all the schools in my town collect toys and clothes and this organization wraps them for the less fortunate kids in my town. This year we have boxes of food and gifts to over 500 famillies in my town. This is one of the service learning projects I walk away knowing I made a families holiday a lot better.

The Myths That Bind Us

In the article Unlearning The Myths That Bind us it made me realize how society depicts that way we act around certain people and react in certain situations. In the beginning of the article it talks about how the students kept a journal to write down their ideas. Social media, the television, listening to the radio, and many more depict the way someone acts in society because they may be persuaded in a particular way because of what they heard or saw. What we do not realize is how true it is because if something is different then what you may see in a movie, example in the last article we read about Cinderella and gays. In the movie Cinderella it is a guy and a girl, but if a girl and a girl or a guy and a guy date it is “unacceptable” because that’s the way society has taught us through various of different ways. Another example could be is that in all of the Disney movies kids watch it is mainly white people in every movie except Pocahontas and yet some people in society wonder why someone could be so racists. No one thinks about how what kids do everyday depicts what he or she does and acts in society. Many people blame parents for being racist or such judgmental, but its not just that it’s also the way things are portrayed at us all throughout life, beginning at such a young age. http://eileenoevalwriting.weebly.com/disneys-gender-portrayal.html This article talks about the way Disney portrays some of its movies in either a good way or a bad way.

Speaking the Unspeakable in Forbidden Places

I found this article “Speaking the Unspeakable in Forbidden Places” very truthful and informative. I think that at a young age kids should be informed of what gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender are so as they grow up if they find themselves to fall under one of these categories they will not be confused or as shy to come out if people know what each of them mean. Despite the production of lesbian space, Laura felt that she had ‘no idea’ what she would do if asked directly about her sexuality. But, she argued, ‘even though I can’t do it yet, I feel children need to know that there are lesbians teaching them, existing in classrooms with them everyday’.  I agree and disagree with this quote. I think that children need to know what to say when asked about their sexuality so they do not give someone the wrong impression later in life or they can understand that question. I disagree when it says that I feel children need to know that there are lesbians teaching them. I think this because it does not matter what the teacher does in her own personal life if she can teach that is really all that matters. I do not think that it matters what the teachers sexual preference is. There is a line where the teacher’s personal life should not come into the classroom and that is defiantly an example. I think that kids should know what lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender is but when they get older, like in fourth or fifth grade.  I think this because at such a young age some kids might be confused as to what each of these terms mean, but they need to eventually know what it means incase on of their classmates is and I think this idea needs to be addressed. http://www.dayofsilence.org This article is about a program that some schools do, called a day of silence that is made for gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgenders that get bullied. Its upsetting to hear that these kids are getting bullied because they are happy in a different way. Being different is okay.