Extra Credit: Ted Talks Education

Rita Pearson who has been a teacher for over 30 years talked about how a good relationship or connection with a student is a key factor for their learning. I loved her speech "I'am somebody. I was somebody when I came. I'll be a better somebody when I leave. I'am powerful, I'am strong. I deserve the education that I get here. I have things to do, people to impress and places to go". This got me speechless, if I had teachers like that when I was in High School my grades would be better, because when a student have that motivation from their teacher it makes them work harder and get them more excited to learn. Every student needs a teacher to encourage them to do better everyday and who shows them that they can do it!!!

There was a short clip from stuyvesant High School, this clip was by a student who emphasize the difference between knowledge and understanding.

The psychologist Angela Lee Duekworth who was previously a teacher. She is interested in the psychological perspective of education. Her speech was fallowed by another short clip from a 16 year old girl who was doing bad in High School. Because she did not feel motivated. After giving birth to her daughter her life perspective changed.

Bill Gates also spoke in the video. He brought the idea of giving teachers specific feedback. Dr. Jeffrey Canada taked about the idea of changing  the education system. He says that almost every other technology has been innovated but schools have not changed. Pear Arredondo continues saying "teachers need to be motivators for their students. Last person to speak was Ken Robinson, this man confirms my belief that a truly intelligent minds all have sense of humor and that person without a sense of humor is incomplete in some way. Great speaker.

Blog assignment #7, Deviance

-Deviance: behavior that does not conform to basic cultural norms and expectations, and its relationship to these questions of self and identity. (Page 191, Experience sociology)

-Deviance is the act of rebellion against set of rules and expected behavior established by a certain society. Deviance is defined in many different ways. It depended on the norms of the society, and the religion. Individuals become deviant when people label their actions as deviance. Deviance has many meanings to unconformity on a cultural norm. It depends on that the state of society, and its religion.

Prostitution is a profession that has existed since the beginning of society. Prostitution is viewed as a sleazy way of making money; the United States outlaws this profession, because it degrades females. Yet it is legal and accepted in the city of Las Vegas, Nevada. Residents in Nevada view prostitution, as any other job.

An example of deviant behavior in my community would be the teen youth wearing baggy attire. Baggy attire is related to gangs, which in turn makes a person view teens that wear baggy attire to be a troublemaker. As a result it puts a stigma on the teen. This causes the teen to accept it.  and then becomes a deviant individual.

Another example of deviance in my everyday life is when I was in high school and I had a bunch of friends whom smoked, skip class and got into fights all the time. I did not follow the bad things they were doing but my family was telling me all the time that I will end up in the streets without a high school Diploma and doing drugs. For a second all these words got in my mind putting a stigma on me. And I was starting to believed that my future will be what they said; it was affecting me in so many ways. But later on I realized that the people around me were labeling my actions as deviant when they were not and the worst thing is that I started to believe it.

A person does not need to act in a deviant manner in order to be considered deviant. Sometimes people are considered deviant because of a trait or characteristics they possess. Punishing people for deviant reminds people what is expected of them and what will happen if they do not conform to society’s norms.

*Rules are created and broken by people who have strong social powers, and ties.

Socialization

Killing us softly by Jean Kilbourne, talks about how women are being advertised and seen as “objects”. Women showing their bodies with all these “perfect curves” on advertisement and magazines trying to show society that’s how women should look. Women exist in a world where their bodies are constantly judge, and their worth depends on how they look. In the video Jean said breast can never be ok, society places so much emphasis on them that girls seem always to have their self-esteem plummet when they hit adolescence. Boys do not suffer in the same way.

Jean Kilbourne mentioned that cogitation of feminism occurs because the ultimate message of how women are portrayed in advertising is be sexy but be passive and powerless. Thus, sexuality is defined in a clichéd way. The use of sex to sell everything is more pervasive than ever. This is important because it results in little or no emphasis on relationships or intimacy. Throughout the video Jean compare women to men but focusing on how women are being viewed in society and the huge impact in young women’s lives. The video Killing us softly is related to the article “Retro wife” by Lisa Miller because is mainly about women and their role in this culture, the video and the article also showed me how women’s lives have change from the old fashion way to modern women.

“A call to man” by Tony Porter tells men to stop being so violent and start respecting women. His story is about manhood and his experience as a male and a father. He explains the collective socialization of men, as the “man box”. The man box contains a set of norms by which every man is “supposed” to live by. And all these sets of norms are like rules that men are taught from birth and their parents expect them to follow it.

When Tony Porter uses himself as an example to describe the way he was raised, he points out all the things he was taught like for example: “as a man you are expected to be dominant and brave. Going back to chapter #6 socialization page 137 it says that through socialization we learn who we are, what is expected of us, how society operates and where we stand within our social world; this description about socialization relates to the video when Tony is telling the story when he was 12 and his oldest friend who was 16 and always alone at his father’s apartment had a girl in the room who didn’t even know what they were going to do with her, she was on drugs therefore she was out of her mind. Jonny the 16 years old call all his little friends to go to the room and have sex with this women but Tony knew what was going on was wrong and pretend he did have sex with the woman by putting his pants down. My point is when tony started to socialize with people who had more experience than he does, he was learning who he really was and not all the norms are true like the one in his box “demonstrate power control especially over women”.  This video is also relate to the article parents ‘socialization of children because as in the video the article is also about how parents influence their children to behave and the different styles they use like Authoritative, Permissive, and Authoritarian.

Both videos and the two articles are related to chapter #6 socialization; we can see how the agents of socialization influence us since birth. Newborns are not born human, at least not in the social or emotional sense of being human.  They have to learn all the nuances of proper behavior, how to meet expectations for what is expected of them, and everything else needed to become a member of society.  A newborn in the presence of others, interacting with family and friends typically acquires their socialization by the time they reach young adulthood.  

This picture shows how boys and girls socialized; school is the main social institution where we learn the norms established by society.

Power Assigment

Power: Is a fundamental sociological concept, affecting every level of society and influencing our daily lives in countless ways (experience sociology, page 111). Power is a universal aspect of social interaction. It plays an important part in shaping relations among the members of a group. Power differences enter into determining the relations between father and child, employer and employee, politician and voter, teacher and student.

The milgram experiment: these experiments offer a powerful; and disturbing look into the power of authority and obedience. Milgram developed an intimidating shock generator, with shock levels starting at 30 volts and increasing in 15 volt increments all the way up to 450 volts. Each participant took the role of a “teacher” who would then deliver a shock to the “student” every time an incorrect answer was produced. While the participant believed that he was delivering real shocks to the student, the student was actually a confederate in the experiment who was simply pretending to be shocked. The level of shock that the participant was willing to deliver was used as the measure of obedience. Milgram demonstrated the danger of obedience. The term expert power in chapter 5(page, 115) relates to the video because people are following the instructions of a person who has superior knowledge and also these people are being coercive by the psychologist Stanley Milgrim because of the fact that “the teachers” want to stop punishing their “students” and the psychologist keep telling them the experiment must continue. Its impressive how somebody with knowledge and power can control ourselves to make us do what we don’t want.

Five faces of oppression by Iris Young. The word oppression still exists in the everyday lives of women but has changed its tyrannical implications, meaning there is no dictator to influence or force negative actions toward women gender, According to Iris Young. The word oppression has come to represent communities and individuals that are being discriminated by the way society is structured, rather than sinlge leader oppression. Most people do not think women are subjected to discrimination but it still exists, yet women individually have proven that they are able to overcome it. By just being a woman, there are stereotypes which are often upheld by men, making it difficult for many women to reach their full potential and success in what are otherwise considered a “man’s occupation”. This is not always true. A perfect example of a man and woman working side by side with equal power in the decision making and their successful are my parents. The different types of oppression: exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, violence.

Exploitation- This type of oppression is involved to people who work to produce a profit while not getting pay fairly. This term can also be connected to the economic theory of capitalism meaning the social class, those that have wealth and those who have not, which it creates a class difference by not treating people the same because of the social status.

In chapter 5 of the book it talked a lot about power and throughout my experiences something that I really connected with was powerlessness because sometime I feel like I'm being control by one of my friend and I'm aware of it, but I just don't say anything.

                   

Culture Photo Voice

Culture is the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, language and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations. I am from the Dominican Republic and everybody knows that our native language is Spanish but “most Dominicans” use their “own vocabulary” in another words we make up our own words. And I think that’s what makes my culture unique. Our gastronomy plays a big  part in our culture food is very importat to us that's why before we eat we thank God for giving us the food, we have a variety of food and flavors but the one that can identify my culture is (Mangu)-mashed plantains, we eat it with fried cheese or salami.

Mangu

how a Dominican table looks like at lunch time.

                                  

Non material culture: when I was in high school I had a classmate named Fanta, she is African and she was always wearing a wrap or (piece of fabric on her head): covering her ears, hair and neck. I always wanted to know why she was wearing it all the time, because there were more African girls and they did not used this head wrap. One day I was in class and I made the wrong decision to take off her head wrap she started crying and the professor called the principal. It went from something I thought was nothing to something very serious, I started to panic and I tried to calm the girl down but she looked embarrassed and angry at the same time. The principal told me to come out of the classroom and go to his office. The social worker was there too and she told me that I was suspended for a week because of what I did. I was impressed by how not knowing about someone else’s culture can get into a big conflict or a misunderstood situation. After my suspension I notice that the reason why she had the head wrap was because she was still a virgin.  In her religion she had to wear it until she marries and when I took it off she felt disrespected and ashamed.

Symbol: is a representation of a culture, institution, historical event, a sound, an image etc. There is two Dominican symbols that we share with different cultures these are:  Merengue and Bachata our national dance, you have to dance each of them in a different way and if you are Dominican and you don’t know how to dance, in my country the people will tell you that you are not Dominican just because you don’t know how to dance Merengue or Bachata. These two genres have been shared by many other Latin countries.

                       

Material Culture: A memorial environment. One example is the Memorial 911-zone cero. Is a material culture, because it’s a historical event that was designed to honor the heroes that died on September 11.

                  

Values of culture: As individuals we all have a different personality, which is what makes us unique. I have nothing against same sex marriage. People like to discriminate a lot and even though in our society people say that a marriage is between a man and a woman but we have freedom of expression and you can do whatever you want to. If people who are against same sex marriage change their mind there will a lot of people happy and feeling free and comfortable with whom they really are.

    Folkways of Culture:

A cross: main symbol for catholic religion, Representing Christ crucifixion. While for other cultures it means death, pain, sin, offence, witchcraft etc. The cross is a folkway of culture because for different cultures it has different meanings.

Teenage Wasteland

Donna Gaines is a journalist, cultural sociologist; New York State certified social worker and an international expert on youth violence and culture. Gaines also has taught sociology at Barnard College of Columbia University and at the graduate faculty of New School University. In the article “Teenage Wasteland” Gaines examines the causes of teenage suicide using both the history and the biography of suburban teens. She mentioned that when a teenager commits suicide it is a personal tragedy, but when groups of teens form a suicide pact and successfully carry it out, it becomes a matter of public concern. In the book “experience sociology” chapter three they talk about culture and that can relate to this article because in my opinion culture is what makes us who we are, we  believe in something or somebody because of culture who we followed is also related to culture. Most cases of teen’s suicide are bullying, abuse or even you family issues can be a reason. As I was reading the article I found something very important, the techniques Gaines uses to investigate, she was not only interested on finding why teens commit suicide but she also went deep, meeting with teens to find out who they really are; their thoughts, feelings, and the weak side of them. Gaines also said that back in the 80's high schools were divided by the Jocks, Preps, nerds, cheerleaders etc depending on where you live. That wasn’t only in the 80’s we still have this types of division in high schools like Hispanic hand out with their people, backs, Chinese, Indians etc. Everyone with their group, taking it back to when I was in high school it was like that too, but I think this is because when you are a teen you think “Well they coming form the same place as I did so we might have a lot in common, we will agree all the time etc”. There are so many reasons why teenagers commit suicide, most of these reasons are unknown but teenage suicide is increasing and I ask myself why are they doing it? Is it because they are afraid of something or, they can’t take it anymore? I ask myself the same question every time I see this on the news. My mother always tells me to be myself everywhere I go and to always have in mind that there’s always a limit where you have to stop and say “no I am doing this wrong, I am not going to do this, I don’t want” in other words to have my own personality and not change my mind about something just because my friend doesn’t like it. My point you have to love yourself everyday more don’t let anyone trample you, because when you don’t love yourself your personality becomes the public’s opinion about you. From there you star to get depressed and to think that nobody understand you, feel so down until you get to the point of killing yourself or find a bad company. (Teenage Suicide needs to stop; a lot of teens need more family support).

Sence and Nonsense About Surveys

This article was written by Howard Schuman, the reason why I choose this article is because I believed in surveys 90%. By reading this article I understood so many things I never thought of, surveys are not always true there are so many different ways to make a survey and not all the interviewers use the correct techniques to make it right and what I mean by this is that sometimes they don’t include the whole population or they can simply manipulate it. Howard discussed that understanding a survey is critical to being an informed citizen, but popular media often report surveys without any guidance on how to interpret and evaluate the results. He also mentioned how a little mistake can cause a survey to be fault; answers to survey questions always depend on the form in which a question is asked. Nowadays people are making surveys by phone or internet, picking the phone numbers from a directory book but not everybody has a phone or an e-mail address so I ask myself how are they going to make a conclusion if they didn’t interview the whole population? I guess they will just make up the survey without having everyone’s opinion. In chapter two from the book I also learned a lot of methods of collecting data and in sociology the most common used method is survey. And is very related to the article “Sense and Nonsense about Surveys”, the book gives a clear example on page (41) where it says that researchers also need to pay attention to the way the questions in a survey are worded because even small variations on wording can influence results significantly. Surveys might have problems such as different definitions, lack of clarity, loaded language etc. many surveys are true on example is the pew research center who comes up with the polling numbers about elections. Surveys are like opinions and everybody has a different point of view.