#I am from a low socio-economic background myself

[brasideios]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts OP. It brought up a lot of feelings and thoughts in me, so I hope you won't mind my attaching some of them to your well-considered piece above.

I felt the same way after I graduated - my Arts degree is a double major in English and creative writing. I studied writing more broadly, both fiction and non-fiction, poetry, prose and playwrighting, for four years.

One of the things that really bothers me to think about now is the sneer that was consistently directed at genre fiction. In not so many words, it was literary fiction or trash. This trend was even worse when it came to poetry. Most of what we studied was just what you're talking about here - that is (I'm going to be blunt) wank.

Even knowing how to read and interpret it - I can sometimes get at the meanings in it, if there is any - I can write it - but with all due respect to those who love it, so much of it is just pretentious nonsense.

Over the years, I've heard so many people say they hate poetry, and I firmly believe this is why - this idea that literary poetry is the only legitimate form, while every other, easily understandable form, isn't really poetry at all. I find that a travesty really.

And sidebar to all this - when I think about traditional publishing, and how they favour this form of poetry and (here in Australia anyway) fiction, there are capitalistic overtones in it all that really suck. The message really is - Produce what is demanded by the machine or don't write.

For years after I got my degree, I felt creatively stunted. I felt compelled to be writing something very specific - and for me that was Australian, highly descriptive, hard hitting and concerned with social issues around post-colonialism. It had to be realism, of course, and it had to be literary - and when I tried to do anything else, it felt wrong. I'd internalised this sense that writing what I loved, as I wanted to write it, was failing to come up to some imagined mark of true art, true writing.

I endeavoured for a long time to do that - to write what I was 'supposed' to write. Then I stopped writing for two years. Eventually, I found my way back to myself as a writer.

Even so, there are still two wolves inside me (as the saying goes) - one that just wants to write for fun, to indulge in light genre fiction and prose poems that are only loosely poems, and vignettes just for the hell of it - and the one that is, frankly, intensely judgmental and says I shouldn't be wasting my time. I should be writing the timeless, "great Australian novel."

I'm glad to say that on most days, the non-judgemental wolf wins easily these days.

And I'm glad I did the degree. I learnt so much, got shaken out of my comfort zone in the best of ways, was exposed to so many ideas I would never have found for myself, and that make me the writer that I am now - but there's no denying that there's this negative side to it all which I don't see many people talk about.

I've been able to neither read nor write stories in a long time. Poetry too, for the most part. I guess what I mean is that the art of the written word has become a stranger to me.

I hate what poetry classes did to my writing. Yes, the Wikipedia poems, but they are easier because they're not my own words, and I have gotten so many comments on those saying they are powerful pieces of art, but for me personally they're a way of hiding from the awfulness of trying to assemble my own words into poetry.

I hate the poems I wrote in poetry classes. I hate the version of me I showed others in those classes. I hate the way poetry classes taught me to draw from my own experiences and thoughts for poetry. I hate everything I learned about how to interpret poetry, the eye with which I learned to read poetry, and the vocabulary I learned to talk about poetry, and ultimately, I hate "literary" poetry.

"Literary," by the way, is the category of art that has more meaning, value and legitimacy than the "other" category, which is not "literary." A "literary" poem is published in special, fancy "literary" magazines and almost invariably written by a person with a MFA or PhD in poetry.

You could say that the distinguishing feature of "literary" art is its overwhelming sense of legitimacy. A "literary" poem is a poem in the same way that a nonprofit organization is charitable, that a CEO is rich, or that an SAT score demonstrates your academic prowess. It is a poem completely immune to the possibility that someone will think it sucks. It expects to be absorbed, analyzed, studied, and discoursed upon because something feels "official" about whatever designates it as Good Art.

Literary poems are not only written by and for a special subset of people that have been formally taught to read and interpret poetry, they are written exclusively for audiences that will automatically assume they are Good Art; beautiful, meaningful, and worth interpreting. Because of this, most literary poems are literal incomprehensible nonsense.

Just take this one:

Say I climb the ladder of wheat/and at the top there is a faucet dripping beads of water/but the water takes a year to turn into an eagle/and the sky's forty-three shades of gray pierce/the first inflection of my heart, the point where the signals/throw grass into the river. Say the river sags/and the horizon sucks the lance out of the ghost's hands/like the moment of being born, the point where a shadow's/tongue slides through the faultline./Grace. Sunlight, cherries.

(it continues like this)

And conceptually, I love art as collaboration between the creator and viewer, where abstract, indeterminate and murky things are forced to take shape through the participation of the viewer as they interpret and associate things that stand out to them in the work! The "aliveness" of art in the abyss between what the artist attempts to communicate and what the viewer feels is the coolest thing to me!

But this philosophy of art is incompatible with the idea that there is an elite category of art that is worthy of interpretation, analysis, and reverence. I can fuck around with this random word generator and get something that is roughly as meaningful as the above. I don't mean that as demeaning to the poem, I mean that I feel demeaned by the poem, because its linguistic play and experimentation is something that everybody can do, that everyone should try doing, but this poem has been designated as something exceptionally meaningful and worthy and its writer teaches writing at the University of Chicago. You can click through that website for hours and not find a single soul without a MFA or above in poetry or creative writing.

For me, the world of "literary" writing was like a room with a splatter of vomit across the floor that no one else would acknowledge. The ability to formally study poetry in college was a privilege, but I was constantly aware of privilege, and the thing about privilege is the more you have, the less you think about it. What of the ability to pursue a PhD in poetry? What small fraction of people could expend so much time and money on something that didn't really have a career associated with it? And of that fraction, which fraction would be seen as "good enough" to publish poetry books and to teach? With poetry this indeterminate, how were the "good" poets selected at all?

Literary writing excludes poor people, and the existence of published literary poets who are immigrants or minorities doesn't negate this. Increasingly, published writing in general excludes poor people. A LOT of popular authors graduated from very elite schools!

But literary poetry I hate especially, because it puffs itself up on unlocking the universe and human experience and pain, as if insight into those things is a seldom-appearing gift instead of something many people have, except they don't have the time and money to train themselves into expressing it in a way that appears Literary.

The "literary" vs. "non-literary" paradigm had an inescapable rottenness to it. I couldn't stop thinking about the luminous conversations I'd had with people who lacked the formal training to express ideas in a "literary" manner, but still showed me something vital about the universe.

I've been bitching about literary poetry for like two years now, and really, I just hate what studying all that shit has done to my own writing style. It's so frustrating that the joy and playfulness won't come back.

[r-o-s-a-l-y-n]

Reflection 9

As I get ready to leave London, I feel an overwhelming sense of sadness. This trip and this city has changed my life for the better. I really cannot imagine going back home and forgetting how this city has morphed me into an increasingly intelligent, assertive, and confident young woman. Through the people I have met and the memories I have made, I am thankful for every single part of it. I realize that I am truly blessed to be able to do things like this and experience the world while still being so young, I wish that everyone could experience the things that I have over the past three weeks. 

That being said, I feel like I can now really be honest about everything that I have felt over the course of this trip. Before arriving, and for the past 5 years I have struggled with substance abuse. Being here for three weeks straight with so many positive influences around me has made it impossible for me to want to continue living that way. I hate talking about this because it is so personal to me. I have lost many friends due to their addictions or my own, and although it is something I am not proud of, it is still a part of me, therefore it is necessary to share with others. While being here I made a promise to myself that I won’t go back to living a life plagued with addiction and for once, I feel like I actually mean it. I will never forget the way that London and its’ people have changed my life. 

Now that the sad part is over, here are some positive things that I will be bringing back to the US in my suitcase. 

Confidence. As I had mentioned in a previous post, I noticed that so many people here seem to be very comfortable doing what they please, whether it be the way they dress, the religions they practice, or any other unique aspect of their lives, it just seems like people are happier being themselves here. I plan to bring this confidence back to the US with me and hopefully share it with as many people as possible. No one should be scared to be themselves or to do something that is different from the way the rest of society thinks.

Food!!! I know I’ve mentioned it so many times before, but the food here is amazing. I’ve had food from different cultures nearly every day that I have been here and it has opened my eyes to the amazing cultures and their backgrounds. I will say that I am a pretty good cook back home, but I lack a lot of diversity in many of my recipes. This trip has given me the confidence to try and make different things when I get back home. Practice makes perfect anyways!

Empathy. The way this city takes care of its people is beautiful, although there are still those who may be in a low socio-economic position, they are still able to survive and the amount of people on the streets is substantially smaller than what I have seen in the US. I currently study criminal justice at ECU and it has always been my goal to help people in need. I hope that I can follow London’s lead and help the US grow so that everyone is able to live a healthy, happy lifestyle. 

Thanks for reading my posts, sorry this one was a little bit sad. 

:)

[kmcilrath]

Readerly Exploration #2 - September 20, 2019

Course Reading 1: Fischer—"Reading with a Crayon: Pre-conventional Marginalia as Reader Response in Early Childhood”

The Big Take-Away: Child-produced marginalia shows that at a young age children are developing their own reader identities because through coloring on the pages, children are engaging and responding to the books they are viewing/reading.

Nugget: This study is one that I would have never considered to do myself, yet it is so interesting. It makes me want to go through the picture books in my house to see how I was engaging with text at a young age. After reading this study and about Elijah and Hannah’s responses to what they were reading, I am looking forward to my next babysitting gig. I want to pay closer attention to how a young child interacts with a picture book.

Course Reading 2: Miller—Chapter 1, “Guiding Principles”

The Big Take-Away: Literacy goes beyond a child’s ability to read and write. With this knowledge, teachers should seek to promote student agency and positive attitudes about reading by cultivating a safe environment for readerly engagement and collaboration.  

Nugget: I really loved Miller’s section titled “Building Relationships.” This reflected how I want to show up in my students’ lives and the environment I wish to have within my own classroom. I think it is so important to be invested in the students with both what happens inside and outside of the classroom. I agree with Miller that noticing things like haircuts or paying attention to what a student is passionate about goes a long way. It also models how I would hope students would act with each other.

Readerly Exploration Experience: For this Readerly Exploration, I decided to create a character sketch of someone I know that represents the big ideas of the assigned course Reading Miller Ch. 1 and share with that person.

I could not think of anyone better than my Mom, Mrs. McIlrath. She is a Jr. High English teacher in a small school district in Northern New York. I have to say that she is my role model and probably the biggest reason I ended up in the education field. Though she is not a primary teacher like Miller, I think she still fits the criteria of what this article discussed. My Mom is the perfect representation of a teacher who creates a safe environment for students to interact with literature and collaborate with one another. She comes up with creative assignments that urge her students to dive into the stories they are reading and to have dialogue about the events and messages the novels present. My Mom also goes the extra mile to get to know her students and help them in any way she can just like Miller describes in the section titled “Building Relationships.” The district that my Mom teaches in has a lot of students from a low socio-economic background. This means she has students that come to school hungry or without certain supplies. My Mom often discretely provides snacks, school supplies, and hygiene items to her students when they express need for them. She also teaches by example which I feel is so effective. She always models respect for the people who enter her classroom, even when they don’t show respect to her. She is also constantly learning herself. She just finished her second Masters Degree a few years ago. My Mom also builds trust with her students by creating a judgment free zone where kids can speak their minds. I hope to be a teacher like my Mom someday.

So as you can tell, I had no issue picking a person to draw. The big issue for me was actually drawing my Mom. I personally have very poor drawing abilities and often have anxiety about people seeing my artwork. (You’ll see why when you view the media portion of this post.) I want to say that my mother is a beautiful woman with a wonderfully bright smile and neither of those things are well portrayed in the image you are about to see. I am glad I went out of my comfort zone and chose this exploration experience though. I want to model for my future students that you should always try your best and not be afraid to fail. This picture may not be a piece of artistic excellence, but it represents a woman and teacher that I look up to very much. When I facetimed my Mom to show her my drawing it brought her so much joy and laughter. You can see her laughing in the screenshot I am including below. I explained chapter 1 and how I thought what Miller said applied to her. She was touched that I think so highly of her and the classroom environment she has created. Thankfully she was not offended by the drawing I created. (haha.)

Multimedia Extension:

Attached is a picture of the drawing I made of my Mom and a screen shot of the big drawing reveal during our facetime call. This experience truly made me feel like a Kindergartener showing my Mom what I had made her at school. It also allowed me to draw like a Kindergartner. Still thanking God that she laughed at this pathetic portrayal of her instead of hanging up on me ;)

[opinionatedspectator-blog]

Art, Feminism, & The Distribution of The Sensible

 It has taken me quite a while to actually write anything on this blog, not really due to a lack of ideas or a lack of inspiring and transpiring events, but I guess mostly I wanted to take the time and be able to define the dimensions of what I aim for this blog to be. Define its boundaries and scope of focus. Perhaps its also because I did not want anything I post here to be of an academic nature, but where I can successfully export my perspectives without really sounding like I’m submitting a paper to a professor.   However, in terms of defining the focus of this blog, which might simply be transmitting my perspective to you, the reader, this blog cannot be but an extension of myself. So here, I’m going to write from the first person perspective. I hope that to you this seems valid enough as reliable information, but the self as a vehicle of experience, for me at least, is anything but negligible.

Also, shoutout to Naeem Inayatullah of Ithica University for importing the narrative approach to political science.

  As a precursor however, I would like you to take the time and look at a paper entitled “Neoliberalism As Creative Destruction” by David Harvey. This should really help you understand where I am coming from as an individual. But do keep in mind that despite me in the future or the past sounding like a left-wing marxist geographer, I am not.  I am in fact neither a supporter of the capitalist way of life, nor the socio-economic, post-capitalistic arrangement that Marx has presented in his Manifesto. I am simply myself, perhaps in terms of background a Humanist... but aren’t we all? 

 A point to stress here is the current cultural phenomena of extremes. For some reason, the polarization of thought and ideology seems to be the status-quo of our times and generation. I am someone who would like to belong to the middle path. 

 Now to get to the point behind this post and why I have asked you to read Harvey’s paper. Neoliberal capitalism is best described as the shift from an industrial based economy, to one that is mostly characterized by the service sector industries. Therefor this calls for a shift in the nature and qualifications of the workforces required to run such economies, and ultimately to populate their cities. To make a long story short, major cities across the globe compete amongst each other to attract as many members of the “creative class”  as possible to empower their industries. The creative class is the term used to describe the modern service sector workforce, mainly graphic designer, app developers, architects, writers, photographers, lawyers, gig industry execs, and overall modern service providers. This activity automatically changes the layout of a city. Gentrified neighborhoods, galleries, art spaces, installations, film exhibitions, speciality coffee shops, and artsy food concepts come in to fill the urban geography. This has previously been described by Sharon Zukin as “pacification by cappuccino”.

 The point I try to make here however is not to describe this shift, nor the socio-economic gaps that are produced through the need of low-wage service sector cohorts and middle to upper class entrepreneurs. Basically baristas and CEO’s. I’m writing this to describe a slight crisis that arises with art and culture being owned or introduced into the realm of state-led enterprises.  Some have described this to be the death of art with regards to the traditional function and definition of the role art has played in the social and cultural sphere. 

Art, whether visual or theoretical, be it a book, a sculpture, a painting, a photograph, or a film, has always participated in shaping what is described generally as “The Distribution of The Sensible”. Lets just call it the realm of the ‘taken for granted’, or socially and culturally accepted notions and activities as, well as modes of thought of a certain society. Art has always navigated on the boundaries of this realm, challenging its norms and its taboos, presenting the internal unheard struggles of the unheard, and representing an outlet for the expression of their experiences. This was not simply limited to the excluded or the impoverished,  but the right of each and every single individual. Art was a valid way to say what could not be said, to contest and to reconsider, to hold up a mirror and allow everyone to take a closer look at their blemishes and open pores. Yet with a state owning art, validating it, empowering, and ultimately, utilizing it as a capitalization opportunity, art is automatically stripped of all of its characteristics as well as its power. Art looses its voice and influence by simply gaining the recognition and normality from that which considered it novelty and abnormal.  

 Today we have art biennials curated by cities through their local authorities. They specify spaces for galleries, times and dates for events, as well as showcase certain artists to be celebrated and presented as the trend setters and pioneers. This applicable to all fields of artistic format; fashion, film, tangible and intangible. The problematic that arises from this dialectic is the control of the expression of art itself, and what is brought to light and left in the shadows is then decided by the hegemony. This could very easily be influenced by agendas, approval and disapproval bestowed by unknown committees. Yet art is not allowed to speak out upon it, resistance becomes illegitimate because art is recognized and now operates within the distribution of the sensible as to previously operating outside of it. You have been recognized, therefore you are not allowed to complain. We have heard your voice and provided you a platform. Thats basically what this procurement entails. 

 Another issue that comes to hand under this light is the over saturation of artistic expression on display everywhere, in every nook and cranny, in every alley and street.. all commissioned.. all artificial.. that really neutralizes the viewer to the impact and meaning of art. I find myself being less interested and less amazed... let alone less curious when I look at art these days. Have I always been this way? no.. not really.. I have noticed myself change however..it was exciting in 2011 up to 2014 when things were really gearing up towards the cultural turn.. but its 2019 now and not much has changed... and in 2019 I find myself incapable and indifferent.

 If you wish to understand this better, the work of professor Jenny Edkins on protests and governmental expansion could be of aid. I have personally had the pleasure and honor to be taught by her under a few modules. What Edkins basically states is the following; if a certain faction of the population who feels oppressed or excluded decided to demonstrate or protest their struggles to the state, the state itself, by recognizing their protests and answering their requests automatically expands its control over the different cohorts of a said population. This faction now can no longer use its voice to demand a certain right, but another representative may do so, yet only once. I have theorized something close to this which I call The Morbid Loop of Misconduct that I might discuss in the following posts.  

 This ownership and capitalization of such fields to be utilized as bait for branding cities and determining their respective levels of ‘coolness’ has reached its limits with testing my tolerance when feminist initiatives got introduced into the mix. We have recently celebrated the International Women’s Day... congratulations by the way... yet many businesses have gone to utilize this day as an opportunity to brand themselves as understanding and co-operative, as good listeners.. as celebrators of feminism.. in order to increase sales and foster public attention. I can pull out so many examples from my instagram feed but there is one photo that I deem appropriate in explaining what I try to describe, a post entitled: Man Visibly Upset After International Women’s Day Post Doesn’t Get The Likes He Banked On. (https://www.instagram.com/p/BuwFxPEFmBQ/)  It was intended for a meme.. yet to me it described anything but a laughing matter.... perhaps memes might be art’s last frontier.. who knows.. we’ll let neoliberalism decide.    The ownership of feminism by the socio-economic hegemony, and currently in the pipeline LGBT discourse, is going to bring about a new frontier of markets. The market of civil right attraction. 

On a second thought though, this is nothing new. The ownership of the state of feminist discourse has been used throughout history for not so human-centered nor humane reasons. If for instance we take Marx’s following statement, “the executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the bourgeoisie” .. the truth of which I will deal with in a later post, we come to understand that feminism has been used to further service the machine of capitalism and lubricate its gears and cogs for more efficient outcomes since its ownership by state policy. Take for instance the insane push for women in the workforce. Now I am in no way against women having jobs or earning their own living, running businesses, or running countries even, however what we need to address is the socio-economic frameworks within which these ideas were introduced and the outcome that results from this push. The popularization of careerist orientations has many negative impacts on the social fabric itself. This is not simply in the sense of conservatism and maintaining tradition, but disabling cultures when resisting epistemological occupation. Sadly, women have been utilized by this new mode of radical feminism and made to think that they are the patrons of such movements when they are indeed the victims. 

Another example is Edward Bernays’ 1929 “Torches of Freedom” movement. The man was a PR freak and put the natural instinct of social impact and cultural roles that all humans have to service a monstrosity of an industry. You know the story, it was culturally frowned upon, and considered a taboo, for women to smoke in public spaces. It was this whole discourse on a cigarette being another phallic  symbol and a symbol of men’s power... but basically as far as tobacco companies were concerned, half of the population were a potential market they weren’t tapping into. Along comes Freud’s grandson, and rebrands cigarettes as the torches of freedom, asking women who were posing as suffragettes to march in a protest with lit cigarettes as a move to display the power of the feminine.  

Everything that the state has done after obtaining ownership of feminism towards this “cause” has been of the same nature. But what needs to be kept in mind here is that the state in this sense is the collective of corporate. After all what is the purpose of a city? What is the current modern purpose of having an economy? It is to circulate capital through it as efficiently as possible with the largest market share that a state can muster. Read Saskia Sassen’s The Global City for a better perspective. 

 Anyways... im tired of writing this.. I hope you get the point. 

Neoliberal capitalism never fails to surprise me with its creative capacity for destruction. 

 This post might seem to be of no use.. but it was just me letting off some steam. This is what this is all about... letting off some steam.

[andiwendy]

POSITIONALITY

As people we have  have attitudes, perceptions, or  beliefs as well as ideas towards other people while we are not aware that they may be influenced by our own identity. “Bias is in all of us and affects us all” ( (Trawinski, 2015). Coming from a certain cultural background , religion, socio-economic status, race and being a particular gender shapes a person in a way that  what we believe impacts what we see in this world (Bowen, 2019)We often see people and things in our own lenses unaware that it  limits us the opportunity to experience or understand their full view or perspectives as clients.  It is important for us to know our positionality to be able to understand things not only through own.

I was born in one of the  small villages in Limpopo, Venda. I am a Tshivenda speaking and belong to the Vhavenda culture. I was raised in a Christian background and grew to become independent in the same religion. I am a black female and currently resides in a campus residence at the University student I was born into a low middle socio economic background. My positionality is created by these factors,  ethnic group, religion and cultural background , socioeconomic status , education , gender as well as sexual orientation. My identity has been shaped by my experiences while living in the villages and how people come together and make a strong community with only the little resources they have as well as helping each other. Identifying as a black person growing up, it did have an Impact in my life as we always saw whites as better people than us that we would compare good things with whites as though we are not worth or do not deserve any better or ‘good things’.

 Exposure to education and learning things especially in tertiary education has helped me understand that we are at some point in the same level ( we are people and similar basic needs) regardless of culture, religion, race or ethnicity or tribe or  although they also come from different backgrounds that have shaped their positionality. We share similar characteristics as students, and it is up to us to get out of the shell and reach out to be more aware of other people and their positionality instead of using the same instilled understanding by our parents or grandparents who experienced apartheid. It has taught me to be out there and be ready to learn from someone else, to be open to other people’s races, religion regardless of what I believe in. it has helped me understand other people and why they do things a certain way which greatly impact my understanding of clients that may  be of similar identities.

Although I come from a low middle socio economic background I had access to education, learnt some qualities and was able to experience the application of ubuntu in my community , regardless of the challenges that I may have encountered such as childhood trauma it still is a great privilege that some people are not able to reach. I sometimes find myself comparing where I come from to the areas we work in community. The priviledge that we may have such as strong family support, better socio economic status and other factors in the background such as accessing materials that promote positive outcomes in your life.

This made me realise that the people or community I work in may not have the same privilege as I have . Some have no parents and are living by themselves , trying to find ways to access basic needs daily. To apply positionality during sessions with the clients as a student therapist firstly I must ensure I understand my own identity, how  I should look in the client’s lens, how they are feeling , their experiences daily and how it is shaping they are identity. Some people have lost hope. I should always ensure that I acquire more, educate myself to their cultures their beliefs as well as how they turned out to be, however this should be done after understanding my own identity where I stand as an individual. It may help improve the client’s experience as well as indirectly influence client’s progress.

Working in communities with different people , exposes one to various identities that each day one must ensure that they understand the person/ clients and community as whole. This allows one to not be biased when assessing or treating clients. Understanding a person’s identity, cultural background, family influences , race , geographical area, socio economic status or community they belong to during assessments helps provide a clear picture of the person. This helps avoid focusing on a person’s illness or disability that they may have.

In a community I am working at, as an Occupational therapy student I make sure that I assess a person without focusing only on the illness they have but ask further about their home environment , how they live at home, relationships they have and other social characteristic that occur in a person’s life. This also help identify further parts of the client that are affected by the injury or illness. As we work with people , sometimes it is not only someone with a disability or an illness but a dysfunction in occupations or everyday function that we assess and plan treatment.

Poor communities are often the ones who suffer great injustices in our country where in due to coloniality they experience the oppression (McGeorge, 2010). Our system oppresses low income communities in many different ways. Members of community are left alone , less service delivery and sometimes abandoned as they government sometimes needs “ a wake up call “ to address the issues occurring in communities. This is where diseases and more health issues arise as there is less attention occurring. https://time.com/longform/south-africa-unequal-country/

This makes me think about the people we see in streets everyday in the community, client’s who come in for therapy and how vulnerable they are , all age groups as they all experience similar things .It is important to sit and listen to a person/ client , experiences they have and the current happenings in his/her life.

In communities , working in projects it is important to include the community members in planning and implementation. This requires their ability to understand the importance of the project and its significant in their lives. I also find that it is important for me as a therapist to consider the main issues in the communities ,that they are still tackling poverty, looking forward for employment, better health care provision and other factors. Bringing projects to the community while understanding their positionality gives a clear picture of what could be more beneficial to the community. This allows us to see through the lens of the community and its people . We are from outside the community and involving the people to implementation or imagining projects.

   References  

Bowen, Y. (2019,  february 10). Your Sense of Identity Determines Your Worldview. Retrieved  from The Good men Project:  https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/your-sense-of-identity-determines-how-you-perceive-the-world-vnmr/

McGeorge, C. R.  (2010). Social Justice Mentoring: Preparing Family Therapists for Social  Justice Advocacy Work. Michigan Family Review, 14(1). doi:  http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/mfr.4919087.0014.106

Trawinski, C.  (2015, september 04). No one is immune from bias, not even us therapists!  Everyone has bias. Retrieved from LifeWorks Psychotherapy centre :  https://www.lifeworkspsychotherapy.com/when-your-therapist-has-a-bias/#:~:text=Therapist%20bias%2C%20as%20we%20define,aspects%20of%20that%20person's%20experience.

 https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-realworldcomm/chapter/8-1-foundations-of-culture-and-identity/

https://www.mitemmc.org/monthly-tips/positionality-intersectionality-and-privilege-in-health-professions-education-research/

[busisiweshanduot3]

Factors influencing my positionality

Society shapes your values, by the role in which we play. It has positioned itself to determine what is moral or ethical. I am at a stage of my life where I am starting to find my sense of self, personality trait, moral code, belief system, and abilities.  We were brought up to think that everything we are taught is the way of life and why should we let society define us when we can redefine ourselves. In this blog, I will share all the factors that influence my positionality.

I agree with Sathiparsad et al. (2011) that in rural communities, the father-headed households commanded more power and respect. Making rigid rules, making decisions controlling household activities, and providing financially for the family. Growing up in a rural area where patriarchy operated in the families and influenced family life, I was told that a woman’s job is to perform domestic chores, get married, bear and raise children and be submissive to the husband while males were raised to be dominant, providers, leaders, and head of the household. I’ve seen the patriarchal system at play in my household as my father was working in Durban and my mother was at Eshowe raising us, my dad was the provider but because my mother has never worked in her life we hit rock bottom when my father passed away when I was 11 years old and I realised that the notion of males being providers are holding women back because what happens when the man can no longer work to provide for his family? I have unlearned the society definition of a woman and I believe that we should all be treated the same. Sathiparsad et al. (2011) explain that in South Africa the societies are rapidly changing, and established power relations are being challenged and there is increasing recognition that gender transformation will have benefits for men and women. However, the patriarchy still operates in some societies in South Africa and Inanda is one of them; it affects many aspects of life, from political leadership, business management, religious institutions, economic system, and property ownership, right down to the family. When providing treatment at Inanda community I mustn’t impose my values/ beliefs of how a woman should behave/ do as some women are subjected to the patriarchal system therefore my role is to improve the client’s insight and advocate for her and not invalidate her feelings/views.

Gaede & Versteegii-Mojanaga (2011) points out that the right to health care in rural areas is compromised by several health system and socio-economic barriers. I come from a low-socioeconomic background and we have limited access to health care, I know the struggle of standing in the long queue at the clinic and I’ve seen the queue at Inanda clinic in the morning.  I have always wanted to work as a health practitioner, and I feel that coming from a humbling background I relate to clients coming from a similar background. In all my treatment sessions or any interaction with a client, I try to put myself in their shoes and provide client-centered intervention and I feel accepted in the Inanda community and our plan at IWP is to uplift the community. I come from a Zulu culture and I believe in ancestors, but I do not impose my beliefs on my clients even if you are Zulu and you do not believe in ancestors I do not judge.

I grew up in a black community and was not exposed to other races as I went to a black-dominated public primary and high school. My assumption growing up was that public hospitals were for black people and other races used private healthcare. University is a diverse environment therefore I was exposed to other races and sexualities; I had a chance to also assess and treat clients of a different race as mine. Mathews (2012) points out that racial and racial equality has not yet been achieved in South Africa, nor indeed in the many other parts of the world which had at some time some form of explicitly segregationist white supremacist order. In one way or another black people still experience racism be it in public areas, schools, or workplaces, however, when I am providing intervention to my clients, I do not look at the race but approach a person as an individual so that I will be ethical and not let my experiences affect intervention.

(The above picture highlights some of the factors that influence our positionality).

Positionality is vital because it forces us to acknowledge our power, privilege, and biases just as we are denouncing the power structures that surround our subjects (Madison 2015).  This also highlights that positionality is dynamic. In occupational therapy, we use a holistic approach, and now why would I want my beliefs or not provide intervention because of a person’s skin colour, sexuality, gender, or social background, because the main aim of the intervention is to promote function and independence in occupations it is also important to consider the client’s positionality as it can have an impact in treatment. My positionality has mainly been influenced by my race, culture, social background, and patriarchy.  At Inanda community we see past the client’s gender, race, or family status and treat everybody equally. We have implemented programmes that educate the community about the role of OT, maternal health, child development, and common conditions in the community. It is vital to consider one’s positionality when working at a community level as you are exposed to different situations in the community, and it is easy to judge from an. Positionality is an important consideration when working at a community level because directly or indirectly it influences how your treatment is carried out and determining the outcome of treatment.

How about we stop labelling people and view them as an individual not according to race, gender, religion, culture, etc. The world would be a great place because at the end of the day we are all people we just have different roles in life.

 References:

[Image] https://www.dictionary.com/e/gender-sexuality/positionality/

Gaede, B. M., & Versteeg-Mojanaga, M. (2011). The state of the right to health in rural South Africa. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326635665_The_state_of_the_right_to_health_in_rural_South_Africa

Madison, D. S. (2005). Critical ethnography: Method, ethics, and performance. SAGE Publications, Inc., https://www.doi.org/10.4135/9781452233826

Matthews S. (2012) White Anti-Racism in Post-Apartheid South Africa, Politikon, 39:2, 171-188, doi: 10.1080/02589346.2012.683938

Sathiparsad R., Taylor M., Dlamini S. (2008) Patriarchy and family life: Alternative views of male youth in rural South Africa, Agenda, 22:76, 4-16. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10130950.2008.9674925

[maryanntorreson]

Introducing the launch of the TED-Ed Innovative Educator Alumni Innovation Projects

TED-Ed Innovative Educators

In 2015, TED-Ed launched the TED-Ed Innovative Educator (TIE) program, a year-long professional development program for dynamic educators who are dedicated to celebrating the ideas of students and teachers around the world. Six years later, we have 104 alumni representing over 20+ countries, constantly thinking of new ways to innovate in education.

2020 brought on unpredictable levels of global change: a pandemic, racial reckoning, and world-wide political upheavals. The traditional system of schooling has experienced significant disruptions in the past year.

These changes signaled a call to action: the TIEs, coming from rural, urban and suburban communities, in roles including classroom teachers, adjunct professors, superintendents, librarians, college advisors, district tech specialists, and more, are coming together to build some solutions.

First, the TIEs identified problems in global education and turned them into four main Opportunity Statements:

1. Redesign instruction: Reimagine how instruction can comprehensively meet the needs of all students. 2. Redesign how we address inequities: Reimagine how to empower teachers and communities to address race, equity, inclusion, and justice issues. 3. Assess innovations in pandemic: Assess how to carry forward the innovations created during the pandemic into full-time in-school instruction (and continue to build a culture of school/district innovation). 4. Reinvest in educators’ well-being: Reinvest in how best to support our teachers and admin, professionally and personally.

Next, each TIE has chosen one Opportunity Statement to work on for their Innovation Project. Follow their journey over this year as they collaborate, design, test, and share their innovations; we will be reporting back through the project development.

Explore why some TIEs are working on their chosen Innovation Project:

Redesign instruction

Alejandra Guzman (Texas, USA)

I have worked in the curriculum and instruction department in two different school districts over the last 6 years. I know that in many schools, some parts of instruction, curriculum, and assessment are out-dated, focused too much on standardized assessments and not on deep learning, making connections with other content areas, and application to solve real-world problems. This type of instruction will strengthen student critical thinking, problem solving, and communication skills. I believe rethinking what instruction should and can look like and creating a realistic instructional model will help many educators go back to focus on what the true meaning of education should be.

Christie Simpson (Perth Western, Australia)

I work at school in a low socio-economic area. We have high rates of poverty and transiency and over 60% of our students have some developmental trauma. Only 35% of our Year 7 students arrive at high school able to read at grade level. 35% are still learning to read with fluency and 30% are still learning to decode words. How do teachers cater for this? Mostly, they try to muddle through the vast amounts of content in our curriculum, often using ineffective – though well-intentioned – discovery or inquiry based learning practices. I know there is great value in those models, but I also know that our students need strong foundational literacy and numeracy capacity as well as concrete background knowledge which they can draw on as they start to inquire. I’d like to see us arm teachers at both ends of the instructional spectrum, so that they can competently and effectively meet their students at their point of need.

Georgios Villias (Athens, Greece)

I honestly believe that living in a world which overwhelms us daily with information, it is humanly impossible to stay focused on something unless it is useful, exciting, and meaningful for you. This reality applies to schools as well. Instruction should be much more than just content knowledge. Instruction should also care about developing skills, showcasing each individual’s unique talents, engaging learners to act in real-life situations, nourishing and inspiring youngsters’ minds, teaching moral values in a social context and so much more. Molding students’ character, encouraging active citizenship, and raising the next generation of ethical problem-solvers always start from family and school. I would be honored as an educator to make even a minor, constructive contribution to my students’ lives towards that direction.

“Instruction should be much more than just content knowledge.”

Kristin Leong (Washington, USA)

Students and teachers deserve more diverse, timely, and dynamic resources and more support. Teaching is hard. Online teaching during a pandemic, a civil rights uprising, and an insurrection is really hard. In addition, the news cycle is relentless. The Sisyphean task of educators to constantly find great resources to build an engaging curriculum that responds to quickly-shifting current events is profoundly challenging. Lastly, our students are increasingly diverse in race, culture, sexual orientation, and gender identity, while our teachers remain mostly white, female, and heterosexual. Connecting with young people across these divides, when you instruct 30+ students at a time, only compounds the challenge of designing original curriculum. As a former QPOC teacher myself, I know teachers need more support and a reliable flow of trustworthy and updated resources by diverse sources to connect their classrooms to current events in ways that inspire students to engage with the world and their learning.

My weekly newsletter ROCK PAPER RADIO is one way I’m offering support to teachers. Every Thursday, I share three multimedia stories by diverse thinkers and creatives delivered via email for free. The newsletter is quick (less than five min to read), and organized by format (an audio feature, an essay or article, a human interest story). All stories are linked to current events and framed for personal engagement.

The Black Lives Matter movement has shaken awake all of the systems that make up society, including our education system. Young people are paying attention and rightfully demanding more inclusive and more current curriculum now. I’m thrilled to be part of this TIE alumni group working to usher in that much-needed change with heart, innovation, and more than a little bit of courage.

Mahrukh Bashir (Tangerang Selatan, Indonesia)

I have encountered instructional models dominated by the ideas of transfer of content and knowledge with the implicit understanding that learners are merely vessels to be filled. This system had, and still has, standardized curricula delivered in standardized ways and the effectiveness assessed using standardized testing. On the other hand, I have been refreshingly greeted by ideas of developing students’ talents and dispositions, differentiation and individual needs. However, the perfect instructional model that takes into account individual needs and delivers academic rigor and deep learning is yet to present itself. I want to explore and implement an innovative model of instruction that comes closest to this, what has effectively become “the holy grail of modern education.”

Reimagine how we address inequities

Craig Zimmer (Ontario, Canada)

I love the fact that we are having some real conversations here. We need to advocate for students and show that, as educators, we are on their side no matter what. In 2021, we have to ensure that education is inclusive and accessible to all students. This is going to require very big changes and it all starts when we go to work to bring about real reform.

Fred Sagwe (Kisii, Kenya)

I believe the approach to inequities on race, equity, inclusion and social justice issues means different things depending on the region and countries. For example in Kenya and most parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the challenges have a gender-based perspective. There was the challenge of FGM among young girls who, after circumcision, are married young, hence dropping out of schools. Also, marginalization in less developed regions in Kenya also hinder favorable educational outcomes. School infrastructure is a concern too, including the availability of reliable internet connectivity. The government is trying to remedy the situations.

Jen Ward (Michigan, USA)

This past year has served to highlight in so many different ways the divides, gaps, and inequalities that are systematized in our educational spaces. I selected this project because I believe as a global group of change-makers, we are able to come together, dig deep, and put forth proposals for real change to ensure that all students have an opportunity to learn, grow, and be heard.

Sandy Chambers (North Carolina, USA)

Working to change a system that perpetuates inequities is my calling. Working with others who believe that change can happen is inspirational and hopeful. As an administrator, I have more “power” than I think. I know we can make a change!

“Empowering starts with radical truth-telling, which means listening to all stakeholders, especially students.”

Shameka Williams (Georgia, USA)

I want better for all students that have unfair disadvantages due to a system that was not historically designed with all children in mind. I want better for each generation, so they do not experience the same setbacks as those before them and have to work harder to prove themselves as equal. Moreover, I want to tackle this problem with others that bring different perspectives so that the narrative and outcomes are inclusive of everyone! One perspective cannot be the solution to this global issue.

Tim Leistikow (Minnesota, USA)

I am not sure how we achieve any meaningful change in our system (I teach in the USA, but I assume similar issues in other countries) until we start telling the truth about the history that led to the inequities that exist and persist today. Empowering starts with radical truth-telling, which means listening to all stakeholders, especially students. I have done a project with students on creating the ideal education system for the past 10 years, and every cohort sees addressing inequities around race, gender, religion, sexuality, socio-economic status, and more, as being a primary first step to making schools a better place for students.

Wiputra Cendana (Tangerang, Banten, Indonesia)

Equity and equality become great challenges especially for the students who have learning difficulties, connectivity issues, and other variables. This project is to give a new learning model as I synthesize from a particular current teaching experience. I truly hope the project will be a small sparkle and idea which can equip educators around the world to confront these issues. Entrust the learning essence and ‘meat’ will be absorbed well by the students across the world. Let’s think globally, connect intentionally, share clearly, and act locally.

Assess innovations during the pandemic

Lisa Winer (Florida, USA)

I found that during Hybrid teaching, I couldn’t see my students’ work – they used to work on whiteboards or I could walk around and see how well they understood. But even then, I didn’t hear from or see everyone. For my capstone project for my EdD, I am researching how to add ed tech to the classroom to help capture student thought and to include the voices of the students who are quiet or who aren’t risk-takers. I want to hear from all students and showcase them all as well. This was something brought forth from the pandemic because never before had I not been able to see the work of my students as they were thinking.

Maggie Muuk (Kching, Malaysia)

I would want to know more about innovation as many of my students were left behind by this pandemic. Many of them do not have sufficient access to gadgets or internet to enable them to stay aligned with the lesson. Currently, we are only using WhatsApp to communicate. I’m looking for low technology to make them want to study.

Małgorzata Guzicka (Legnica, Poland)

I truly believe that because of the pandemic, we have rediscovered online learning. Teachers are learning how to use different platforms and educational apps to enhance online learning; students are doing projects in groups using educational websites. I think it would be awesome if students and teachers from different countries could work and learn from one another, do projects together and meet online. I am thinking about a project that could help teachers and students learn from one another about their cultures.

Shawn T. Loescher (California, USA)

The pandemic has represented a time of tremendous learning for our educational and social institutions. Within the pandemic, nearly 1.5 billion children around the world have had disruptions to their typical educational environment. Through this disruption, we have learned that there are multiple modalities and ways of learning. To me, the challenge we face as we emerge from the pandemic is which of the many successful lessons we’ve learned should be adopted and institutionalized to advance academic performance, address inequities, and redesign our schools, in order to create a more human-centered experience that is sustainable in scale and scope.

“The students we will meet on the other side of this pandemic will deserve better than a return to the ‘old normal.’”

Susan Herder (Minnesota, USA)

Educators and students were forced to change suddenly in the midst of the pandemic, often without adequate support. I chose this project because as we return to a combination of in-person and online classes, teachers need to be able to let go of the practices that are not effective and continue to use innovations that engage students and close gaps and eliminate inequities.

Tim Couillard (Virginia, USA)

Well frankly, there is no going back. The students we will meet on the other side of this pandemic will deserve better than a return to the “old normal.” I suspect (and secretly hope) they will demand it. Amid the toll and tragedy of this past year, I hope we find a way to get education “unstuck,” to shed the lockstep factory model of learning once and for all. Let’s hope that necessity is still the mother of invention. I suspect that we have all had a chance to cultivate some new habits of mind that will be as useful in-person as they are at a distance. I’m excited to see where that leads us.

Lastly, I hope that we abandon, or at least push back against, the anxiety-fueled march of “more is more” when it comes to education. Students are people first, learners second. They are more than the test data the system can coax from them to tout their “success.” If we truly believe in social and emotional learning, we need to reject it as a mere tool to boost productivity. We need to not only mean what we say, but ask ourselves if our actions match our words. Ultimately, I hope we can look back on all this and say, tired as we are, we still found the strength to work for a world where what we have gained from this pandemic will be greater than all we have lost.

Umar Anjum (Lahore, Pakistan)

I am working on this as I have seen that inequalities and gaps in the education system have been growing and merely adding more resources is not helping. That is why I believe the answer is hidden in the Innovations.

Reinvest in educators’ well-being

Sarah Harkin (Shanghai, China)

Self-care isn’t just a buzzword; it’s critical. So much is asked of teachers. I hope to find real ways to help build teacher capacity and systemic support within schools in order to better prioritize teacher well-being, specifically mental health and work-life balance.

“Self-care isn’t just a buzzword; it’s critical.”

Sharon Hadar (Raanana, Israel)

During the pandemic, most things have become accelerated – emotions, thoughts, worries, health issues, financial difficulties, and more. On top of this, education systems and educators have been put under the microscope. We get so much criticism from parents, the media, politicians, our administrators, and more.

We, the educators, are the foundation and base for our communities. Our well-being is essential for our communities; teachers have to support each other, be strong, and stay united. It is also making sure there is a way to release and vent, while at the same time find the strength to continue doing our job the best way we can. I want to find the right way to do this, together with the rest of the TIEs, as a part of a strong and cohesive group that can change people’s viewpoint about teachers. It’s time for us to take care and support each other. I am sure that with this project we will find the best way to achieve this!

Introducing the launch of the TED-Ed Innovative Educator Alumni Innovation Projects published first on https://premiumedusite.tumblr.com/rss

[f1chronicle]

Mulberry Schools Trust Launches Innovative New STEM Academy In Partnership With Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix

The Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team is pleased to announce today an innovative new partnership with the Mulberry Schools Trust and the launch of the Mulberry STEM Academy.   A place for learning, inspiration and innovation, the new Mulberry STEM Academy in partnership with Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix will offer an extra-curricular programme in science, technology, engineering and maths education through vocational training, specialised study and masterclasses for students aged 7-18 within the Mulberry family of schools and beyond.   Launching this new provision, Lewis Hamilton and Toto Wolff today joined students from Mulberry Academy Shoreditch, Mulberry School for Girls and Mulberry UTC in East London through a virtual event, broadcast from the team’s headquarters in Brackley, Northamptonshire. Students had the opportunity to question six-time Formula One World Champion Lewis during the session and find out more about what drives his commitment to increasing diversity and equality within motorsport.   Built on core values of high performance, team spirit and the continual desire for new challenges, the partnership between the Mulberry Schools Trust and Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix will provide the foundations on which a lasting commitment can be built. Whether it be through technical prowess on the race track or through innovative teaching and pastoral practices in the classroom, the partners are unafraid to step where the challenge is high, and will work together to change the picture, transform lives and develop a pipeline of talent from the Trust’s East London catchment area.   While schools within the Mulberry Schools Trust achieve well and currently have progress well above the national average in many areas, students do not routinely enter degree courses and apprenticeships in STEM subjects. The Trust has worked hard for many years to place its students, the majority of whom are from Black, Asian and minority ethnic and disadvantaged backgrounds, at the forefront of STEM industries, but this has not moved fast enough. Representation from these groups amongst the respective workforce is low in skilled areas and it is particularly complex at the intersection of gender and ethnicity*. The establishment of the Mulberry STEM Academy takes explicit, positive action to address this early on in a student’s educational life.   The Mulberry STEM Academy will give students access to inspirational role models, imaginative teaching and rich extra-curricular experiences over a five-year period. Running on Saturdays during term time and school holidays for students who have talent, passion and aptitude in STEM, computing, physical science and design, the programme will offer a comprehensive and integrated curriculum, focusing on the long-term development, strength and needs of each student. Graduates will leave with a passport into engineering, design and science-based industries and be highly desirable future employees for the Mercedes team and other related sectors.

Toto Wolff, CEO of Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd

“We are very proud today to announce our new partnership with the Mulberry Schools Trust and to continue our journey towards making a positive contribution to the future engineers and scientists of the next generation. This is a deeply important project for us and the result of a great deal of thought into how best we might make a lasting contribution to promoting diversity and inclusion within our industry. I know myself and all our team are passionate about the success of this programme and we look forward to welcoming the first attendees of the Mulberry STEM Academy and exploring how we can best support their learning journey. Providing practical workplace experience and access to opportunities will be key to breaking down the barriers these students face when aspiring to their future careers and we are proud to be part of a project which will set them on a path to strengthening the STEM capabilities of our industry in years to come. The Mulberry Schools Trust is a hugely impressive organisation that shares our core values and we are honoured to be working with them. If the passion, enthusiasm, respect and excellence that I witnessed today during our virtual event with students from the Mulberry Schools today is anything to go by, this is going to be a very exciting, rewarding and successful venture.”

Lewis Hamilton

“I was honoured to join the virtual event today to launch the new STEM Academy and to see the enthusiasm, intelligence and commitment of the Mulberry students for myself. It’s so important that, as a sport, we do all that we can to ensure we are as inclusive as possible. Increasing young people’s access to STEM and, ultimately, paving the way to careers in our industry is a brilliant way to do this. Creating a sport that is more representative of society is something very personal and important to me, and this partnership shows a real commitment from Mercedes to build a legacy that goes beyond motorsport. The STEM Academy is a fantastic opportunity to make a difference and I’m proud to work alongside my team, in partnership with the Mulberry Schools Trust, to open doors for these students which might otherwise have been closed, and to give them the opportunity to excel. Providing young people from diverse and often disadvantaged backgrounds with the confidence and resources to implement change in their own lives is one of the strongest tools that we have to build a fairer and more equal future. I’m looking forward to seeing how the students progress and, judging by the questions I received today, I have every faith we will see some of them fulfilling their dreams of working in motorsport in the future!”

Jane Farrell, Chair of the Mulberry Schools Trust

“We are delighted that Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd is partnering with us on this exciting new venture. This partnership will provide access to world-class innovation and performance that match the ambitions of our students and the communities that they live in. It’s our job to ensure that we create opportunities that encourage the development of the skills and confidence that will lead to fantastic employment opportunities in specialised industries that too often miss out on the talents of our truly diverse and brilliant students. I would like to thank Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix for seeing their potential and creating a true partnership of learning and opportunity.”

Dr Vanessa Ogden, CEO of the Mulberry Schools Trust and Headteacher of Mulberry School for Girls

“The Mulberry STEM Academy and the first-class learning experiences our students will receive through this deeply thoughtful partnership between Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd and the Trust will deliver a pipeline of talent into science and engineering industries over the next few years. Equality, diversity and inclusion are at the heart of our work and we do all we can to provide young people in our schools with the opportunities they deserve at university and in industry. We must move the dial much quicker than we have in the UK to meet our students’ aspirations and fulfil their potential. Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix recognises this and I am glad to work with such like-minded partners as Lewis Hamilton, Toto Wolff and all their colleagues in our efforts to really shift structural inequality for good, starting early in young people’s lives through education and workplace experience.”

Paul Mills, Chief People Officer at Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd

“It has been a pleasure working closely with the leaders and teachers at the Mulberry Schools Trust over the past few months as we have established our new STEM Academy. I would particularly like to extend my thanks and appreciation to Jane Farrell and Dr Vanessa Ogden for their vision and commitment to our joint endeavour. I have already taken learnings from them which will be of benefit to our team, and I am confident that this learning will go both ways in the future. Unfortunately, we have not been able to visit the Mulberry Schools as yet due to Covid-19 restrictions, however, we very much look forward to being able to do so in the future and meeting the students in person. I am honoured and excited to be joining the steering group for our STEM Academy programme and look forward to working with the Trust and our employees at Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix to make a real difference to the Mulberry students over the course of our long-term commitment.”   *Engineering UK 2018: 9% are of Black, Asian and minority ethnic background; 12% are women; 24% are from low socio-economic background

About the Mulberry Schools Trust

The Mulberry Schools Trust is a flourishing multi-academy trust set up in 2016 in Tower Hamlets. The family of schools includes Mulberry Academy Shoreditch, Mulberry School for Girls and Mulberry UTC, and it is currently working with the Local Authority and the Department for Education to build a new school in Wapping, Mulberry Academy London Dock. The Trust believes in the power of local partnerships with families, other schools and the communities that it serves.   Mulberry Academy Shoreditch and Mulberry School for Girls are judged ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted and Mulberry UTC, a relatively new school, was judged ‘Good’ earlier this year. Attainment and progress of schools within the Mulberry Schools Trust is significantly above the national average at GCSE and A Level.

The Trust takes great pride in its extensive network of partners, covering all key areas: education, business, community and culture including the University of Cambridge, the Prince’s Trust, Barts Health NHS Trust, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the British Film Institute, the National Theatre and the WOW Foundation. Each of its partnerships contribute to and enrich the curriculum offer for students and form an integral part of the Trust’s unique and inspiring learning environment. These strong collaborative partnerships provide students with exceptional opportunities which support and enhance their learning including practical activities, trips, motivational speakers, school visits and mentoring.   Above all, the Trust’s partnership activities broaden students’ horizons and takes their learning beyond the classroom.   www.mulberryschoolstrust.org

from WordPress https://ift.tt/3ewi8O3 via IFTTT

[themindofaconflictedrebelot]

I am a being alone but affected by all things dead and living, What’s your positionality?

I am an African woman and no I am not black; I’m brown, not that black is not beautiful, trust me is but you have to be problems with basic colour concepts if you look at me and think that I’m black. I am a woman, most of the time this works at my disadvantage, I am a person that has lived most of her life being judged by the way she looks and the colour of her skin before they even got to understand her, judged by the way she pronounced words with her unique accent that some may say is not ‘English’ enough. I have had to fight to be treated like my brother’s equal in a patriarchal home, fight to be recognised in racist schools, fight for marks just because some people think that this brown girl cannot have an operating or a somewhat well “conditioned’’ brain that can reason, I have had to use fight using my mental capacity because that was the only resource that I had to work. Like most I had to dream and look outside the box that my socio-economic status tried to trap me in, I had to climb higher ladders than some to reach where I am and sometimes had an upper hand compared to other’s but one thing is for certain little to nothing was ever handed to me on a silver platter. I used my culture and religion as a way to escape used my academics to try to save myself from the cycle of poverty and this cycle that so many brown people find themselves stuck in. I have experienced good and bad, I have experienced how it feels like to have a mother that is there but at the same that is not there, I have experienced wanting and sometimes needing but not receiving. I have experienced how it feels to cry without anyone to care for you, I have experienced feeling so hopeless that you become numb to your circumstances. I have lived way too much for a 21-year-old. And I am still living, I have been a mother to children that I’ve never given birth to, supported a family both financially and emotionally to a point whereby I have no one to cry to because I am the strong one the nurture and I feel that I am responsible for everyone around me. I feel everyone’s pain thoughts that I feel like I no longer feel how I feel, I’m numb towards life, this is how I cope. I want to feel so bad that I feel through others, this is how my positionality towards life has been formed and this is my stance when I approach life and every person I interact with.

(Google, 2020) The figure above illustrates a dynamic system which is a persons positionality and the multiple factors that affect this system.

Coming from a background that I come from and the experiences that I have gone through I analyse every situation and try by all means to gain a deeper understanding of the different people that I interact within the community because I have learnt through myself that physical appearance can be deceiving and the only way you can truly understand a person and a community is by understanding all it’s the dynamics and the things that influence those people. Thus, my positionality has guided me into looking into other people’s experiences through life and to find out how these have affected them and their functioning in everyday life, it has shown me the importance of assessing and understanding my client’s and their family members positionality when preparing for treatment and I have learnt throughout my life experiences that a person is a dynamic system that is forever changing and every experience leads to repercussion or a change in behaviour and understanding of life.

(Google, 2020) The figure above illustrates the different factors that affect my positionality and stance in life.

Jafar (2018) defines positionality as the recognition and declaration of one’s own position and stance within a specific context and Hopkins and colleagues (2017), defined positionality as a unique perspective on issues that arise from a person’s enculturation, their previous experience, personal beliefs and values, and daily work. There are both correct when the definitions are put together as they somewhat give a full understanding of positionality when both definitions are used in conjunction rather than apart because when they are used apart they fail to give a holistic explanation of the concept of positionality.

Hopkins and colleagues (2017), state that positionality is influenced by our nature, perceptions, relationships and the people we communicate with, but these are the factors that influence my positionality it is also influenced by the experiences of the people around me, gender, race, my experiences, my socioeconomic status, my background and how other people treat me. Thus, when I look at people in my community, I look at the different factors that affect each person individually so that I can fully understand their problems.

A general mistake that I normally make is when approaching African people, I normally speak to them in isiZulu and not every African person speaks isiZulu, so I have learnt to ask first before each encounter what language each client speaks. This was due to me feeling as if the only way us, “Black” people can show each other that we are one of the same kind forgetting that even though African with the community appreciate it when you approach them with their home language but I can’t always assume that every African speaks isiZulu because there are so many African Languages and they could speak either of them. When I understood how this positionality affected my assessment, that’s when I changed and whenever I begin assessing a client I first ask which languages they understand and they speak so that my assessment process is not negatively affected due to the client not understanding what is asked of them and instructions.

Dealing with a variety of people within my community and the community which I am currently placed at I have developed a way of thinking that helps me to not “judge a book by its cover”, knowing how I am a person and how I can easily fool people into thinking that my life is perfectly fine and I only allow them to see the position of my life that they want to see when assessing conditions I want to look more within the person rather than just their condition and assess different persons differently rather than having a specific sequence for evaluation and assessment for specific conditions because one thing I’ve learnt from these close to four years of doing this degree is that each person is different and everyone has a unique way that their treatment and assessment should be approached. When assessing clients it is important to try to understand your client’s and gain insight on which concepts and phenomena affect their overall function and everyday lives, by assessing more than just their condition by looking into their experiences and how these may have affected the person that they are today and their functioning (Hopkins et al, 2017). For example, a lady within the community that I am currently working at is diagnosed with intellectual disability and at first, that seemed like the main issue and focus of treatment but through sitting her down and engaging in a conversation with her to gain a deeper understanding of how she grew up and how she was treated growing up due to her condition. She then mentioned how she was called names and how people assumed that she was “stupid” and how this then made her believe that she could not do anything and then this led to her having a decreased self-esteem. The most frightening and scary thing is that the emotional abuse and name-calling did not only come from people outside of her family, but her mother was also the main person who called her by names, emotionally abused her and stole her disability grant from her and used it for her things and most of the time took the money and used it to buy alcohol and then came back home to abuse her more when she was drunk and even abuse her physically. This has resulted in her thinking that she is what they say she is resulting in her feeling helpless and negatively affecting her judgement, this has even resulted in her harbouring feelings of anger and even when her children do the slightest mistake she ends up hitting them to a point that she even thinks that she may hit them until they become hospitalised. Her boyfriend reported that this is the main issue that she has, and her low self-esteem leads to her thinking that she is not able to handle her own money even though she knows basic maths. From all this, you can see how different perspectives influence her function in her areas of occupation namely, her IADL’s (caring for others and money management).

From this, you can see that my positionality and my experiences in life have made me dig deeper than the client’s condition. After all, I have conditioned myself to think that treatment is not only about the conditions because I believe we are all persons walking around with undiagnosed mental illnesses, as we are scarred by our experienced, some build us and some may destroy us. So when assessing and treating I go in with an open mind as you never know how a person is functioning in life until you ask and understand them and lives. When creating programmes for the people of the community, we need to not only consider our positionality but the positionality of the community members of the community that we are working in as this influences the structuring of the intervention and the focus of intervention as there are people that require the intervention. This is why we must use a phenomenological approach when creating programmes and providing interventions as this allows to better understand client’s conditions and gain a holistic understanding of their needs by exploring their experiences and how these affect their positionality (Hopkins et al, 2017). A phenomenological stance allows you to understand the community member’s fully and understand their goals for treatment so that you as a therapist can work towards reaching them. For example, the client previously mentioned with an intellectual disability her main aim for treatment is for her to be able to work so that she can be independent and prove her mother wrong by showing her that she is not stupid and that she has made something of herself, and to deal with her anger for her to be able o give her children the love and care that she never received when she was growing up. So, these are important when creating a program for her, by me having a phenomenological stance towards assessment and treatment I was able to better understand her needs by gaining a deeper understanding into her positionality and how this affects her treatment. But this also led to me feeling her pain and I’ve spent the last few hours thinking about how she must feel in this exact moment?

As much as my positionality has not yet influenced the assessment and treatment of my client’s negatively, I need to make sure that it not emotionally texting for me and I do not take my client’s problems with me at home and I end up being negatively affected by this as much as my positionality allows me to understand my client’s better and put myself in their shoes as I want them to receive the best possible treatment I can give them. So, we need to acknowledge that our positionality impacts our treatment approach towards our client’s, because if we are not mindful of the role of that our own and our client’s positionality and cultural ways of knowing influences treatment and our engagement in communities, the results of such can be dangerous to the communities and the individuals within them (Milner, 2007). So, now what you have to ask yourself is how is your positionality affecting your life, your relationships and your engagement in daily life? And is your racial and cultural awareness, consciousness, and positionality affecting how you treat others?

(Google, 2020) The figure above shows how you need to first unpack and understand your positionality before understanding how it will affect others.

References

Google (2020). Retrieved 18 September 2020, from https://www.google.com/search?q=positionality&sxsrf=ALeKk01uq0oAyCDABZ-_G--35NhIgz6y-A:1600451870273&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjypNTpo_PrAhWAXRUIHd1DAg4Q_AUoAXoECA4QAw&biw=1242&bih=597

Hopkins, R. M., Regehr, G., & Pratt, D. D. (2017). A framework for negotiating positionality in phenomenological research. Medical teacher, 39(1), 20-25.

Jafar, A. J. N. (2018). What is positionality and should it be expressed in quantitative studies? (vol 35, pg 323, 2018). Emergency Medicine Journal, 35(9), 578-578.

Milner IV, H. R. (2007). Race, culture, and researcher positionality: Working through dangers seen, unseen, and unforeseen. Educational researcher, 36(7), 388-400.

[datingadviceonreddit]

As far back as I can remember, unless it's a girl I choose to end things with, I will likely end up becoming attached after just one date. I will think, 'yeah, she ticks the boxes, I could see myself with her'. As I understand this, I try and not come across as clingy, overly attached or too forward. I just try and remain my normal self and let them know I am interested in seeing them again. This technique has allowed me to go onto a second date, enter a relationship and have short and long term flings with different woman.Just recently, I went on a date with a nice young woman. The date lasted 5 hours and we got on very well. She is incredibly intelligent, from a similar socio economic background and although not the best looking something about her appeals to me.Now, at this very moment in my life, I definitely do not need, perhaps even want a relationship. I am busy with university, work, opening a business, rebuilding my social life and have plans to work/travel next year.In addition to this, I don't feel overly head over heels with this woman and I am comfortable in myself, but despite this, I still feel weirdly attached... We didn't even kiss. We have texted a little bit after the date, for which I suggested a second date and received a relatively positive reaction, but because she is going overseas (temporarily) soon, it has slightly complicated things. I am nervous that I may have said the wrong thing in my last message (talked about texting/snapchatting whilst she's away and that I'll see her when she comes back) and she won't text back/want to see me again. I have oddly low confidence despite not wanting anything.Maybe it's the fear of rejection? Maybe its the fear of not finding another young woman that intelligent, which is something that I like?I am not desperate and I know in a non-arrogant way that I am approachable/dateable. It's just weird and actually annoying.Anyone else been in a situation like this?This issue with it all is not my situation with her, but the fact that I get attached so easily after one date... like why!? via /r/dating_advice

[losdesnudoscas-blog]

The World's Vanity

Has there ever been a place where people do not get treated as human beings but treated as tools? If not, welcome to Earth. The majority of civilizations around the world are ruled by misogynistic governments, dictatorships or kings. Women in this world are treated as objects rather than living beings. The film, La Pantalla Desnuda by Florence Jaugey, takes place in Nicaragua. People here in the U.S, like myself do not take into consideration that these Nicaraguan people go through the same things everyone does. To be more specific, in the film it takes a perspective that is posed in order for the view to relate to its raw nature. Since it takes place in a third world country, the effects of their poverty come into play with the struggles they have. Florence Jaugey tackles the issues, such as oppression or misogynistic views. This film depicts what women have to deal with on a deal basis by including raw scenes that show women's struggle to deal with the double-standard set by society, express their sexuality and a way to maintain empowerment.    

Sexual orientation is a virtue that is unequal on both sides but just like always, women get it the worst. La Pantalla Desnuda takes place in Nicaragua, where the people are in this mostly general catholic perspective of both men and women. Children who are born in the United States that are first generation and have parents that migrated, still place these ideals onto their children. This is relevant in the sense that Alex and Esperanza are attending a Catholic Aragarian, meaning that religion also plays a role in their academic and social life. However, it is apparent through the film that not everyone abides by the "holy" aspect of how people should behave. The movie then proceeds to show the intimate scene between Alex and Esperanza, Alex suggest that they should record themselves having sex. Esperanza takes note of this and heeds to tell him to turn it off because she does not like the idea of being recorded. He does as she asks but he then does it again and she brushes it off her shoulder. One thing to notice is since Alex was recording the video, his face did not show. He then tells her that it will be a memory for them when they are older. Now here is where the injustice comes. It is injust for Alex to have recorded that video without having consent from Esperanza. This none consent that comes from Esperanza can be due to the fact that she does not want anyone to question her purity, being raised with Catholicism. Yet it is her right to express her own sexuality and show how she can ignore the set double-standards.

In La Pantalla Desnuda, there is the scene in which Esperanza is in the bathroom and she is being teased about her sex tape being released. This is seen after Ocatvio had release the video and posted it on a social platform, specifically what they call NicaTube.The tease that they play is they make moaning noises similar to what Esperanza does in the video with Alex. In the movie they mimic the noise she made of "Ya, ya, ya". They mock her moaning in the sense they are calling her a slut and that she is sexually active. The girls in the bathroom put up the façade that they are better than Esperanza because they still consider themselves "pure". Esperanza is then put into thinking that she is not who she is just because she is being judged for having sex. This whole demenor can be because of the fact that they are in a religious school and are taught to save themselves for marriage. However, only women are told to do this and not men. Why is that men are praised for being sexually active but women are degraded? In another scene in La Pantalla Desnuda is where Alex is leaving his classroom and he is greeted by Octavio and Octavio praises him for sleeping with Esperanza and because he has a video about it. Something to note about the video is that only Esperanza's face is shown and not Alex's. Could this be because if a man is the thumbnail for a sexual video it will receive less view than it were to be a woman? This goes onto show the double-standards society has. If a woman is being sexually active, it is seen as sexually desirable by men by as an insult to the purity that women allegedly have to maintain. The struggles that women have for their expression on their sexuality should be as equal as men. In this movie, this is not the case. One important point that I want to state is that Octavio's family is religious and yet he does not abide by the religious aspect of doing good. Octavio's mom is a contradicting character because she can sympathize with the way that Esperanza is seen because she is a woman herself. She then notices the strange behavior that Octavio has. Since Octavio's mom has seen the video, it is a weird way that she does not try and defend Esperanza. To jump around for a bit, towards somewhat the middle/end of the movie, Octavio's mom tries to destroy Alex's phone because it can be used as evidence to use against Octavio in order to blame him for the video. Why does the mom do this and not bring justice to Esperanza? She is a catholic woman and she chose to destroy the personal identity of another girl to keep her son from getting in trouble. How does this abide to the religious aspect of right over wrong? It is sad to think that women themselves bring each other down when one wants to be sexually active and empower themselves.

Women who are raised along religion are taught to be powerful because of their status to bear kids and be the foundation of a house, yet it is these confines that bring down the empowerment of women. This film's main aspect is how a young woman is being brought down for expressing her sexuality. Why can men be sexual beings but women cannot? This question is an important one to address because of the background that this movie took place. In a previous paragraph I mentioned that this movie is taken place in Nicaragua at a religious school. Now I will take the whole movie in analysis by the way it depicts women in different aspects. A scene in the movie that shows women being empowered is the sexual desire that Esperanza has because it is virtue that every woman have the right to have. The specific scene that I am talking about is when Esperanza wants to have consensual sex at the what seems to be a motel.  However, boys growing up are not really watched upon with what they do with their bodies. Women have to live in constant fear if they are sexual beings. A scene from the movie that was graphic on what women experience is when two guys follow Esperanza and eventually ask her to get in their truck with then but she refuses, which make the guys following her angry and that is when they try to rape her. Now to dissect this scene a little more. The men in the truck before they try to rape her are calling her in a somewhat passive-aggressive manner in order to sway Esperanza. Is this correct thought? In actually, the way that men talk to Esperanza is in the aspect of how they would talk to a prostitute. After she gets in the car, they treat her as if she was a tool of pleasure.  It is astonishingly scare to think that some men think it is okay to rape women because they are sexually active. This treatment of women is just not correct. Technology has amplified this by so much. With the technology that we have today, it is very easy to manipulate the way women are portrayed. In social media, women are exposed on the daily and so are men but it doesn’t happen as much as women. A quote from the song "Bandera Negra" that is supporting the idea that women should do what they please and only for themselves is, "On the platform wearing high heels not because I'm a piece of ass, I like looking good while I sing on the mic". This quote/lyric goes to show that even high heels are stigmatizes with sexuality of women. Articles of clothing have always been associated with how women act, which is completely preposterous. Men do not have these problems, however when men wear pink, they are suggested to be gay which is also wrong. An image by Lily Avcevedo that shows how girls have to be pretty and proper regardless of where they are is where it is a little girl and a blue background with her thoughts leading to memories. An interesting point to notice is in one of her depictions, a little girl sitting on a swing set with guns holding up the swing set itself. This can be interpreted it in many ways but the one that is obvious is that the little girl looks like she is accustomed to that lifestyle.

The way governments and social rule have been established is with men on top and only men. This is how women are placed so low on socio-economic statuses. A specific quote from "Bandera Negra" to tackle this aspect is, " I don’t look for power because I am anarchist" Women in other parts of the globe are seen as way more superior then men for reasons such as women being able to give life and they have superior mental strength. These patriarchal systems are still currently set in place without regards of women. A quote/lyric from "Bandera Negra" that is symbolizing unity is "I fight the power that colonizes minds". Furthermore, the quote/lyric relates to how Europeans came to the Americas and the United States to colonize people's minds in to a singularity that they thought was right. Rebeca Lane is coming from another third world country, Guatemala. She is seen in many views. Her being an anarchist, she can be seen as a radical because she does not follow everyone else does. Feminist believe that women are equal to men however, technology has shaped this to be out of proportion. Misogynistic men think that when women gain power they will bring chaos. Another thing that these men think is that since men have always been in control, women could not do the same as men. The movie empowers women in being comfortable with who they are and not to be ashamed of who they are because they are human being just like everyone else. Women of color have it the worst in the world. These women have to struggle so much through racism and oppression. A graffiti art image that supported the empowerment of women is by Malu. The graffiti depicts a beautiful woman with hibiscus flowers in her hair which implies that she is a beautifully strong woman. Seeing that this is in the streets, Malu wants to show people on the streets that women are beautiful regards of where or who the people are. Another quote/lyric from "Bandera Negra" that demonstrates that women have a voice regardless of skin color is " I will cut silenced throats with one slash". This quote/lyric is one of the best symbols that women need to express their voices and to stand up together so they can be heard in this world.

In conclusion, Florence Jaugey tackles the issues, such as supression on women by women themselves and men. This film shows what women have to go through on the day by day basis by including scenes that show women's efforts in order to deal with the double-standard set by society, express their sexuality and a way to maintain empowerment. Women are equal to men in every way and deserve recognition. The film La Pantalla Desnuda, does an good job of showing how women are treated. This can be applied anywhere in the world and regardless of religious aspect. The dark side of this film is that the movie shows women degrading each other instead of standing up and uniting with each other to rise against oppression.The women of Central America that were mentioned in this essay are examples of beautiful strong women who empower who they are and do not let anyone stop them. The film gives all of its viewers a perspective that not every movie has a happy ending. Technology's advancement can also be seen in this movie more in a negative perspective since the way the video spread was through a phone and that an internet café shut down.

   Works Cited Page

Lane, Rebeca. Bandera Negra. C.S.O Casa Naranja. 2014

La Pantalla Desnuda by Florence Jaguey

����

[vmelo22-blog]

Gender and Sexuality Portfolio Post One: Introduction to Special Interest Topic of Motherhood

          As discussed in Gender Stories: Negotiating identity in a binary world, a gender binary system exists in our society, which appoints all people to one of two identities- male or female (Foss, Domenico, & Foss, 2013). The authors conceptualize the gender binary system as a matrix that serves as the backdrop for our daily gendered experiences, behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs. From our gender identity and gender expression, to our biological sex and attraction to others, the gender binary matrix functions as an ever-present and pervasive system that influences each of the different components of our gender, whether we are consciously aware of it or not. The gender binary not only restricts the number of gender identities and sets males and females as opposites, but it also creates a hierarchy in which one category is more valued than the other and suggests that the distinction between the categories is natural and inevitable (Foss, Domenico, & Foss, 2013).  Even more, the gender binary reinforces distinct, normative roles for men and women and prescribes binary ideals of appearance, behavior, and personality (Foss, Domenico, & Foss, 2013). Starting in childhood and continuing throughout adulthood, we face pressures to conform to this socially-constructed “reality” of gender that is based on norms that are oftentimes impractical and unattainable. For many, this results in a constant and futile struggle to reconcile one’s complex and evolving gender with constraining norms, such as the “mythical norm” of “white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and financially secure” (Launius & Hassel, 2015, p. 73). These gender norms are endorsed by the gender binary matrix yet are not necessarily enabled by it, given the complex intersection of gender with other micro-level identities (race, sexuality, class, age, etc.) and macro-level institutions (government and legal agencies, media, marriage structures, religion, educational institutions, etc.).

         Through personal reflection on the gender binary matrix and the way it has influenced my behaviors and beliefs as an adult, I have identified motherhood as a special interest topic within the study of gender and sexuality due to the influence that my conceptualization of “motherhood” has had on my prospective career choices. I classify myself as a young, heterosexual, female minority of Hispanic ethnicity and low socioeconomic family background. Unlike many women of a similar ethnicity and socioeconomic status, I have been privileged to pursue a college education and I am now among the limited number of women who have the opportunity to pursue higher education and a well-established career. Specifically, I am an aspiring physician who envisions using an obstetrics and gynecology specialty to practice humanistic medicine that empowers disadvantaged women with the knowledge, support, and medical treatment that they need to take control of their health. Whether it comes to intellectual capabilities, passion, or the physical stamina and mental strength that is needed for this career, there is nothing that says I am not fit to pursue this career. On the contrary, I believe that my minority and low socioeconomic family status, Spanish ethnicity, exposure to substance abuse and mental health issues, and experience with public health work has equipped me with valuable competencies regarding the complexity of health that make me exceptionally well suited to pursue a career in medicine. Yet, in making my career choices, the seemingly impending challenge of motherhood almost served to dissuade me from choosing a profession that I feel is truly my vocational calling. I am 21 years old, have yet to commence medical school (let alone meet a suitable partner), and I am already feeling pressure to prepare myself to balance my career with the responsibility of caring for a family and living up to the idealized expectations of a mother who is selfless, devoted, and the primary caregiver to her children. This pressure, and my previously unconscious connection between womanhood and motherhood, is the gender binary matrix at play. It is the unwarranted, yet internalized sense of binary gender ideals that dictates what I should value in life as a woman. This reflection has sparked my interest in exploring the intersection between gender studies and motherhood to better understand my own gender experience and the experience of the women that I hope to one day serve as an obstetrician/gynecologist.

         I began my review of the gender studies literature by using search terms such as “shame,” “pressure,” and “career” in conjunction with “motherhood.” Each search received between 4 and 29 results- “shame” having the least results and “career” having the most. A wide range of approaches to studying the challenges of womanhood and motherhood were presented. More specifically, the research questions centered around understanding how binary ideals for women and motherhood affected either 1) their individual mental and general health outcomes or 2) their career outlooks and expectations. The methodologies included surveys with a snowball sampling technique, cross-sectional study surveys, in-depth and semi-structured interviews, and analysis of online comments through feminist, discursive lens. Overall, the results showed the importance of assessing both micro- and macro-level influences on women’s gendered experience in order to create social policies that effectively enable women to have autonomy over their gendered experience. Many authors called for further studies addressing how women’s micro- and macro-level influences interact. With a few exceptions, most of the authors were females associated with academic institutions. Applying an intersectional feminist lens (which seeks to understand how women’s various identities intersect to influence their individual and institutional level experiences) to my own analysis of the literature, the articles can be compared and contrasted according to how they addressed the questions of “What about women?” and “Which women?” in relation to motherhood (Launius & Hassel, 2015).

         To address the question “What about women?” (i.e. what are women experiencing) with regards to motherhood, several authors acknowledged the socio-cultural context that has created a gendered nature of parenting where women carry the primary responsibility of caring for the home and children (Blithe, 2017; Crofts & Coffey, 2017; Dow 2016; Henderson, Harmon, & Newman, 2017; Watt & McIntosh, 2012). This gendered pressure experienced by mothers (and not by fathers) influences women’s work and family decisions. Although the authors acknowledge that social changes, such as the women’s right movement of the 1960s and 1970s, have granted women agency in the public sphere, they continually note that women face cultural contradictions between the public, work sphere and the private, home sphere (Crofts & Coffey, 2017; Dow 2016; Henderson, Harmon, & Newman, 2017; Watt & McIntosh, 2012). The economic need for families to have dual incomes in our contemporary U.S. capitalist culture, and the expectation that women be fully dedicated to their employment, conflicts with the expectation that women be intensive mothers who prioritize parenting and commit to caring for the family (Crofts & Coffey, 2017; Dow 2016; Henderson, Harmon, & Newman, 2017; Watt & McIntosh, 2012). Two approaches were taken to examine the effects of the binary ideologies and cultural contradictions revolving motherhood—the authors I assessed studied either 1) the mental health effects of the impractical binary expectations (Henderson, Harmon, & Newman, 2017; Taylor & Wallace, 2012; Witvliet, Arah, Stronks, & Kunst, 2014) or 2) the consequences of the cultural contradictions in relation to women’s careers and public sphere expectations (Blithe, 2017; Crofts & Coffey, 2017; Dow 2016; Hoffman, 2017; Jacques & Radtke, 2012; Mariskind, 2017; Watt & McIntosh, 2012). Henderson, Harmon, and Newman (2017) employed a feminist sociology perspective to do a macro-level analysis of how the intensive mothering ideologies and the resulting pressure to be a perfect mother adversely affect the mental health outcomes of women. They found that the “perfect mother” ideology resulted in negative mental health outcomes (such as stress, anxiety, guilt, and low self-efficacy) for all mothers studied, regardless of whether or not the mothers bought into the ideology. This research highlighted the importance of looking at the macro-level of dominant ideologies and helped to reframe idealized motherhood as a public social issue and not a personal choice (Henderson, Harmon, & Newman, 2017).  The theme of balancing macro-level analysis with micro-level analysis was also found throughout the literature that focused on the consequences of cultural contradictions in relation to women’s careers and public sphere expectations.

          Although all of the authors I reviewed sought to understand women’s challenges with motherhood by asking about what women are experiencing, only a few tried to understand the nuanced lived experience of idealized motherhood by asking “Which women?”. Contrary to Henderson, Harmon, and Newman (2017), Dow (2016) found that the same binary mothering ideologies do not influence all women. Dow’s research showed that cultural expectations among African American mothers combine with structural and economic constraints to form the foundation of an alternate ideology of mothering that frames how women make decisions regarding motherhood (Dow, 2016). Dow connected a micro-level analysis of race with a macro-level analysis of ideology. Similarly, Hoffman (2017) asked “Which women?” by employing a micro-level analysis of class and its intersection with work and motherhood. Like Mariskind (2017), Hoffman’s (2017) research also focused on assessing and enabling parental leave policies that help women deal with the transition to motherhood. Paid parental leave policies, although scarce in the U.S., can provide a way for mothers to integrate their roles as both workers and caregivers (Mariskind, 2017). In assessing the association between self-assessed general health in women, motherhood, and gender inequality, Witvliet, Arah, Stronks, and Kunst (2014) chose to include a micro-level analysis of the role of marriage status and found that lone mothers reported the highest odds of poor general health. Age, as a micro-level identity, was assessed by Crofts and Coffey (2017), as well as Jacques and Radtke (2012). Their research focused on young women and their internalization of cultural ideals of womanhood in light of the post-feminist and neoliberal discourses of autonomy and individualism (Crofts & Coffey, 2017; Jacques & Radtke, 2012). Both studies found that young women are still aware of and feeling pressured by hegemonic motherhood ideologies, despite identification with the post-feminist and neoliberal discourses of “choice” (Crofts & Coffey 2017; Jacques & Radtke, 2012). The continued presence of hegemonic motherhood ideologies is framed as a major obstacle to achieving gender equality in the workplace.

          Although significant strides have been made with women’s rights movements during the last two centuries, a gender binary matrix still exists and creates hegemonic ideologies that influence women’s work and family decisions. Women face a society that tells them that womanhood and motherhood are one in the same. They are expected to take on the responsibility of balancing their public and private spheres, but are set up for failure given the unrealistic and contradicting cultural expectations between their work and home lives. Contemporary women are told to “do it all”-- be loyal and committed to your work but prioritize motherhood and be a selfless and devoted caregiver. Women even pressure one another to “have it all,” while propagating a facade of “choice” in the matter.  The results are adverse personal health outcomes and gender inequality in the workforce. To move forward with addressing these issues, idealized motherhood must be reframed as a public social issue and not a “personal choice”. There are complex interactions between micro-level identities (such as race, nationality, class, age etc.) and macro-level ideologies and structural institutions that need to be further studied to understand women’s challenges with motherhood. By further exploring the topic of motherhood in gender studies, I hope to learn more about the micro- and macro-influences in women’s lives and how this knowledge may be applied to enable women to construct their own ideals of good motherhood.  

                                                      Works Cited

Blithe, S.J. (2017). This is not where we thought we would be: reviewing 

         the promise of feminism at the intersection of women and work. Women 

         and Language, 39.2, 31-51. doi: 10.1177/2046147X14563430.

Crofts, J., & Coffey, J. (2017). Young women’s negotiations of gender, the body 

         and the labor market in a post-feminist context. Journal of Gender 

         Studies, 26(5), 502-516. doi:10.1080/09589236.2015.1130610.

Dow, D.M. (2016). Integrated motherhood: beyond hegemonic ideologies of 

         motherhood. Journal of Marriage and Family, 78, 180-196. doi: 

         10.1111/jomf.12264.

Foss, S.K., Domenico, M.E., Foss, K.A. (2013). Gender Stories: Negotiating 

         identity in a binary world. Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.

Henderson, A., Harmon, S., & Newman, H. (2016). The price mothers pay, even 

         when they are not buying it: mental health consequences of idealized 

         motherhood. Sex Roles, 74, 512- 526. doi: 10.1007/s11199-015-0534-5.

Hoffman, C.M. (2017). “I got lucky”: class reproduction across the transition to 

         motherhood. The Journal of Women and Social Work, 32(4), 557-573. doi: 

         10.1177/0886109917713976.

Jacques, H.A., & Radtke, H.L. (2012). Constrained by choice: young women 

         negotiate the discourses of marriage and motherhood. Feminism & 

         Psychology, 22(4), 443-461. doi:10.1177/0959353512442929.

Launius, C., Hassel, H. (2015). Threshold concepts in women’s and gender 

         studies: Ways of seeing, thinking, and knowing. New York, NY: Taylor & 

         Francis.

Mariskind, C. (2017). Good mothers and responsible citizens: analysis of public 

         support for the extension of paid parental leave. Women’s Studies 

         International Forum, 61, 14- 19. Doi: 10.1016/j.wsif.2017.01.003.

Susan, W., & McIntosh, B. (2012). The motherhood career slide: a recent study 

         reveals that gender perceptions have a negative impact on women’s 

         career progression in nursing. Nursing Standard, 27 (4), 62-63. doi: 

         10.7748/ns2012.09.27.4.62.p9473.                                                           

Taylor, E. N., & Wallace, L. E. (2012). For shame: feminism, breastfeeding 

         advocacy, and maternal guilt. Hypatia, 27(1) 76- 98. doi: 10.1111/j.1527-

         2001.2011.01238.x.

Witvliet, M.I., Arah, O.A., Stronks, K., & Kunst, A.E. (2014). A global study on 

         lone mothers: exploring the associations of self-assessed general health 

         with motherhood types and gender inequality in 32 countries. Women’s 

         Health Issues, 24(2), e177-e185. doi:10.1016/j.whi.2013.12.001.

[mrkeb]

Elite

I’m an elitist. As early as my first conscious memories, I was conditioned to aim for nothing short of the very best. Opportunities don’t come to those who don’t work hard. It’s not enough just to work hard, you have to ‘bok3 meng6’. The Cantonese term, ‘bok3 meng6’ literally translates to ‘wager (your) life’.

‘Don’t be like them, they contribute nothing to society,’ My parents would say while we drove past a homeless person. ‘If you don’t work hard, you’ll be one of them – working a dead end job with no chance for promotion,’ My parents would say, directly in front of a fast food worker, in Cantonese. It always felt uncomfortable, hearing that as a kid. I used to think that the uneasiness was because I felt insulted that they would compare me with somebody they thought ‘so low’. It was not until more years of learning, experiencing, and seeing the world, that I realized how problematic that point of view is. People don’t get to choose how they want to grow up; they don’t choose their socio-economic background; they don’t choose whether they have mental illness or if addiction is in their genetics. I realized that privilege is a real thing. It shocks me that my parents - two people who worked 60-80 hour weeks, slaving away at a restaurant, didn’t realize how hypocritical they were being. But social class is a very real thing, especially in China. Albeit problematic, they were merely trying to instill the same discipline that their parents have done toward them.

- It’s been difficult to handle people at work sometimes. Equal pay for equal work. I was hoping that would hold true.

My counterpart and I have the same position. He has been here for 25+ years. We handle everything from reaching customers, handling payment, researching differences remitted payments to what the contract details, to pushing accounts to audit/legal if a customer is constantly delinquent. He once told me that ‘[Our business] can’t fire me for being slow or taking many breaks. I am still doing my work. The union will protect me.’ That goes against the whole ‘bok3 meng6’ mentality that was distilled on me.

My supervisor notices that, lately, my morale is low. ‘You put the extra in extra-ordinary.’ He says with a pause between the two words. ‘Your hard work isn’t going unnoticed. Don’t let things deter you. You’ll go far.’

But that’s what I did at my last job. And the only thing that happened was that I got a 1.5% Cost of Living Adjustment increase every year, for those two years, while my old supervisor got a promotion. Is this the rule or the exception?

I try to remind myself that I’m privileged. I grew up dirt poor, literally playing with mud and sticks. But my parents came into money, the money trickled down, and my late teen years were comfortable. I was taught the value of education, the significance of internships and networking, and able to land, and be more qualified, at the same job when I was 26 years old, compared to his 26 years of service at the company.

It’s very apparent to me that I am doing at least 80% of the shared work, every day. It’s very apparent to me that I am answer all of the emails, to customers, to superiors, to shareholders, and to co-workers. It gets very easy to get frustrated. It gets very easy to label my counterpart as lazy, incompetent, etc.

I’m an elitist. That’s my problem. But I remind myself that not everyone thinks like me. That not everyone has the same work ethics as me. That maybe my 10% is his 100%. That it’s not his fault that he types with two fingers while I have a 120WPM average – his parents may not have been as concerned about education. That it’s not his fault that he has to print documents and manually search through them while I use the ‘Ctrl+F’ function – his generation did not grow up with computers, computer programs. It wasn’t incorporated into his academics.

[cp-tc]

Remix Assignment

This assignment gave me the task of representing myself with two digital objects.  Now, as I was sitting here contemplating who I was as a person and what makes me myself, I didn't find it difficult to find things I enjoyed and related too.  The hardest part was choosing one out of all the videos or images that I liked.  There are too many facets of a person’s personality and life to really be accurately captured and then reflected completely in a stranger’s creation, in this case a five to seven minute video or image.  I felt the best way to go about this was to choose something that reflected a part of me that has had an overall impact in my life.   My first instinct was to summarize the basics of who I am at the surface such as being 21 years old, Latina, and a student.  I then started narrowing down the media that I’ve seen to loosely fit these categories.  Overall, I’ve realized how much being hispanic has shaped the direction of my life. Especially, the environments that I have been exposed or spaces and communities that I’ve been a part of.  Even my attitudes towards different situations can be attributed to the ideologies of Mexican culture.   Now, when that is coupled with growing up in the U.S. it really opened to a variety of point of views.  The same could be said for thousands of other latino kids in L.A.  For a long time these cultures have remained separate due to the habit of latinos staying in certain cities and communities.  This is due to a separate topic of socio-economic factors, but, as time has progressed, the younger generations active involvement in embracing the two worlds as one identity have had an impact on blurring the boundaries.   This has been especially apparent in the music scene,  there have been multiple artists that have created bilingual music and have been successful getting some attention in the mainstream media.  The video I chose showcases a band that has been combining two genres of music to create a new sound.  The video pans through a backyard party with typical Mexican day of the dead decorations, there are traditional games being played, and the mood is light hearted as the camera focuses on people having a good time.  Generally, I love this video because it shows people enjoying life and having fun being who they are which is essentially how I would like to portray my mixture of two identities.  The music played by the band can be considered psychedelic rock which is genre popularized in the U.S, and it is being played along with scenes of Loteria cards, a popular game in Mexico.  If I were to add anything to this video I would have loved to see more environmental shots such as the neighborhood or the city just to give more range to the mood of the piece.  I tend to really connect with the feeling of driving around a city and if it were to be Los Angeles I think it would feel a lot more personal.  Also, in regards to what could be called the set decoration of the video, I would lessen the amount of stereotypical day of the dead themes being used.  Personally, and with the majority of Mexicans, this is not the kind of decorations we would use for a regular get together if there even are any. I think the message of this mixture is weakened with the use of the stereotypes, and almost makes it feel inauthentic.

Now, instead of continuing the theme of going back to the basics of myself, I decided to use and image that represents my attitudes and motivations of my present self.  The picture that I chose is a still from the Pixar movie “Up”. This film as a whole has done a fantastic job in portraying the highs and lows of a lifetime.  To briefly summarize the storyline for context, the main protagonist, Carl Fredricksen,  had recently lost his wife and is now being threatened towards selling his home.  The house of course was very important to him and has been so since his childhood.  Realizing that he is going to be forced out of his home he decides to take the opportunity to complete an unfulfilled dream of his and his wife. 

In this still, it shows the moment in which Carl realizes, after all the years, that he has finally made it.  Watching this moment in theaters was breathtaking, considering we were fully immersed into this characters life, so it almost felt personal.  I feel like I really could just use this entire movie to represent me, but there was just something so particular about this shot that kind of summarized it up.  The reasons being that the image kind of brings a sense of relief, there’s a feeling of closure with the picture he is holding and then being at the location, and there’s also something about the old age of not just the main character but the picture as well.  With a quick glance everything looks like it’s been complete, but there is the noticeable fact that the actual house is not there, therefore bringing us back to the idea that there is still work to be done.  If we continue to look a the rest of the background, there is a huge canyon between the picture and the waterfall really giving truth to the saying “so close, yet, so far”.  I thought this was a great snapshot of where I am in my life right now with the relief of getting through my past obstacles and then arriving to a point where I can be comfortable and say that it’s been worth it.  I also feel that it’s inspirational in the way that it reminds you that you are almost where you need to be, even though it’s going to be a difficult journey over there, it’s so close.  I really am not sure how I could change this to personalize it, I feel like it’s a complete image and really speaks for itself.  I could say to change the age of the person holding the picture to be someone around my age, but I think that would lessen the impact of the photo.  Maybe adding three more pictures of other films with the same idea and having them grouped as a quad would remove the need to provide a background context.  This would make the message independent from the film’s plot line.  There wouldn’t be a need to change anything in the actual photo the main goal would be emphasizing the points that are already there.

[celiahamiltonindividualproj-blog]

Creative advertising

Introduction:

The purpose of this Project was to address the juxtaposition between the high fashion market and average to low socio-economic classes. I found this topic interesting not only in a theoretical sense, but also visually.

I thought this particular topic would create a wealth of avenues to explore creatively and stylistically which I why I decided to go ahead with it.  Heavy and distinct contrast with art and photography is something I am drawn to style-wise and have always wanted to explore in a more in-depth way. Integrating fashion into this idea was ultimately the most interesting thing for me as it was combining two of my passions: fashion editorials and the idea of visual juxtapositions.

For my projects concept, I drew inspiration from a particular Harper’s bazaar editorial shot by Nathaniel Goldberg. The content followed a narrative of a model who grew up in the suburbs before her meteoric rise to fame. The editorial was shot back in locations of specific importance. I found it mesmerizing to see such high quality clothing by a woman of such status back in geographical location that were completely the opposite.

The idea that humans are constantly evolving and changing contrasted against the unchanging scenery of where we start our lives was a particular turning point for me in terms of figuring out my idea. As a starting point, it also provided a sturdy block to figure out what I would be commenting on, thus the addressing of high fashion and their advertisements.

As of late, many high-end fashion houses have been referencing popular culture to advertise to a wider audience. Coupled with the influence of the internet and social media, this has proved to be successful in reaching people who would otherwise not have been exposed to this marketing, but it still poses the question of whether or not it has been effective in selling product in terms of unit sales. This question is interesting because it means looking at the demographic that these fashion houses were honing in on.

Gucci in particular has been the most interesting brand most recently with their use of memes and social media. The house collaborated with a latitude of artists who are known for their internet savvy prevalence and artistic style. Memes have been a go-to medium for the younger demographic (ages ranging anywhere from 14-26) to express their thoughts on a platform with a large audience. Most of them are humorous, satirical, and often mock certain establishments. This is what makes Gucci’s approach so intriguing. They are marketing towards a demographic of people who, for the most part, would not be able to afford their products. Obviously their campaign garnered plenty of attention from the internet community which means it was successful on one end but its overall effectiveness is questionable. 

Coming from this initial questioning process of how advertising infiltrates the lives of everyday people, I quickly decided that elaborating on this concept would create loads of options for me artistically, in regards to locations, models, clothing, props etc. It also meant that I could be extravagant in my contrasting of the two. And this is where I found myself beginning the project titled: “Got Gucci?”

Got Gucci?

Aims:

The visually highlight the contrast between high fashion and average socio-economic backgrounds.

To explore the aesthetic nature of two opposing forces: the brand name items and the surroundings they inhibit.

To create images that are aesthetically pleasing and work cohesively as a body of work.

Approach:

Fashion editorial on location.

Constructing cardboard counterfeits of well known and high-end accessories and placing them within derelict or commonplaces areas in suburbia.

Using a variety of different models in different environments wearing and accessorising visibly fake high-end products to highlight the absurdity between the product and the environment.

Visual language:

Saturated colours that generally fit within a colour palette.

Composition will have strong attention to lines, angles with every part of the frame carefully considered.

Light to be ‘contrasty’ with a grainy film aesthetic to it.

Humorous take on serious fashion campaigns with a slightly cynical tone.

Visual Research

Nathaniel Goldberg:

Giampaolo Sgura:

Margaret Zhang:

Glen Lutchford: