Reaction to "Literacy and Empowerment/Literary and Resistance" Reading

When reading Freire article about education as "Banking" vs "Education as the practice of freedom" it made me really reflect and think about a lot of the practices at the University we go to.  A lot of my classes are all tied into the banking theory where the teacher stands there and puts things into your head and there is a right or wrong answer and you can not explore you imagination as a student. But the Education as the practice of freedom is more of what we do in this class and other education courses I took at UC Berkeley where we dont have to just listen to the teacher talk and we can incorporate our own ideas and thoughts.  

Personally I believe that there has to be a mixture of both practices at the university level and high school level.  In some classes it has to be more of the banking theory where the teachers have to show you how to do the work like mathematics and science courses.  And then in humanities and social science classes there can be more of a education as a practice of freedom.  A believe a school should try to mix both of these methods into there curriculum so students can excel academically while expanding there horizons as students and people.   

Out of all my classes at UC Berkeley, the one that I liked the most and enjoyed was my Educ 190 course.  I liked this class because this class really let me get away from the conventional teaching styles of where a teacher pounds information and we have to memorize it but instead we were able to talk about it and expand our imagination by doing creative things and debating about issues at hand.  

Reaction to "Politics of Race and Identity" Readings

My favorite article of all these readings for this section was the Lee "Beyond the Model-Minority Stereotype."  I believe that this article really addresses a lot of the pressure and problems that we put on the Asian Americans as being the Model Minority.  

I remember in an article I read a while ago it shows that Asian American girls have the highest rate of suicide and they have the pressures of being a Women and a Model Minority.  I dont think we should put this pressure on them because its not fair and right to them.  Like this article states there are a lot of people who are under achievers who are Asian.

I think that its okay to say that there is a high rate of success academically within the Asian Community, however its not right to expect all of them to be great in academia.  Or to look up to all of them expecting them to be great in Math or go to the top school.  This article address a lot of the stereotypes that go on about Asians in the  UC Berkeley community.  We expect all of them to be great at school but the truth is all of them are not and we should not have that stereotype on them because it hurts the underachievers.  

And not only with the Asian American community do we stereo-type but I feel like we stereotype about all kinds of people.  And have certain exceptions of them like in the Bragg "Exerts from all over but the shouting" article put pressure on white people expecting all of them  to come from a rich family. But its not true as stated in the article of Bragg because he came from a poor family in Alabama.  

Response to: Connecting race, Identity and schooling Readings

When reading these articles it really struck me and i felt a sense of empowerment from the  African-American people and there lifes and how they learned to read and write.  One of the articles that struck was the Gates "Race as the trope of the world."  I was astonished at how accomplished Gates was as a person.  He received his bachelors from Yale and went to continue school in Cambridge for a masters.  And now teaches Humanities in Harvard.

And I also was struck at the circumstances in which fredrick Douglas got to learn to read and write as a Slave.  In Gates article its goal is to show that Black people can read and write just like any other race or identity.  And I believe that is true and I am in full support of his article, however I believe its not the incapability of reading and writing for the black community or the white people putting them down.  I believe its more of the work ethic of the people and the challenges they face as a community.  

These articles show different circumstances of different people and the circumstances in which people try to learn to read and write.  And the importance of literacy in there life, I believe that literacy is really important for everyone and every person.  literary is an important part of these peoples life and I believe it should be an important part of ours.