Talking Point #2:

Alicia Tougas

"Why can't she remember that?" The importance of storybook reading in multicultural classrooms, Terry Meier

Quotes:

1) "Three decades of research on language development in a variety of social and cultural contexts have documented the complexity of young children's language use their interactions with family, peers, and other community members."

- This quote explains how children learn through family, friends, and even through the community. These places and people are where younger children can pick up on different languages and how they may think that something is done.

2) "From these book reading experiences, many children acquire an extensive book-based vocabulary, and absorb important cultural lessons about things like gender roles, family relationships, and the nature of friendships."

-This quote shows what books can teach a child. When reading a variety of books a child can see many different views on many different topics. It is good to have many different books in your classroom, so there are different experiences children can look at.

3) "Many children who are unused to books and being read to find it difficult to sit still for the time it takes the teacher to read even a fairly short picture book."

-This quote demonstrates how children that come from different backgrounds may react different to "story time". Also how those children that come from a background/ family that doesn't have story books or doesn't read to their children, they will have a harder time when a teacher reads a story to the class.

Quotes/ Comments/ Points to share:

This was a good article to explain how children act when a story is being read to them at "story time". Also, Meier gives good examples on how to make a story more interactive for the children the teacher is reading too. In this article, Meier explains how children from different backgrounds have different ways on doing things. Children should read when at home, but not all families make or encourage their children to read when not in school.

Peggy McIntosh; White Privilege Alicia Tougas

Quotes:

1) "Men's willingness to grant that they are over privileged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged."
- This quote shows how men are stubborn and won't change things. The sentence following this quote states how men can't or won't support the idea of lessening men's status, which proves how stubborn men can be.

2) "My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person or as a participant in a damaged culture."
- This quote goes back to ho children should learn more about these topics in their younger schooling years. If this was being taught/ brought to their attention at a younger age, it would be easier for them to talk about it and go about life.

3)"Disapproving of the systems won't be enough to change them."
- If people just go at the system and tell them how they don't approve of whats going on and this and that, then nothing will get done. This quote is telling us that we need to make some actions inseadt of just stating how we feel.


Questions/ Comments/ Points to share:

This article was an easy read. In the article McIntosh showed how those that have "White Privilege" don't really recognize it, because have not been outside their own environment. Unless someone is brought into a situation that they are not used to, then they won't really know how to act or what to do. McIntosh also shows how men have the power and don't want the women to have power. This article refers back to the article by Johnson and when he talked about White privlege and also Delphits Culture of Power and the way people live and who have the most power over others.

My name is Alicia and I am a junior at RIC. This semester is going better than last semster, becuase I transfred in last semester and had no idea where anything was. Now that I have figured things out it is easier to get around campus.