Promising Practices

I had mixed feelings walking into the Promising Practices Conference. I was running late, like usual, which made me even more nervous and flustered, and the minute I walked in I realized that I was totally overdressed. After my initial anxiety slowed down I walked over to the table and found my folder. I stood in the corner of Donovan and began to scan for people that I could sit with. I was nervously searching for a few minutes until I found Tara. I felt much better after finding a familiar face to sit with.

My first session was called The Media Made Me Do It, by Marco McWilliams. His main focus during this session was to show us how much the media manipulates consumers and how often privilege and stereotypes are depicted in advertisements. I already have a strong background with this topic because I took a class called Gender and Society during my first semester and RIC. It was still interesting to hear Marco McWilliams' take on the topic and to see the reactions of my peers who were realizing these things for the first time. One thing that I wish he did differently was the way that he set up his presentation. He had a powerpoint presentation where he showed a lot of advertisements and related information. Even though I think this was helpful to his presentation, I wish that he incorporated the audience more. I felt like his presentation was more of a lecture than a workshop.

He repeatedly pointed out issues relating to Johnson involving privilege. It is common for advertisements to depict the value of whiteness, masculinity, and wealth in particular. McWilliams provided many examples of advertisements when women are objectified, seen as sexual figures, and most importantly less important than men. When men and women are seen together in ads, it is common for men to depict a person of strength, power, and assertiveness, where women are often more passive and weak. Race and class also come into the picture when males and females are advertised together because the few times that women are seen as stronger and more important than the men is when they are of a higher class or race; When their lack of gender privilege is superseded by another form of privilege. Marco McWilliams also touched on Delpit's idea of the rules and codes of power. Advertising companies and other forms of the media have manipulated consumers into accepting that these absolutely ridiculous visuals are okay. They know what sells and how to convince consumers that these are positive images when they are allowing major issues like objectifying women as sex objects to carry on.










These are just a few of the images that Macro McWilliams included in his presentation. The issues in the first advertisement are pretty self explanatory. Clearly the girl's facial expression, the shape of the food being advertised, and the name of the food make sexual references. The Dolce and Gabbana advertisement is very oppressive to women. She is very passive, allowing herself to be controlled, and pushing her hips towards the male in a sexual way. They are all depicted as members of the same class. Though many people would not notice as first thought, this is a very strong representation of a gang bang. The third advertisement blew me away. During McWilliams' presentation he showed these pictures separately. The cover of this magazine underwent a lot of criticism, even before someone linked it to the advertisement of the U.S. army. The last advertisement posted on my blog is a good example of how women are objectified. Her head is cut out of the picture which shows that the focus is only on her body, her physical appearance. The comment "wash me" written on her stomach shows that she is asking for attention from men.

After taking some time to visit the different stations at the Conference Resource Fair and spending sometime with a group of people from FNED, I walked over to my second workshop called The Power of Numbers, with Constance Horton. I did not realize that this workshop was held by one of my current professors until I walked in. It was nice to be in a comfort zone, however, part of me wishes that I chose a workshop where I would have been pushed out of my comfort zone. Being a math concentration, I found her presentation to be very interesting. Her main focus was on the importance of numeracy literacy. She began the workshop by relating numeracy literacy to reading literacy and how, as a society, we have become much more accepting of innumeracy illiteracy than reading illiteracy. She did a good job involving everyone in the workshop. She set up a website with all of the information that we were working on during the workshop that we were all able to access. She also asked everyone to take part in a text messaging pole online regarding math related questions. I felt like this was a good way for everyone to take part in the activities without having to feel uncomfortable. It was also an interesting way to watch the poles change before our eyes and visually see where the entire class stood on the various questions. Constance Horton then went on to show us ways that numeracy literacy provides us with rules and codes of power. There are many instances where numeracy literacy is important in order to be an intelligent consumer. For instance, understanding loans, credit card rates, taxes, bills, job salaries, etc, all require numeracy literacy. Overall, I felt like this workshop was informative and engaging.

Tricia Rose, the key speaker of the conference, was by far my favorite part of the entire day. The way that she spoke to us was very real, informative, and entertaining. Her speech was very structured and organized but still very creative. I think it was important that she mentioned the idea of teaching multiculturalism in a way that enables students. This reminded me a lot of Christensen and her tactics which not only informs her students of the injustices in the world but assists them in taking action to make changes. This also relates to Johnson's idea of being the change. Even though it is important for teachers to inform students of these issues, it is only helpful when they are left feeling that they can be a part of the change. Another part of her speech which resonated with me was her story of the girl in her class who called her computer gay. This was a good example of a painful circumstance that could not be stepped over. This story also reminded me of Carlson's article regarding the lack of focus on these oppressive comments in schools. When teachers choose to step over these situations and allow things of this nature to be said in their classrooms, it shows that they do not see them as problematic. If authoritative figures do not take action against oppression, it can not be expected that others will stop the oppression either. The piece of Tricia Rose's speech that was most impacting on me was her discussion of the difference between a person's group identity versus their individual identity. I agree with her comment involving the importance of realizing that having a privilege does not mean that all targets toward this groups is also targeted toward each individual of the group. Tricia Rose stated that "we do not choose the person we are when we come into this world but we do choose the alliances we make with other people...it isn't about what you are but what you do with your situation". I think this quote practically sums up everything that we have been learning in FNED. Basically, that it is important to recognize privilege, and your group identity, but that it is the responsibility of every individual to choose the alliances that they will make from other groups. This idea also reminded me of Jonathan Kozol's speech at RIC. He, also, spent a lot of time focusing on the importance of individual decisions in terms of making alliances with other groups. He felt that it was important for well educated, typically white and middle-class perspective teachers to reach out to students who are less privileged: lower-class students of minorities. I am really glad that I had the opportunity to listen to both Kozol and Rose. I feel like hearing both of them helped me to understand one another as well as gain a deeper understanding for the similar topics that they spoke about. I think this conference was very informative and related to the topics we have been focusing on in FNED. Overall, it was a good learning experience for me.