Sunday, July 8, 2012
Reflection #5
For this week's blog entry, I decided to focus on Affirming Diversity. I was very happy to read the case studies in Chapter 8, and was quite interested by them. For my Student Behavior and Adolescent Development class, I read a case study a week and really enjoyed writing about one a couple of classes ago. The case studies I want to reflect on that of a young girl who from the United States named Nadia Bara. She is a high school freshman. Nadia was born and raised in the United States with her older sister. Her parents are from Syria and moved to the US after getting married. She is Arabic and Muslim and identifies with these qualities just as much as she identifies with being American. Nadia discusses the struggle to find a balance between her roots and the country she calls home. I believe we have discussed a lot of this in class back when we were reading about immigration. She also discusses the stereotypes she faces as an Arabic Muslim. Since the 9/11 attacks, she has had to deal with the preconceived notions people have towards those of a Middle Eastern background. Nadia writes about some serious issues in a very mature style, while still maintaining a youthful tone. I found her essay to be an optimistic and hopeful one. She sounds confident in her desire for stereotypes to be broken, especially those that have been applied to her culture and her religion. I was really glad to read more case studies on immigration, and more case studies in general. I find that I learn more from the experiences of someone else than I do from an informative, textbook write up about the same topic. It was much easier to learn about and understand what life has been like for Muslims in the US since 9/11.
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Becca,
ReplyDeleteI wish more people had access to stories such as Nadia's. Our post-9/11 culture demonizes people from the Middle East and those who are Muslims and groups them together as the Others that we must fear. Listening to conversations, I hear people refer to Middle Easterners and Muslims as "they," forgetting that, even though there is a small group of extremists, the rest are good people. One way to end this stereotyping and hatred is to present personal, revelatory, and enlightening accounts of people within this area and religion.
Hey, I also really like reading case studies like we do in John Brown's class. I think they are easier to relate to then textbooks or lectures, and I found Nadia's case especially informative. It was sad to see the stereotypes and generalizations she had to fight against. I think we, as educators, can help students battle this bigotry by teaching about all cultures. People usually fear things they do not understand and if teachers can educate their students about all cultures I think everyone will be more accepting and we can break through the cycle of oppression.
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