Monday, August 10, 2009
Trope
A trope is not real. A trope is a word that can be interpreted any way we please. A trope is a mask that hides the truth and is never taken off. A trope is a front, but do not back down. A trope looks great at first, but it does not work, so do not buy it. A trope is an empty shell, hard but breakable with the right tools. A trope is looking without seeing. A trope is the easy way out. A trope is an oasis that turns out to be a mirage. A trope lies, cheats and steals. A trope is a prison, physically, mentally, and spiritually. A trope is a trap.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Bilingualism and Me
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2657529.pdf
Until I got to college, I had never encountered bilingualism as a hot-button issue. In fact, the word bilingualism had not entered my vocabulary until recently. I grew up and went to school in San Francisco, the birthplace of Lau v. Nichols, where the teachers and curriculum are probably more open-minded compared to those of school districts in more conservative parts of the country. Also, many, perhaps a majority, of the students in the SFUSD are bilingual to some extant, usually with either Chinese or Spanish as their first language. An English Only stance would never see the light of day in my city. I think I first heard the term bilingualism in the Psychology 2 course I took at Cal, when I learned that bilingual students performed better academically than monolingual students. Since then, I had only heard good things about bilingual education, with one exception. In recent years, some politicians wanted to make English the official language of America, back when our failing economy was not the number one issue and illegal immigration and a border wall were instead on top of everyone's minds. But these lawmakers were just xenophobic fear mongers, the same people who changed French fries to Freedom fries when France declined to join our "Coalition of the Willing." I had yet to hear a solid argument against bilingualism. But at the same time, I just accepted without question that bilingualism enhances academic achievement, a widely accepted sentiment. I actually favored bilingualism more for the culture sharing it fostered. Then I read an interesting article, "Bilingualism and the Academic Achievement of First and Second Generation Asian Americans: Accommodation with or without Assimilation?" (The link is above), which posits that bilingualism's positive effect is mediated by the dialogue between the student and his or her parents made possible by bilingual education. Take a look.
Until I got to college, I had never encountered bilingualism as a hot-button issue. In fact, the word bilingualism had not entered my vocabulary until recently. I grew up and went to school in San Francisco, the birthplace of Lau v. Nichols, where the teachers and curriculum are probably more open-minded compared to those of school districts in more conservative parts of the country. Also, many, perhaps a majority, of the students in the SFUSD are bilingual to some extant, usually with either Chinese or Spanish as their first language. An English Only stance would never see the light of day in my city. I think I first heard the term bilingualism in the Psychology 2 course I took at Cal, when I learned that bilingual students performed better academically than monolingual students. Since then, I had only heard good things about bilingual education, with one exception. In recent years, some politicians wanted to make English the official language of America, back when our failing economy was not the number one issue and illegal immigration and a border wall were instead on top of everyone's minds. But these lawmakers were just xenophobic fear mongers, the same people who changed French fries to Freedom fries when France declined to join our "Coalition of the Willing." I had yet to hear a solid argument against bilingualism. But at the same time, I just accepted without question that bilingualism enhances academic achievement, a widely accepted sentiment. I actually favored bilingualism more for the culture sharing it fostered. Then I read an interesting article, "Bilingualism and the Academic Achievement of First and Second Generation Asian Americans: Accommodation with or without Assimilation?" (The link is above), which posits that bilingualism's positive effect is mediated by the dialogue between the student and his or her parents made possible by bilingual education. Take a look.
Model Minority (Myth?)
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3195710.pdf
I first heard the term "model-minority" in a Soc3AC I took a couple of summers ago. The class introduced the term to explain how some people were using Asian Americans to serve as a model of minority behavior and structure, in contrast to the other minorities, namely the African Americans and Hispanics, who they claimed to be underprivileged not because of a society that undermines minorities, but because of sometime inherent, genetic or otherwise, in these specific groups. I wanted to know more about how Asians and Asian Americans became a model-minority, having lived in that image my whole life, but the class only touched on this and moved on. About a month ago I came across an article called "A Model for Academic Success: The School and Home Environment of East Asian Students," which can be found by copying and pasting the above link. The article describes aspects of East Asian cultures which set up their children for academic success. Although two years removed, this article provided me some closure on that experience in sociology class. Since the sixth grade, I had attended large, highly-ranked public schools in San Francisco, where the majority of students were Asian. There were very few blacks and Hispanics at these schools. Influenced by popular culture, everyone, including myself, assumed and concluded this was the natural order of things. But are some cultures superior? They are superior only in that conform to the practices of the dominant group, the keys to social mobility. After reading in the reader "Beyond the model-minority stereotype: Voices of high- and low-achieving Asian-American students" (from the same academic journal as the above article) I heard, for the first time, stories of students who failed to "conform." Whether or not the model-minority is a myth, I can never again assume that we are all better prepared because of our background, that our culture is a factory that manufactures perfect, successful citizens.
I first heard the term "model-minority" in a Soc3AC I took a couple of summers ago. The class introduced the term to explain how some people were using Asian Americans to serve as a model of minority behavior and structure, in contrast to the other minorities, namely the African Americans and Hispanics, who they claimed to be underprivileged not because of a society that undermines minorities, but because of sometime inherent, genetic or otherwise, in these specific groups. I wanted to know more about how Asians and Asian Americans became a model-minority, having lived in that image my whole life, but the class only touched on this and moved on. About a month ago I came across an article called "A Model for Academic Success: The School and Home Environment of East Asian Students," which can be found by copying and pasting the above link. The article describes aspects of East Asian cultures which set up their children for academic success. Although two years removed, this article provided me some closure on that experience in sociology class. Since the sixth grade, I had attended large, highly-ranked public schools in San Francisco, where the majority of students were Asian. There were very few blacks and Hispanics at these schools. Influenced by popular culture, everyone, including myself, assumed and concluded this was the natural order of things. But are some cultures superior? They are superior only in that conform to the practices of the dominant group, the keys to social mobility. After reading in the reader "Beyond the model-minority stereotype: Voices of high- and low-achieving Asian-American students" (from the same academic journal as the above article) I heard, for the first time, stories of students who failed to "conform." Whether or not the model-minority is a myth, I can never again assume that we are all better prepared because of our background, that our culture is a factory that manufactures perfect, successful citizens.
The HiPass Model
http://www1.oise.utoronto.ca/documents/scheurich.pdf
The above URL links to an article I recently came across that provided the inspiration for my blog's name. While I encountered this paper outside my activities for EDU140, its relevance to the class was timely. The article, called "Highly Successful and Loving, Public Elementary Schools Populated Mainly by Low-SES Children of Color: Core Beliefs and Cultural Characteristics," (a mouthful) outlines a school model - the HiPass model - that has proven highly successful for children who have been historically perceived as destined for failure. After hearing the principal of St. Martin de Porres come to our class and speak about his school, and after going to the school myself for the first time, the setting immediately brought to my mind HiPass. Here was a school, located in one of the most economically devastated, crime-ridden parts of the country, providing a different option for the neighborhood's children, a college prep option. The school's goal is clear - success and a positive future for all its children. And if you read the article, you will know that this is Core Belief 1 of 5 of the HiPass model. The HiPass is refreshingly new to someone like me who takes classes in college where grades are regularly curved, meaning some are destined to succeed and some fail. Also, throughout my primary and secondary education, learning often felt like a scramble to the top, because there was only limited space at the mountain peak. In middle school, there were three different hierachical tracks of math students tested into. At my high school, the nation's 4th largest pool of AP test takers, pressure was an understatement. School was, and still remains for me, a competition. And though this environment has helped me for the most part, I wonder how my K-12 education, and life, would have been changed by the HiPass model.
The above URL links to an article I recently came across that provided the inspiration for my blog's name. While I encountered this paper outside my activities for EDU140, its relevance to the class was timely. The article, called "Highly Successful and Loving, Public Elementary Schools Populated Mainly by Low-SES Children of Color: Core Beliefs and Cultural Characteristics," (a mouthful) outlines a school model - the HiPass model - that has proven highly successful for children who have been historically perceived as destined for failure. After hearing the principal of St. Martin de Porres come to our class and speak about his school, and after going to the school myself for the first time, the setting immediately brought to my mind HiPass. Here was a school, located in one of the most economically devastated, crime-ridden parts of the country, providing a different option for the neighborhood's children, a college prep option. The school's goal is clear - success and a positive future for all its children. And if you read the article, you will know that this is Core Belief 1 of 5 of the HiPass model. The HiPass is refreshingly new to someone like me who takes classes in college where grades are regularly curved, meaning some are destined to succeed and some fail. Also, throughout my primary and secondary education, learning often felt like a scramble to the top, because there was only limited space at the mountain peak. In middle school, there were three different hierachical tracks of math students tested into. At my high school, the nation's 4th largest pool of AP test takers, pressure was an understatement. School was, and still remains for me, a competition. And though this environment has helped me for the most part, I wonder how my K-12 education, and life, would have been changed by the HiPass model.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Chinglish
Growing up in the diverse city of San Francisco
Monday, July 20, 2009
Brown Yellow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsHYIGgnlx4
The link is to a video made by some students from my high school graduating class. I attended a San Francisco public high school with an admission requirement based on middle school GPA and the state-administered STAR test. Consequently, a majority of our school was Asian, mostly Chinese, including myself. Whites comprised most of the rest of the student body, and blacks and Hispanics formed a microscopic minority. Although the stereotypes portrayed are obviously exaggerated for comical effect, the video does hint at something real at our school. To get into our school is hard enough. To succeed at our school is even harder. It requires a way of life that involves "AP Calculus-BC ... AP Chinese" (not AP Karate, regretfully). Our school, like our city and the Bay Area in general, definitely is a contact zone. And if contact zones involve a dominant and a submissive culture, the "AP way of life," strongly associated with and practiced by Asians at our school, was the key to a big name institution of higher learning and, presumably, success.
The link is to a video made by some students from my high school graduating class. I attended a San Francisco public high school with an admission requirement based on middle school GPA and the state-administered STAR test. Consequently, a majority of our school was Asian, mostly Chinese, including myself. Whites comprised most of the rest of the student body, and blacks and Hispanics formed a microscopic minority. Although the stereotypes portrayed are obviously exaggerated for comical effect, the video does hint at something real at our school. To get into our school is hard enough. To succeed at our school is even harder. It requires a way of life that involves "AP Calculus-BC ... AP Chinese" (not AP Karate, regretfully). Our school, like our city and the Bay Area in general, definitely is a contact zone. And if contact zones involve a dominant and a submissive culture, the "AP way of life," strongly associated with and practiced by Asians at our school, was the key to a big name institution of higher learning and, presumably, success.
Improving the Human Experience
I have been well instructed in research ethics through my college experiences for the past couple of years. Research must demonstrate a realizable, prospective benefit to the world in some way. Otherwise, the research is unwarranted. This is especially true when the research involves experiments with human and animal subjects. Basically, research, in any area, is about improving the human experience, not knowledge for knowledge's sake. Reciprocity, then, is really just achieving that end at the site and time of the research. I learned about reciprocity actually just two months ago in another class I was taking this summer - Medical Ethnobotany, with Professor Thomas Carlson. Professor Carlson talked about research agreements such as reciprocity and the return of research results to the host country, not just obtaining prior informed consent, which up until then I assumed all research agreement meant. Professor Carlson gave examples of reciprocity where he asks the local community what they need, prior to any research being conducted. Sometimes it meant a clean-water system, and at other times it meant school supplies. This is similar to Ellen Cushman allowing members of the community she was studying access to her university's computers. It may not mean too much to Cushman, but it could be important to those community members. So reciprocity can definitely exist in research. At times it is difficult to make the connection between the highbrow research conducted within the hallowed halls of a university setting, and the everyday people waiting for a cure or hoping for change. But the connection is there, and we all, especially the researchers, need to keep this in mind as we do our best to improve the human experience.
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