My
focus is youth mentoring and the need for more adult participation. Being a mentor and working in a high school
has shown me there are skills, abilities, and experiences children could learn
from a wide variety of people.
To think of leading public intellectuals today was a difficult task. I say this because I spend so much of my time trying to determine how I will convey information to an audience that quite often needs to be entertained more than they want to learn. For me, educators carry a certain amount of the intellectual weight simply because they have an unknown audience that looks to them for information and wisdom. My parents used to was a program called the Tavis Smiley Show when I was younger. Listening to them have conversation about the topics and issues Tavis Smiley presented as well as the people he would have on his show is something that I think helped me to grow. It is not that he was a leading intellectual, but he would raise issues and questions that could be answered by intellectuals which I then saw discussed by my parents and others. I feel that there need to be more of these discussions today so children learn to speak up for themselves and issues...
This course taught me to provide a space for my students to discuss what is happening in the world around them and how to do so in a manner productive for all people who wish to contribute to the greater good. I enjoyed hearing everyone's thoughts, opinions, and seeing the diversity represented makes me more aware of providing the same kind of opportunities in my school. There are teachable moments in all the books and readings; my sociology students are going love discussions based on them. The most interesting thing I am taking away from class is conversation surrounding the space of public opinion and what public discourse looks like to a kid in high school today. I think this will be great for students to ponder and the learning that can come out the conversation will be very informative. Thank you to everyone in the class, enjoy your summer!!!
I feel like I agree in many respects with Malcolm Gladwell. The weak connections of social media make it easy for someone to “scroll” over your “post” for action. Lacking the in person connection makes it difficult to advance movements and ideas. As was said in class, so many people show up because word is spread through social media, but they can often be left wondering what is next. Social media can allow for the absence of leadership because just seeing a post makes you aware of the issue at hand, but that does not mean you will feel the need to act on what you saw. However, social media’s ability to gather large masses of people with a common vision or goal is incredible. The determining factor in people’s participation comes down to how serious or important is the idea or movement to that individual. Looking back on the Civil Rights movement and what people were fighting for made it easier for people to actively pursue change. The sta...
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