Writing #5
Ideologies are just sets of aims. Goals for how we perceive what we are being exposed to. My next piece is going to be about the history of body art and modification and there are many diffferent ideologies that can be declared about the topic. Ancient history and modern research has shown that in paerticular parts of the world people looked upon tattooing and piercings as a passport from childhood to adulthood. Beauty was also affiliated with many different types of piercings and tattoos. Age was also another factor. Stretched labrets and earlobes in some cultures indicate age hence the older you are the bigger the stretch. Now-a-days, when we reach a certain age we believe that piercings should be taken out and allowed to grow shut and tattoos should not be so flaunted. Within the American borders, we have many different ideologies about body art. Some people look upon modified individuals as satanic and evil where as some others believe the modifications to be a form of expression and beauty. When you look at this on the flip side, what are the ideologies of the people who wear these modifications? Some people obtain tattoos and/or piercings because they like they way it looks while some others do it because they are marking their bodies for mourning reasons or even therapeutic reasons. Some on the other hand want others viewing them to see them as “hard-core” or “bad ass.” Basically, some do it for shock value. How and why do people have these certain ideologies towards body art and modification? That is a very good question and meta-ideology might be able to help us get a insight or at least a better insight than we had before.
Meta-ideology is the structure, the form and manifestation of ideologies. The how and why. It is more normal for soemone in america to see the face of a human being tattooed or pierced with stretched piercings and wicked tattoos and be shocked a little. Africa, on the other hand, might be a stranger place if they saw a person or people who did not have stretched piercings and tattoos on their face (along with the rest of them.) The ideology of a particular place involves understanding the normal perspective of the whole whether that be country, community or household. All depending on the societal norms of that particular location has influence on your personal ideologies as well as others personal ideologies. Not only personal but rather political ideologies are affected and based on society.
Political ideologies tend to concern themselves with things such as education, labor laws, criminal laws, healthcare…etc. Body modification could very well become a topic of discussion during a certain political debate. Seeing how piercings and tattoos can reduce the likelihood of someone obtaining a good paying job and going somewhere with the knowledge they know inside but do not socially show. Massacheutes has already made tattooing illegal and who knows what other states are next. It only depends on whether or not the ideologies of the main people in charge are for or against it. Whether or not the norm requires change or not. It can be very complicated but I would llike to think that my ideas are mine and not that of just the norm. I don’t want to be like everyone else. When are the ideologies of the norm going to become that of the abnorm as well? Either way it goes, there will always be conflict of interest and different ideologies flying around, we just have to learn to make our own minds up.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Media Literacy and it's Importance.
Writing # 4
I know I have seen at least two of the few people I see in my classrooms, where note-taking on your laptop is permissible, “listening” to the teacher and playing on Myspace or watching you-tube videos. Speaking of you-tube, there was a video posted of a class from Kansas State University where students held up a piece of paper with a few words expressing themselves, and among a couple of these expressive placards were, “I facebook through most of my classes” and “I bring my laptop to class but I’m not working on class stuff.” Professor Michael Wesch of Kansas State University, responsible for the you-tube video, gave a speech on different ways to teach and understanding that with time comes changes and learning to understand the different multiliteracies out there plays a significant part in how the new generations should be educated.
I would like to think I am not alone but when it comes to writing a piece for a class or whether a good story flashes within my head and I want to preserve that thought, it is very challenging for me to transfer information from my brain to a sheet of paper using a pen or pencil (depending on preference at the time) and make sense of it. Typing on a keyboard, allowing me to freely rearrange sentences and locations of paragraphs without arrows and squiggly lines, is a much easier way for me to create a writing. I’ve noticed the quality of the flow and meaning of my words is better when I’ve typed a piece rather than writing it by hand. When Michael Wesch asked his students during one of his lectures, “How many students do not like school?” around half, give or take a few, raised their hands. Following that question was, “How many students do not like learning?” The results yielded zero hands in the air. If we really think about this, since all the students in that class liked to learn but half did not like school, does that mean that half of the students just do not like the environment in which they are learning? Sounds like to me it’s the classroom, not the criteria. That is why some students Myspace, Facebook, You-Tube,… during class.
What is a good way to get the internet junkie to want to do their homework? Put it on the internet, maybe? That is one good point Professor Wesch was trying to make in his video on ’Media Literacy.’ According to the students’ self report, they admitted to only reading, on average, approximately 49% of their assigned readings while finding only about 26% of them seemed relevant to their life. He mentioned how we perceive information on paper as a thing and a thing cannot be in more than one place at a time while Hyper-linking, on the other hand, proves this wrong. Information can not only be in many places at once, it can actually come to us rather than having to be searched for. It is amazing how times have changed and I agree with Professor Wesch when he proclaimed that learning to read the media and understand how it all works is very important, especially with the technology that is already here and soon to come.
Professor Wesch asked, isn’t saying “I’m just not cut our for school” the same thing as saying “I’m just not cut out for learning?” I do not agree with this statement although Professor Michael Wesch does. I do understand that school’s purpose is to teach students and maybe it is not the criteria being taught but how and where it is being taught. The ways in which the criteria is being taught might not work for some students. Some people just cannot learn in a classroom setting where they feel confined by the walls surrounding them. Wesch stated, “To learn is to create significance and meaningful connections.” and some students cannot do this within the walls of a classroom.
Kevin Kelly put it best when he said, “Nobody is as smart as everybody.” and with the use of media (internet) knowledge can be combined to find the most advanced information on any subject (when you can decipher between sources and reliable sources.) Students can also put personality into their work by using visual and audio aid rather than just words. I would have to agree with Professor Wesch that media literacy is becoming more important than ever and it is important for teachers and professors to incorporate media literacy into their methods of teaching.
I know I have seen at least two of the few people I see in my classrooms, where note-taking on your laptop is permissible, “listening” to the teacher and playing on Myspace or watching you-tube videos. Speaking of you-tube, there was a video posted of a class from Kansas State University where students held up a piece of paper with a few words expressing themselves, and among a couple of these expressive placards were, “I facebook through most of my classes” and “I bring my laptop to class but I’m not working on class stuff.” Professor Michael Wesch of Kansas State University, responsible for the you-tube video, gave a speech on different ways to teach and understanding that with time comes changes and learning to understand the different multiliteracies out there plays a significant part in how the new generations should be educated.
I would like to think I am not alone but when it comes to writing a piece for a class or whether a good story flashes within my head and I want to preserve that thought, it is very challenging for me to transfer information from my brain to a sheet of paper using a pen or pencil (depending on preference at the time) and make sense of it. Typing on a keyboard, allowing me to freely rearrange sentences and locations of paragraphs without arrows and squiggly lines, is a much easier way for me to create a writing. I’ve noticed the quality of the flow and meaning of my words is better when I’ve typed a piece rather than writing it by hand. When Michael Wesch asked his students during one of his lectures, “How many students do not like school?” around half, give or take a few, raised their hands. Following that question was, “How many students do not like learning?” The results yielded zero hands in the air. If we really think about this, since all the students in that class liked to learn but half did not like school, does that mean that half of the students just do not like the environment in which they are learning? Sounds like to me it’s the classroom, not the criteria. That is why some students Myspace, Facebook, You-Tube,… during class.
What is a good way to get the internet junkie to want to do their homework? Put it on the internet, maybe? That is one good point Professor Wesch was trying to make in his video on ’Media Literacy.’ According to the students’ self report, they admitted to only reading, on average, approximately 49% of their assigned readings while finding only about 26% of them seemed relevant to their life. He mentioned how we perceive information on paper as a thing and a thing cannot be in more than one place at a time while Hyper-linking, on the other hand, proves this wrong. Information can not only be in many places at once, it can actually come to us rather than having to be searched for. It is amazing how times have changed and I agree with Professor Wesch when he proclaimed that learning to read the media and understand how it all works is very important, especially with the technology that is already here and soon to come.
Professor Wesch asked, isn’t saying “I’m just not cut our for school” the same thing as saying “I’m just not cut out for learning?” I do not agree with this statement although Professor Michael Wesch does. I do understand that school’s purpose is to teach students and maybe it is not the criteria being taught but how and where it is being taught. The ways in which the criteria is being taught might not work for some students. Some people just cannot learn in a classroom setting where they feel confined by the walls surrounding them. Wesch stated, “To learn is to create significance and meaningful connections.” and some students cannot do this within the walls of a classroom.
Kevin Kelly put it best when he said, “Nobody is as smart as everybody.” and with the use of media (internet) knowledge can be combined to find the most advanced information on any subject (when you can decipher between sources and reliable sources.) Students can also put personality into their work by using visual and audio aid rather than just words. I would have to agree with Professor Wesch that media literacy is becoming more important than ever and it is important for teachers and professors to incorporate media literacy into their methods of teaching.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Life
WRITING #3
When you know everything, you are practically immortal; when you know nothing, there is no existence. Life in general, teaches us how to survive. If something is wrong with our being, survival requires tending from others. Does this go towards all living things? We all know the saying, "The strong survive, the weak die." When I look at the picture above, I think of my life and the handfuls of shit that life has thrown my direction. I feel as though this tree represents all things about me (and others) and it makes me realize that everyone has problems, how you handle them represents who you are. I see life when I see this tree and where it begins for both human and tree life, is birth.
Conception of a human lifeform begins with a fertilized egg within a woman's uterus. We are as a seed beneath the earth protected from all outside dangers. Though we are protected, we still are affected by our outside host. Weather complications as well as pregnancy complications are outside complications and what goes on outside, helps/hurts the inside. As we grow older, our bones (branches) grow larger, taller and stronger. We are more likely to survive during harsh conditions. The older we get, the more independent we become and along with age comes knowledge. When I gaze upon this tree, I perceive knowledge and knowledge is also vital to survival hence that saying once again, "The strong survive, the weak die." Strength is having both brain and brawn and I would like to think I obtain a little bit of both.
Everything we learn gives us a new branch to explore and learn from. We find that with each branch comes a new lesson about what not to do again or where the best position is to absorb sunlight. We are given so many options but only a few we take just as which direction a branch chooses to grow is a vast limitation where all options can not be occupied. The more we learn, the stronger we become and the more independent and able to protect ourselves we become. Where trees grow flowers and fruits, people grow a better understanding of concepts and ideas. Life tends to be pretty cruel at times and certain experiences we endure, mold and shape the foundation of who we are and what we will become. Life can sometimes send things our way that leave us twisted and knotted and it seems that we have no symmetry. One shoulder always seems heavier than the other and we tend to feel a little less wind resistant. Sometimes, the wind just hits a little too hard and we all end up losing a couple branches but as long as we still survive, we've done exactly that, survive. In order to survive, we must live and with life comes death. Death is something I, as well as many others, do not like to think about but we all know it is bound to happen. Everything that lives, must die.
Like a tree, we all have a beginning, a middle and an end. Although the whole process may differ in various aspects, when you really look at the picture from a metaphoric view, humans and trees have quite a bit in common. As a tree ages, it loses a few branches here and there and when death is approaching, leaves are no longer produced. As people age, we tend to forget certain things we used to know thus causing a few of our branches to dilapidate and fall to the ground and as death calls, we can no longer comprehend new ideas or form them for the matter. Our flowers curl up and die and we are left with an empty lifeless branch. While both human and tree life end, that's not to say we do not leave something behind.
Both humans and trees have roots that lie deep down below the surface and whether the purpose for our existence consists of offering shade on a sunny day or helping a friend change a tire, our existence leaves an imprint deep down below the surface. At least one person or one thing will benefit from our existence and both human and tree life is important. Whether life hands us a a bouquet of flowers or a heaping pile of pain, we must learn to take things one branch at a time and no matter how we choose to respond to life, we leave that mark behind and with that mark comes the world's perception of who we are and were and that is why I love this image. It makes me want to be the best person I know how to be.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Singing Hands
WRITING #2
My fascination with speaking hands began early in my life when my deaf cousin came and lived with my family for a while. He was able to speak properly, though slightly different, and read lips like an expert. After learning the alphabet my fascination grew only stronger. I didn't really have a need for the language but I still just had to learn it. My family decided to move and there I was, in a new environment and friendless with no one who understood me until she came along. A deaf girl that lived on the next street began talking to me and I was hooked. She understood me like no one had before and she taught me how to sign. We shared a love for music, though she had never heard any before, and we became best friends and it opened me up to a completely different way of enjoying music and the sounds I so often took for granted.
My cousin, the most wacky human being I've ever met, came to my house to stay for a while and since that visit, I have never been the same. He was an expert at reading lips and could speak very clearly for some one who could no longer hear the pronunciation of words. There was no need for sign language in our conversations but when his deaf friends came out the glorious language was all I could focus on. The beautiful gestures and motions combined with such expression was a language I was dying to learn. I asked him one day to teach me how to communicate with my hands as he did and he informed me that it would take some time but he was more than willing to try. We began with the alphabet.
I practiced and practiced until my fingers just about fell off but one thing I did not do was give up. I was determined to learn this language and determined I remained. That time came when my cousin was to be on his way and he moved away and I didn't see him again for quite some time though I never let that discourage me.
My family decided it was time for a change in scenery and we moved to a different county, far away from everyone I knew. I was surrounded by a new environment and new people and nothing and no one understood me. I was all alone in a vast and desolate world, or so I felt.
My fascination with speaking hands began early in my life when my deaf cousin came and lived with my family for a while. He was able to speak properly, though slightly different, and read lips like an expert. After learning the alphabet my fascination grew only stronger. I didn't really have a need for the language but I still just had to learn it. My family decided to move and there I was, in a new environment and friendless with no one who understood me until she came along. A deaf girl that lived on the next street began talking to me and I was hooked. She understood me like no one had before and she taught me how to sign. We shared a love for music, though she had never heard any before, and we became best friends and it opened me up to a completely different way of enjoying music and the sounds I so often took for granted.
My cousin, the most wacky human being I've ever met, came to my house to stay for a while and since that visit, I have never been the same. He was an expert at reading lips and could speak very clearly for some one who could no longer hear the pronunciation of words. There was no need for sign language in our conversations but when his deaf friends came out the glorious language was all I could focus on. The beautiful gestures and motions combined with such expression was a language I was dying to learn. I asked him one day to teach me how to communicate with my hands as he did and he informed me that it would take some time but he was more than willing to try. We began with the alphabet.
I practiced and practiced until my fingers just about fell off but one thing I did not do was give up. I was determined to learn this language and determined I remained. That time came when my cousin was to be on his way and he moved away and I didn't see him again for quite some time though I never let that discourage me.
My family decided it was time for a change in scenery and we moved to a different county, far away from everyone I knew. I was surrounded by a new environment and new people and nothing and no one understood me. I was all alone in a vast and desolate world, or so I felt.
That was when she came along. A girl who had an awesome personality, understood me and shared my love for music, though she had never heard any, and I knew I had found my best friend. Our conversations started off very slow and tedious but humorous and adventurous to say the least. I would slowly spell out a word and she would introduce the sign to me where I would use it and remember it. It took me a while to become fluent but it was time well spent. Even though she had never heard music before, she desired so strongly to be a dancer. She asked me to teach her to dance and let me tell you, that was an adventure. We would crank up some music with a strong bass line and I taught her how to tell the difference between the main bass line and the little background bumps in order to keep with the right beat. After many many hours of practice, I had her dancing like a star. Okay, maybe not like a star but very well and on beat. An accomplishment if I do say so myself.
Not only did I help her learn to feel the music and dance along with it, I would sign songs to her when the closed captioning was not available on certain channels. Signing music was a completely different kind of sign language and though it was challenging, it gave me a better appreciation for the emotion put behind words and music and fun is something I can definitely say it was. Throughout my years of practicing sign language and the art of signing music and songs, I discovered that this was an art form practiced more commonly than I had believed. I began searching for songs interpreted in sign language to better understand the difference between words and concepts and how to translate them in a more emotional manner.
Music was and still is a major part of my life and without it I believe I would go crazy. On the other hand, sign language gave me the ability to show what I'm saying on top of just verbalizing my ideas. Combining the two gave me a better appreciation for both the language and music of all different kinds. Rather than just listening to the music, I now understand how to feel it. I guess if you really wanted to look at it from the beginning, I should thank my cousin and my family for moving us to a place where my fascination of speaking hands would grow and teach me more about the English language I speak everyday. I am glad that I was part of a conflicting love between silence and sounds. I must thank each and everyone who helped me along my journey and although I am fluent in the beautiful language of American Sign Language, I have much more to learn still and that is what I intend to do.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Under the Influence
WRITING #1
An extremely hot August day brings an American girl to wear her cute little pink shorts that say “Flirt” across her bottom and a white tank top so revealing she might as well be topless. All of her friends are in outfits very similar to the one she is wearing and society does nothing to stop this. It is popular for young girls to parade around in basically their underwear because the media and other social influences say it is okay. If these girls who barely dress were never exposed to the media where “skin is in” would they still want to dress so provocatively? Why is it that a majority of young Muslim women and older women as well dress so that only their eyes hands and feet can be seen? Is it because they are ashamed of their bodies and do not wish for anyone to see what they look like? Doubtful. No, it is not because they are not confident within their own skin but rather because their culture believes that is the right way to be. We, as human beings, are all born with certain knowledge and we see things how we see them but also, as human beings, our perception and the way we perceive and interpret our surrounding environment, long-stretched ideas or any other type of imaginable substance has been molded and shaped based on the container we are forced to survive in. Take for instance, a painting of the night sky on a winter night, one person viewing this art might set the emotion as being cold and lonely, surrounded by vast emptiness and a cold chill to really imprint the harsh conditions in the viewer’s mind; one might also see the painting as an endless quest for opportunity, the cold rendering a slow process to get to the main goal to have it built up much more beautifully or just for visual pleasure. So many different ideas on how things should be perceived and there is only one thing to blame, social influence.
Whether one is influenced by family, friends, music or what have you, it is still social influences and personal experiences that made us who we are. If not for social situations, personal experiences would not exist. Environment is also a major determining factor on how we perceive things. My boyfriend might feel safe walking through the park at 2am whereas I would not. For one thing, I am a woman who could be taken advantage of much more easily than a man. I appear to be an easy target whereas a man does not. Not only that, but all depending on where that park is located, I might not even feel safe walking through the park and 2pm. If I made a joke about a tough girl who could walk alone through the park at night with a bunch of girls who reside in a bad neighborhood, that would be perceived as a funny joke whereas if I made that same joke to a group of older women in the rich neighborhood where everything is as right as rain, that comment would be rendered pointless. What we are taught and how we are taught it affect how we view other’s ideas of what and how we should be taught.
My parents are against bi-racial and gay relationships and I grew up my whole life hearing that two people of different ethnicities or of the same sex should not be together. I am sure that this belief was taught to them just as they were trying to teach me. The only difference is that I did not let my parents sway my personal belief that no one can help who they love whether the two people share the same gender or do not share the same skin color. I believe that if two people want to be together, no matter what genetic background or any other factors that are commonly disagreed upon, that they have every right to be as miserable as the rest of us. Even though my parents are not racist nor do they act differently towards people of different beliefs, they did try to instill certain beliefs into me that society (or rather parts of) had already affected.
No matter what example is used or how many examples are used, it is quite evident that social influences affect how we interpret different styles, pictures, art, music and any other part of life. Everything is tied together somehow and by affecting one individual part, you have affected the whole, the statistics and every component of its existence therefore leaning toward someone else learning a new concept and starting a new style of living. Social influences are what made us who we are and we need to keep that in mind when new lives are brought into the world because if not, nothing will ever get better.
An extremely hot August day brings an American girl to wear her cute little pink shorts that say “Flirt” across her bottom and a white tank top so revealing she might as well be topless. All of her friends are in outfits very similar to the one she is wearing and society does nothing to stop this. It is popular for young girls to parade around in basically their underwear because the media and other social influences say it is okay. If these girls who barely dress were never exposed to the media where “skin is in” would they still want to dress so provocatively? Why is it that a majority of young Muslim women and older women as well dress so that only their eyes hands and feet can be seen? Is it because they are ashamed of their bodies and do not wish for anyone to see what they look like? Doubtful. No, it is not because they are not confident within their own skin but rather because their culture believes that is the right way to be. We, as human beings, are all born with certain knowledge and we see things how we see them but also, as human beings, our perception and the way we perceive and interpret our surrounding environment, long-stretched ideas or any other type of imaginable substance has been molded and shaped based on the container we are forced to survive in. Take for instance, a painting of the night sky on a winter night, one person viewing this art might set the emotion as being cold and lonely, surrounded by vast emptiness and a cold chill to really imprint the harsh conditions in the viewer’s mind; one might also see the painting as an endless quest for opportunity, the cold rendering a slow process to get to the main goal to have it built up much more beautifully or just for visual pleasure. So many different ideas on how things should be perceived and there is only one thing to blame, social influence.
Whether one is influenced by family, friends, music or what have you, it is still social influences and personal experiences that made us who we are. If not for social situations, personal experiences would not exist. Environment is also a major determining factor on how we perceive things. My boyfriend might feel safe walking through the park at 2am whereas I would not. For one thing, I am a woman who could be taken advantage of much more easily than a man. I appear to be an easy target whereas a man does not. Not only that, but all depending on where that park is located, I might not even feel safe walking through the park and 2pm. If I made a joke about a tough girl who could walk alone through the park at night with a bunch of girls who reside in a bad neighborhood, that would be perceived as a funny joke whereas if I made that same joke to a group of older women in the rich neighborhood where everything is as right as rain, that comment would be rendered pointless. What we are taught and how we are taught it affect how we view other’s ideas of what and how we should be taught.
My parents are against bi-racial and gay relationships and I grew up my whole life hearing that two people of different ethnicities or of the same sex should not be together. I am sure that this belief was taught to them just as they were trying to teach me. The only difference is that I did not let my parents sway my personal belief that no one can help who they love whether the two people share the same gender or do not share the same skin color. I believe that if two people want to be together, no matter what genetic background or any other factors that are commonly disagreed upon, that they have every right to be as miserable as the rest of us. Even though my parents are not racist nor do they act differently towards people of different beliefs, they did try to instill certain beliefs into me that society (or rather parts of) had already affected.
No matter what example is used or how many examples are used, it is quite evident that social influences affect how we interpret different styles, pictures, art, music and any other part of life. Everything is tied together somehow and by affecting one individual part, you have affected the whole, the statistics and every component of its existence therefore leaning toward someone else learning a new concept and starting a new style of living. Social influences are what made us who we are and we need to keep that in mind when new lives are brought into the world because if not, nothing will ever get better.
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