Free the Tots!

     Over this wonderful Thanksgiving break, I have been catching up on the episodes of Glee I have missed in the past few weeks. In a recent episode one of the main plots is the students campaigning to get tater tots back into the cafeteria. When Mercedes, one of the glee club girls, decides to protest the ban, she ends up getting in trouble for making her voice heard.

     This episode reminded me of when we discussed how you lose a lot of your rights when you walk through the doors of your school. I was curious about this so I did some research. After looking at numerous articles on this topic, the two main reasons that kept reappearing were maturity level of children and an idea called "in loco parentis". In loco parentis basically says that when a child is at school, the school has both the right and responsibility to act as their parents, which gives them ways to infringe upon a child's national rights in order to keep them safe.
     Even though I understand both of these arguments, I don't think they apply to freedom of speech. In the case of Mercedes on Glee, she wasn't harming anyone by protesting the ban of tater tots, so why did the school have the right to quiet her? Do you agree that the school had this right?

Born Colorblind

After I wrote my first blog post about racial tokenism, I have been noticing it everywhere. Today, when I was helping out in a Sunday school room at my church, I noticed these posters on the wall. Despite the fact that the class I help with has very little diversity, the posters all over the room are extremely racially diverse. At first, you would think that the kids in the classroom wouldn't relate to kids of other ethnicities as well as those of their own, but none of them seem to notice race at all. After observing how young children don't seem to see race a lot (or at all), it makes me wish that adults and teenagers could be that way too. If everyone in the world was colorblind, it would be a lot more peaceful place.

The Evolution of MyAmerica

Even though all of my blog posts were written by the same person (me), when you look back and read them all , it is very apparent that my writing style has changed a ton over the past 8 weeks. When I read my first couple of posts, I was shocked to see how impersonal and matter-of-fact they were. I think the reason for this is because I wasn't 100% comfortable with the idea of blogging yet and thought of it more as a paper than a journal (which is what I think of blogging as now). Over time, I ended up developing a style of writing that I enjoyed and an area of discussion I loved talking about. This topic turned out to be relating AS discussions to media and pop-culture.

Originally, I was a little nervous to cross the line of school and personal life, but once I did so I noticed a big improvement in my blog posts. When I started blogging about things like TV shows and music, I started getting more comments and enjoyed writing my posts a lot more. In fact, my favorite post, "The Secret Life of Racial Tokenism" was about a TV show, but still addressed a major idea from the class discussion of that day. I really enjoyed writing that post because it allowed me to really start thinking critically about everything around me all the time and not just when I'm in school.

About halfway through the quarter, I started seeing blog posts in everything. I even had to edit down my ideas because I would end up with 10 or 12 after one weekend because I was thinking about it all the time. My friends and I even started saying "You should write a blog about that!" whenever anyone said anything that even closely related to an AS discussion. And that's why I love having these blogs for class. It allows us to study the real America around us 24/7, which is what I really think American Studies is about.

Subliminal Spongebob & Messages from Miley

Tonight, when I logged onto AOL, the first two articles that popped up were about Miley Cyrus's new video and Spongebob Squarepants. Ordinarily, these wouldn't seem like things that would make you think of American Studies, but that's what I did immediately. For the past couple weeks, a researcher from Northwestern University has been observing our class. She is conducting a study on how media effects today's youth. Both these articles are about how kids are effected by what they watch and who they look up to. Though it's sad that young girls are watching Miley while she sets a very bad example for them, I think it's awesome that Spongebob has added some important lessons to their seamingly pointless show. Do you remember any lessons or messages you got from media when you were younger?

One Size Fits All?

This week in class, we talked a lot about how numbers effect us (mostly in a negative way) in our daily lives. The main examples used were grades, time, and prices. The other day, I realized that another stressful use of numbers is clothing sizes.

Whenever I go shopping with my friends, at least one person says something like, "I wish I could fit into the size 4 dress instead of the 6." It has always bothered me when someone says something like this, but I have just brushed it off as another unavoidable part of life. Even though many different stores have tried to remedy this problem in the past, none of their solutions have stuck. For example, even though Chicos has tried to put different names on sizes, after a few months, everyone had figured out the new system and went back to their old ways. Thinking about it, I'm not sure there can ever be a solution to naming sizes for clothes. Even if different sizes weren't named by numbers, do you think anyone could ever stop caring about their size?

Is slavery a GLEEful topic?

This weekend, when I had some time to catch up on my favorite TV show, Glee, I was excited to see that it was a Brittney Spears episode. At the same time, I was wracking my brain to think of something to write a blog post on. About 15 minutes into the show, they burst out into song, singing Brittney Spears' "I'm A Slave 4 U". Immediately, a question popped into my mind. Even though the majority of our class thinks that Americans still aren't over the emotional scars of slavery, why is it okay for pop culture to address slavery in such a non-chalant way? I am still not sure what my ideas about this are, but I just wanted to pose the question and see what others think.

Check out the video from Glee below

The Secret Life of Racial Tokenism

This week in class, we talked a lot about slavery and race. One of the ideas that came up quite a few times was 'racial tokenism'. Racial tokenism is basically when someone chooses to include people of another race just to make whatever they are including them in look diverse. I think the main place this shows up is in the media, and specifically on many TV shows. One of the programs where I have noticed this the most is called "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" on ABC Family. This is show is basically trying to capture exactly what the "real life" of a teenager is, but does so in an incredibly cheesy way. Since they are on ABC Family (which obviously has an emphasis on family programing) they have a very diverse cast. At first, this seems very nice and refreshing, but when I looked deeper than just the inclusion of different races, I noticed that they put all of the people of one race together and are very stereotypical in doing so. Even though all of the characters (no matter what their races are) are friends, they all date people of their same races. For example, the two Asian characters on the show are going out, while the two African American characters are also dating. I think it's almost worse to do this than not including diversity at all. It just seems like they are trying to send the message that all people should hang out with other people very similar to themselves. I definitely don't have a problem with a person dating another person with their same skin color, but it just annoys me that the creators of this show have put a huge effort in grouping races together. Now that I started thinking about racial tokenism in the media, I notice it everywhere and I'm sure you will too.

Elementary Thinking

Today in class, we had a long discussion about how communities are built in certain ways to separate different types of people. Being from the North Shore (an affluent northern suburb of Chicago), I have a great deal of experience with this sort of thing. In Wilmette, one of the main dividers is which elementary school you went to. It may not seem like a big deal to people who don't live in Wilmette, since elementary school is not going to make or break your future, but to everyone from my town, it is a very familiar idea. In 5th grade, all of the elementary schools are mashed together into Highcrest Middle School, where the stereotypes begin. During my 4 years in middle school and junior high, I would hear "He's a Romona kid" or "She went to Central" probably 10 times a day. And these statements were not just being said in a matter-of-fact way, but had many stereotypes associated with them (some good and some not-so-nice).

When I was preparing for freshman year at New Trier, I assumed the 'categorizing by where you're from' would end, but, boy, was I wrong! In high school, the divisions are on an even larger scale. Instead of being labeled by your elementary school, you get labeled by what town you live in. During the first week of school, I learned a new phrase- the "Wilmetto". When I first heard it, i thought that person was just one idiot being obnoxious, but then I heard it another time. It turns out that it's a pretty well-known nickname for Wilmette used to label Wilmette as the "ghetto" of the North Shore. I actually find it pretty hilarious now, that a town that is still incredibly wealthy in terms of anyone else in the world can be called a "ghetto". From both of my experiences of separation, I learned that it will never end. However sad this realization is, it is true all over the world. I'm sure everyone has had at least one encounter with this. What was yours?

Are HISTORY and GOSSIP synonymous?

This week in class, we have been discussing oral histories. We are also preparing to start a project where we will interview someone and use their words to create an oral history. Through thinking about this project, I have started to think more and more about history and where/who it comes from. When we were younger, history came from our teachers and textbooks. We were taught to listen to these sources and believe them 100% of the time. Now, as we delve deeper and deeper into our studies, we have to wonder where this information is coming from.

 

I have been thinking about this for awhile now, and have been trying to think of a way to relate this idea to my life to put it into perspective. The parallel I came up with is gossip. Like most teenagers, I have heard my fair share of rumors. From my experience with gossip, it tends to be false in about 9 out of 10 cases. I think the reason this happens is because we tend to get our information from 1 or 2 exclusive sources and decide to listen to them blindly. If teenagers suddenly decided to start corroborating their sources and speak to 10 people (preferably who don't all talk to each other), they would find that most of what they are hearing is false.I have a feeling that, like gossip, many histories are one-sided and more of a variation on the story rather that the 100% truth.

Who writes history?

This week in class, we spent a lot of time talking about textbooks. It got me thinking about who actually writes the textbooks we read in school? Is it the author who's name is on the cover or someone completely different? I then went to google news and searched "textbooks" and one of the top hits was this article about the changes different states' boards of education have made to the textbooks they buy. I have a huge problem with the fact that only a small handful of adults get to choose what goes into textbooks and what gets exluded. Even though it would be impossible to include every event that every happened in the history of America, but I think that there are definitely a few that need to be included. Obviously the California/Texas state boards of education would disagree with me. Even though I do believe everything I already talked about, I am still a bit conflicted on how I feel about this issue. On one hand, I think censorship is certainly not a good thing, but on the other hand, I think it is each school's responsibility to decide which textbooks to use and what they teach. I'm still deciding, but have you made up your mind on this issue?

American Artifacts

This week in class, we were confronted with the (fake) "death" of our teacher, Mr. Bolos. Our assignment was to write a biography of him based solely on artifacts, interviews, and the internet. When I first heard about the assignment, I was sure it was going to be impossible to find out much beyond the basics, but boy was I wrong! His large imprint left on the world got me thinking. If one person leaves this many artifacts when they die, how many artifacts would the US leave behind (if everyone in the country suddenly disappeared)?
Take a second to think about the top 4 "artifacts" you think America would leave behind. Here's my list...

1) McDonalds- Even though it's sad that this is one of the first things that comes to mind when I think about America, it is definitely something that tells you a lot about how modern day Americans live their lives. From this artifact, future historians would gather that we are fat and eat food that doesn't ever decompose

2) Our major cities- Now, this one sheds a much more positive light on America as a whole. It shows that we are advanced and are smart enough to build skyscrapers as tall as the Empire State Building and  Sears Tower.

3) The Statue of Liberty- One of the most iconic things in America, the Statue of Liberty definitely makes sense to the majority of the American population. But, if aliens were to stumble upon Lady Liberty, they would have no clue what to make of the giant green woman.

4) The Internet- This is the artifact that completely changes the game. Since we have internet and records of nearly everything possible, future historians will definitely have a lot easier time learning about us than we did about ancient civilizations.