Obama vs. Romney

Reproductive Rights 

Barack Obama Pro-Choice  supports: requiring insurers to pay for contraception and prenatal screenings women need to be able to control their health care choices  women have full access to health care, including their reproductive rights

Mitt Romney    Pro-Life (with exceptions for cases of rape, incest, or the health and life of the mother.) supports:proposals that allow employers to opt out of contraception coverage on religious or moral grounds. wants federally defund planned parenthood supports the Blunt Amendment wants to strike down Roe v. Wade wants to band all abortions; if he gets the chance

I personally think that I'm with Obama with this issue. For the fact that no one should give an opinion on something they know nothing about. A woman should be able to make her own choices, instead of having laws that make her do something she doesn't believe right. Obama also supports that insurers pay for contraception which i feel strongly about, contraception isn't only used to keep you from becoming pregnant, some woman use it for their health. There expensive, and I think that it's unconstitutional for a president to take that away from women. I'm pretty sure not everyone can afford contraception or the kids that will come because of lack of contraception.

Romney makes me mad every time he says that he's pro-life, don't get me wrong I don't believe that babies should be killed but if its a situation of rape, then a women should have the right to do as she chooses is right. Romney wants to take away funds from planned parenthood. This is wrong, planned parenthood is one of the only ways a lot of women can get contraception, pap smears, cervical cancer screenings, and mammograms without needing insurance or having to pay anything. He supports the Blunt Amendment, which prevents anyone from getting contraception, how is this right?

Talking Point: Who are you voting for? why?

What happens when ..

you let me go shopping for the kids! 
I wanted to bring some candy for the kids tomorrow, but i got a little carried away and ended up with this...

there all filled with different kinds of candy, hopefully the kids love them! <3

Extended Comments

"In the service of what? The politics of service learning" - Kahne & Westheimer
I used Ashley's blog to be the center of mine. 

1) “Educators and legislators alike maintain that service learning can improve the community and invigorate the classroom, providing rich educational experiences for students at all levels of schooling. Service learning makes students active participants in service learning projects that aim to respond to the needs of the community while furthering the academic goals of the students” (2).

Service learning does not just help the volunteer; it is also important to the person or group of people you are helping. The service learning project that we are completing in class helps us learn how to become teachers and get a look at what we will be working with someday.  I work in an ESL classroom where most of the students speak Spanish.  You leave an impact while working with your students.  I enjoy returning to my classroom every week just to see the children and have them say “Hello Miss Pires!”.Service learning is beneficial for everyone who is involved.

I agree with this because its true service learning not only benefits you, the volunteer but also the students that you help out and that you make an impact on. It helps to do a service learning project especially when you’re in school to become a teacher; it benefits you in so many ways. You learn what kind of teacher you want and don’t want to be when it’s your turn to be in that position. Like Ashley said, service learning is beneficial for everyone who is involved; it feels good leaving the classroom at the end of your session and know you’re doing something right.

2) “Boyer endeavored to create ‘a new Carnegie unit,’ the requirement that all students take part in volunteer activities in either their school or community as a condition for graduation from high school” (5).

I agree with Boyer, I believe every high school should have a service learning requirement.  High schools should have a minimum of twenty hours for their service learning/community service requirement.  Kids today are egocentric, they only care about themselves.  A service learning requirement would help students become aware of the contributions they could come up with just to help people in need.  One could volunteer at a hospital, a nursing home, a soup kitchen, or an animal rescue center.  No matter the place, the feeling is always the same.  Emotions will become involved and you will become attached. You can create happy memories just knowing that you can help someone in need. 

This I agree with also, kids in high school are unaware of the damage outside of their little bubbles they live in. Contributing some of your time to volunteer in any place like a nursing home, soup kitchen etc. can open up anyone’s eyes to things that people our age fail to recognize. Twenty hours of community service of your choice wouldn’t be such a bad requirement for students to graduate. Ashley couldn't have said it any better, “No matter the place, the feeling is always the same.  Emotions will become involved and you will become attached. You can create happy memories just knowing that you can help someone in need.” That’s the truth.

3) “A music director at a middle school we studied wanted her suburban, upper-middle class students to perform at a nearby elementary school in a poor neighborhood.  Some of the middle school parents objected, saying they were concerned for their child’s safety.  In a written evaluation, the students said that they had imagined ‘horrifying children running around on a dirty campus’”(7-8).

I find this to be very typical amongst the upper class.  They believe that because the school is in a poor and bad neighborhood that those students are delinquents and that they behave like animals.  Sadly, I was one of them before I began my placement.  I told my family what school I had been assigned to for my service learning and they told me it was not a great neighborhood and they were not too thrilled with my placement.  The students and I both learned that what we originally thought was just the complete opposite.  These are normal schools with regular children who are just trying to learn.  Our perspectives on schools in rough neighborhoods has changed.  Just like the old saying goes, “Never judge a book by its cover”.  How can dislike something or have a very strong opinion about it if you never experienced it yourself?

This shows that if Ashley had service learning in her high school as a requirement to graduate, she wouldn’t have felt like this when being placed in an urban school. This is why schools should enforce service learning/community service because it helps people, upper middle class specifically to not think that every rough neighborhood is threatening or has crazy kids running around.  I don’t blame Ashley or anyone in the upper middle class for feeling this way because I know that inner city schools are perceived this way, but I do blame it on the system because they should school everyone on things like this. But how could they school other upper middle class people about something they probably feel the same about?

Talking Point: Do you think high schools should enforce community service/service learning as a graduating requirement? Would it help students or not?

Somethings to look at: 
Case Studies throughout the years on Service Learning.
1992
1982
2006
2001

Argument

This author Peggy Orenstein argues that toys have an effect on the lives of children. Toys are always gender specific, girls are always using princess toys, or anything that's pink. She brings up how these visions of princesses gives girls the idea that "they now feel they must not only "have it all" but be it all: Cinderella and Surpergirl. Aggressive and agreeable. Smart and stunning." These perceptions of princesses gives these little girls ideas of a life that's non-existent. 

• I believe Orenstein's argument is that girls distinguish from a young age what life is going to be like, "glits and glamour" like the princesses they have as examples. That they should always be perfect looking, with perfect hair, perfect bodies, and the have the perfect clothes to go with it. That there going to be swept up by a prince charming whose going to sweep you off your feet and give you this perfect life with a happy ever after. She feels that these girls shouldn't be brought up around this type of example. Because that's not what life is like, and that's not what they should learn. Especially at a young age, its hard to get girls to stop thinking this way when they've already grown up with this perception of life.

•  Orenstein's main point throughout these chapters is that she doesn't think its right that kids are being brought up with these markers that determine what life should be like. She says there given this perception that later on in life has a big effect on them, especially girls. Because they grow up wanting this life that isn't realistic, and its something that will never come. They grow up wanting to be something, and forgetting of the important things in life, like school. She's worried about the impact separating genders is going to make on kids while they grow up, if its going to change their views on one another, if its going to change the "separate-but-equal mentality" that they should have about one another. 

• Check this video out! It's a perfect example of what Orenstein talks about in her story.

Talking Point: What should we do to change this? How will we change future kids minds about this type of life that they shouldn't believe exist? 

Quotes

"Unlearning the myths that binds us" - Linda Christensen

"Children's cartoons, movies, and literature are perhaps the most Influential genre "read." Young people, unprotected by any intellectual armor, hear or watch these stories again and again. Often from the warmth of their mother's or father's lap. The messages or "secret education," linked with the security of their homes, underscore the power these texts deliver. As Tatum's research suggests, the stereotypes and world view embedded in the stories become accepted knowledge."

I think this quote kind of sets the bar for the article and whats coming in the reading. It states that kids often watch these cartoons or princess movies, movies in general that are suppose to be "cute" and comforting to then believe that life is this way. They watch these movies and take what they see and apply it to real life. Kids watching these movies set their standards and points of views a certain way to then come across situations that feel surreal because they never saw those things happen in movies or cartoons.

"After viewing a number of cartoons, Kenya scolded parents in an essay, "A black Cinderella? Give me a break." She wrote: "Have you ever seen a black person, an Asian, a Hispanic in a cartoon? Did they have a leading role or were they a servant? What do you think this is doing to your child's mind ?" She ended her piece: " Women who aren't white begin to feel left out and ugly because they never get to play the princess." Kenya's piece bristled with anger at a society that rarely acknowledges the wit or beauty of women of her race. And she wasn't alone in her feelings. Sabrina wrote, " I'm not taking my kid to see any Walt Disney movies until they have a black women playing the leading role."

I believe this is true, and I feel the same way towards some of the movies Disney has. I do believe that this gives your child a perception of life that makes them feel negative towards different races or people with different sexual orientations than you. I don't know, maybe these mothers should also think about the movies that did have different princesses, like Aladdin, Princess Jasmine wasn't white. In Mulan, she wasn't white, maybe she wasn't the ideal depiction of a princess but she was still the main character in the movie. 

Like Christensen said,
 "Kenya's and Sabrina's anger is justified. There should be more women of color who play the leads on these white-on-white wedding cake tales. Of course, there should also be more women of color on the Supreme Court , in Congress, and scrubbing up for surgeries. But I want students to understand that if the race of the character is the only thing changing, injustices may still remain."

this is completely and utterly true. Mothers who are Black or Hispanic or Asian of course should take offense to these characters only being white but they should worry more about raising their kids to become better women and to beat these roles that "only white women play". 

"Our society's culture industry colonizes their minds and teaches them how to act, live, and dream."

This reminds me of  S.W.A.A.M.P, because our society lives around this. And this makes us live around certain believes, that we have to live up to. I totally agree with what this quote is saying, our society build us to have to act, live and dream a certain way. As a women, I'm suppose to act motherly and get married and take my husbands last name. As a women, a man would get a higher position in a job than I would because they are the "leading gender role". According to society I'm suppose to live the American Dream, and do as American people do. Growing up in this society, you grow up dreaming of things that as you go through life you want, or things you see that are portrayed as the "typical life" you dream of having when you get older like a family with a husband, kids and a nice house. 


Talking Point- Would you still show your kids these cartoons or Disney movies after reading this article?
           I feel as though I wouldn't stop my kids from seeing these movies, I would just have to find other ways of teaching my kids that other ways of lives do exist. That they should work hard to beat these so called roles that only white people play or depict in movies.