4/29/15 Workshop Douglass-Truth Library Brad

Location: Douglass-Truth Library

Time: 5-7

Date: 4/29/2015

Today we made mothers’ day the focus of our workshop with the children. The first activity we did was a bingo-style game with the group as a whole (women and children together). I loved doing an activity with everyone together; it is refreshing to have both the families and the facilitators all playing the same game. I really felt like we were bridging the gap between our communities and enjoying a moment together. As an added bonus this game helped me learn some new Spanish vocabulary, which is always positive.

            Once several rounds of the game were played and people collected their prizes, the technology workshop for the women started and our group split like usual. With mothers’ day fast approaching, an obvious craft we could do was make cards for our moms. Some of the children got very creative with their cards, using a variety of colors and drawing techniques (I totally forgot about holding three crayons at once!). One child asked Willa how to memorize the colors of the rainbow- ROYGBIV!

            Making crafts for our moms made me miss my own mother. Sometimes it is difficult going to school so far away from home, but I never forget all of the awesome things my mom has done for me over the years. My parents continued support helps me every step of the way along this new journey at college.

4/1/2015 Workshop Douglass-Truth Library Klarissa

Location: Douglass-Truth Library

Time: 5-7

Date: 4/1/2015

For the crafts with the kids we did a photography through literacy project, which Ivette lead, called My Favorite Place. We all thought of our favorite place and drew it with oil pastels. Then, we had our pictures taken from behind so we could glue ourselves, cut out, into our favorite place. But one thing, we forgot to have them write anything about their favorite place, so I’m not sure about the literacy goal there. A few kids drew libraries as their favorite place, which is exciting. After that, since some of the girls had wanted to do origami last week, we did a little bit of origami. Willa and I had prepped by practicing a few different shapes. However, they were not as interested in doing the origami now. Instead they were excited to be in the library this month, and so we spent an hour in the kids section. We asked the kids about what they liked to read, but for the most part they browsed through the books on their own. I noticed the younger girls picked up some princess books, and I wonder how much that is because gender stereotypes are marketed to children.

I did not look too much at the books in terms of content or messages, as I was surprised at how nostalgic I felt looking at all the books I had read in elementary and middle school. Thinking back, the books I read, such as the Anne of Green Gables and Little House on the Prairie series, privilege the story of white American settlers. But it seemed like there were some more books that showed other perspectives. One of the girls showed me her favorite book which seemed to deal with modern indigeneity. 

Where I'm From Poem, Kaylah Hoover

I am from white sneakers
From vans skate shoes and adidas cleats
I am from the palm trees swaying in the breeze
Playful, and bright
It felt so serene

I am from the rolling hills
The flower
That begins with a bud and blossoms overtime
I’m from the family dinner prayers and strength
From Jay and Annaleah
and Kyle

I’m from the small indecisive choices and well thought out plans
From “come inside its getting dark” and “wake up the day is half way over”
I’m from the sky and the honest acts of life

I’m from California and the Philippines,
Burgers and Lumpia
From the hardwork of my elders
The persistence to succeed
From those I look up to

I am from openhandedness

Where I'm From | Mary Tong

I am from the bowling pins,

From AMF Imperial Lanes and Roxbury Lanes.

I am from the incense sticks,

            Distinct smell that relaxes my mind

            It felt like I am in nirvana

I am from the ground,

            A tree

            One that will support you and hold you down

I am from the Lunar New Year and happiness,

            From my mom and my dad

            To my siblings, nieces, nephews & in-laws

I’m from the “Lets go get bubble tea” and

            “Don’t wear shoes in the house”

From “Your name was supposed to be Happy” and

            “Life is simple, but we tend to make it complicated”

I’m from the Noble Eightfold Path,

            The goal here is to end suffering

I’m from Vietnam,

            Pho and Bun Bo Hue

From the great great great great grandfather who was killed,

            For being a pastor in Vietnam, late 1770’s

I am from happiness,

From those who makes me happy,

And from my love ones.

4/22/2015 Casa Latina Workshop Willa

Casa Latina
April 22nd, 2015
4:30 - 8:00 PM

The planned activity with the children today was centered around Earth Day. Klarissa had printed out a paired sheets of paper - the top paper was a drawing of the earth for coloring and another sheet underneath that you glue the earth to. On the the second sheet of paper, the kids are supposed to write down four things that they like about the earth or that they want to improve. The earth that is glue over this sheet of paper is cut so that you can reveal the words underneath.

It was a lot of fun. All the of kids started to color in their earth - mostly blue for the water and green for the land. The kids mentioned that they like trees and want to recycle more. One of the girls didn't want to cut their earth out and glue it because that would be too mean to the earth.

4/8/15 Workshop Douglass-Truth Library Brad

Location: Douglass-Truth Library

Time: 5-7pm

Date: 4/8/2015

Today the children put on a puppet show using puppets made from paper lunch bags. We encouraged the kids to draw characters on the bags using the art supplies we provided. Some examples of characters included goldilocks, a puppy, and Mike from Monsters, Inc. The kids seemed very excited about putting on a show for us, and we were happy to see them enthusiastic about making up their own story.

            Once everyone had made at least one puppet, the whole group left our indoor space and set up the stage outdoors. I filmed with an iPad while the children discussed behind closed curtains how they wanted to put on the show. Unfortunately, one of the kids was very bossy about how she wanted the story to play out, shutting down the other kids’ ideas in favor of her own. It was obvious that the other kids were not happy about this, but they went along with it anyways.

            Regardless of the child who was bossing the other ones around, everyone had fun putting on the show and the story was definitely original. They even encouraged me to put down the camera and control a puppet of my own, which I did. This helped me remember how important imaginative play is with young children.  It’s unfortunate that we start to use less and less of our imaginations as we grow older; nobody says we have to grow up.

Implicit Basis Test Reflection

I took Harvard's Implicit Basis Test for Skin Tone, Gender: Career, and Gender: Science.

My results:

Skin Tone - Your data suggest a slight automatic preference for Dark Skin compared to Light Skin.
Gender: Career - Your data suggest little or no association between Female and Male with Career and Family.
Gender: Science - Your data suggest little or no association between Male and Female with Science and Liberal Arts.

I took the tests in the order displayed above. I'm not sure the test shows anything. It reminded me of a test I took before (kind of like a brain teaser) where it shows you word (a color) and then display a different color than the word itself. You have to choose the actual color rather than the word. Like if it shows "Green," but the word is colored red. You would need to choose the "red" over "green." You are supposed to do it as fast as you can. 

The point is - the brain teaser is not a question of whether or not you prefer one color over another and is not a question of whether you prefer text over color. It is just something that is difficult to do because you are forcing your brain to think in a different way.

Also, the more I preformed the same function the faster I became.

4/1/15 Casa Latina Workshop Willa

Casa Latina
April 1st, 2015
4:00 - 8:00 PM

I worked both with the women and the children. I started with working with the women. I'm not sure I contributed very much though I did help connect to the Internet on a couple of the tablets. Half way through I switched to helping with the children because a couple of them wanted to make origami. After I helped with the origami making, I helped Brad and Klarissa supervise the kids looking at the children's book section.

I really liked that the space is big enough for both the children and the adults. I like having both groups in the same space. It seemed easier for us to help back and forth with both the adults and the children. I also think that it did not disturb the learning process for the adults too.

Where I'm From Willa

I am from books
from penny candies and tootsie roll pops. 
I am from the islands of green 
(surrounded by glistening blue, floating on the waves
It tasted of salt and safety.)

I am from the Madrone trees,
the Magnolia flowers
Their peace instills my own 
as their petals and bark fall with me.

I’m from the warm after dinner pie and the desire to create 
from Marsha and Walter
and Roy.
I’m from the misunderstood senses of humor and
mispronouncing large vocabularies learned from reading.

From one, two, three and oh, well. 
I’m from working to be a force of good, bettering my understanding of myself.
I’m from Seattle and places defined by arbitrary political guidelines, bread and cake. 
From the mother who paints when she feels safe,
the father who helps people to walk. 

Trapped in a picture album on my mother's bookshelf,
on my father's wall,
on my computer, 
we look young and happy.

I am from those I love,
from those I have loved,
from those I will love.

Where I'm from: Brad Holland

Brad Holland – Where I’m from

I am from soccer cleats,

                From Nalgene and UnderArmour

I am from the Trampoline in the back yard

                Bouncy, warm from the sun

It felt like we were flying

I am from the grass,

                The Oak tree

                A big friendly giant that is always there for you

I’m from the Christmas morning cinnamon rolls and vacations,

                From Laura and Dean

                And Devin

I’m from hard workers and generous friends

From “finish your milk!” and

“Clean up your Legos!”

I’m from the cross and

                Sunday morning mass

I’m from Naperville, Illinois,

                From deep dish pizza and Culver’s custard

From the dad who can turn water into wine

                The brother who can never eat without spilling

I am from a strong family of friends,

always willing to lend a hand,

 but often times not needing to

Final Reflection Willa

Final Reflection
Willa

I have greatly enjoyed the last quarter working with this project not just because it is my area of academic interest, but also because of the experiences I have had working with the women and the children. Originally, I expected to work with the adults more than the children, but this quarter I only helped out with the adult digital literacy once or twice. Understanding the needs of children is much more complex than I thought I would be assisting with. I know what it is to be influenced by the adults in one's life when young. When I am working with the kids, I want to purposeful in what language I use and how I express myself especially because the children are mostly female and of an ethnic minority. In being careful with what I say, I also wanted to make sure that the applications that we downloaded for the iPads would reflect the same type of conscientiousness. Empowering female leaders and the use of technology in child development are my two themes that I will address here. 

Teaching women from childhood that they are valuable on their own without the right things, clothing, appearance, etc is an important part of the feminist construct that we have been employing in our project. I realized the first time that I work with the girls that I would need to be careful. I was using a brown marker on the whiteboard and one of the girls told me that she didn't want me using that color because it was the color of poop, which of course is also the color of her skin. I spent some time to explain that brown is not a bad color and there are plenty of things that are brown that are good (chocolate being the main one) and explaining that other colors also can be gross too (like red is the color of blood or that zits are white, etc). I have previously done a lot of thinking about how my words can influence others, but working the children has reminded me to think of it more and be even more aware of my words. Furthermore, I need to be conscious of how I speak  to myself. When things are rough at school I have a tendency to call myself stupid and attribute any academic success to luck or privilege rather than granting myself and owning my intelligence. 

I was in part in charge of deciding what applications to download on the iPads, which was mostly simple in choosing the educational applications for math and science because these are usually divorced from any social context. However, I have been increasingly cautious with what applications I would like to download in the realm of history and literature. I am aware that history is written by the dominant culture, which are more often than not, the oppressors and the victors. History can vilify and misconstrue events of the past. The only application that we have downloaded that has a history component was recommend by the children because they used it in class. After watching them use it and seeing the content, I thought it was fairly inclusive in alternative narratives. We also put other restrictions on the iPads. Only we can download applications and there are maturity rating restrictions (as determined by Apple). We do not believe that any of the children would purposefully seek out inappropriate materials, but we did not want them to stumbled upon it on accident. In one manner, we are acting as protective censors, which is something that I think a lot of adults do for their children. However, as I recently discovered I am an adult. I no longer have an adult censor and I have been reminded this quarter that it is okay and necessary to censor certain information for your own protection. I use the social media site Tumblr, which has an extension that allows me to censor certain tags. I have started to use these tags to censor disturbing information. I have come to believe that there is line between being informed and being overwhelmed. 

There is a multitude of themes that I got to explore this quarter that I do not have time to address in this format. However, I am looking forward to continue to work with the women and the children next quarter. I want to continue to be a positive influence and working, step by step, to affecting change. Good things can come from women who believe in themselves and have access to a positive narrative about themselves and their cultures. 

3/18/2015 Casa Latina Workshop Willa

Casa Latina
March 18th, 2015
4:30 - 7:30

Klarissa and I worked with the kids. The planned activity was something to do with magazines, but we did not have the proper materials so it turned into an activity on movement. One of the girls knew of an "educational" app from school, which teaches you dance moves to popular videos. It did fall apart towards the end because not everyone was interested and the kids rather liked listening to the songs over actually dancing. There were also two babies, which occupied most of my time. One of the babies likes to dance to music, which was fun to see. Also, when Klarissa asked one of the girls about how listening to All About that Base was educational, one of the girls responded that the song has a positive body message that was teaching her to love the body she's in, which was good, but also kind of snarky. :)