Week 6: Identity

Angela C. Stanley
Week 6 Readings/Videos: Locating Yourself for Your Students, Becoming a Youth Worker in a University-Based Community of Practice, Why English Class is Silencing Students of Color, and  Three Ways to Speak English.

I found the dynamic between the videos and the readings interesting because I felt as if they all promoted the idea of diversity, the importance of altering traditional pedagogy, and bringing forth identity before presenting curriculum. However, I found the tones to be very different. The tone that I received from the assigned readings/videos was self acceptance versus societal shame. I felt that the readings were empowering, by promoting self reflection and applying personal identity to the workplace, in order to create the most effective way to be an ally to the youth. Whereas the videos gave me a sense of oppression and shaming of self by what is deemed societally appropriate.

For example, in Becoming a Youth Worker in a University-Based Community of Practice, all three of the case studies expressed how their personal identity, background, and interpersonal skills had a major impact on how they dealt with the dilemmas they faced in their workplace. The conclusion of all three stories revealed the importance of personal reflection and genuine relationships over the structured rules within their establishment.

On the other hand, both videos explained how difficult it is for society to stop shaming people of color from expressing their personal identity in terms of speech and literacy, resulting in a cease of self acceptance, and ultimately erasure of identity in order to conform to the societal norm of Western standards. Although the end goal of the videos was to begin accepting that people of different backgrounds should be allowed equal space in reshaping the future of speech and literacy, the tone of the videos make it difficult to ignore the subliminal racism within the English language spoken and taught in America, especially when we're so oftenly using terms such as "articulate" versus "ghetto." Therefore, I believe the main concept of the videos contrasts greatly to the "pro-self" attitude of the readings by focusing more on an "anti-shame" approach.