Archive for year: 2014

Around two weeks ago we had an activity where we each got a different colored star and were supposed to answer questions by writing the answer on the five legs of the star. Then we all stood up and stood in a circle as Dr. Hoffman read the meaning behind our answers. One color was oppressed and unaccepted by everyone near them, the other was accepted but people were still unsure and tense around them, and the last color was accepted by all. My color was the one in the middle where I was accepted but people were unsure and tense around me. This exercise help give me more of an insight to how it feels like to be oppressed by others that do not accept them for who they are or the choices they make. One of my best friends is gay and I remember the first time he “came out” to me I already knew and he was so relieved that I was not upset he did not tell me sooner. I told him that no matter what he did no matter what I believed in I would love him for who he was because he was my friend and I had no right to judge him or dictate his life. He was so happy because even though some people accepted him he was still afraid to be rejected.

The week after this we had to present our chapters from the book A Hope in the Unseen. My group had the very last chapters and when I was reading them I found them to be very interesting a little hard to understand since I did not know what was happening before but it made me interested to read the whole book. I thought everyone did a great job presenting their chapters and it was interesting to see that even though every group did a power point they presented differently. It was nice to hear what had happened to Cedric before and his journey to how he got where he was in my chapters. There were parts where I felt connected to what Cedric was going through and I could feel what he was feeling. Overall it was great to see everyone do a good job on their chapters and see the story unfold.

Question Time:

Why are people so afraid to accept things or people who are different?

What is the image of STEM field majors?

How do we talk to children about gays, bi sexual, and transgender people?

How do we educate people to understand that stereotypical and gender jokes are not appropriate?

In our two previous class, we discussed about sexual orientation, and we had our  presentation about Hope in the Unseen book. At first we had a nice discussion about stress and how to manage it. We divided in groups and then each group came up with some interesting ideas about stress management. In my  group, most of us thought time managing is the most effective solution to reduce stress.  We also thought that exercising and not focusing on the issue may reduce stress as well. As Julian said deep breathing and letting go of the problems for some minuets could be effective, too. But the most important exercise, I believe, is mindfulness meditation. Ten to fifteen minuets mindfulness mediation is really helpful to decrease our stress. This is scientifically supported by neuroscientist, and I learned it from my Behavioral Neuroscience class. In sexual orientation exercise, I had a purple star and I felt that I was so lucky that my sexual orientation didn’t cause me trouble or label as GLBT, however, in my opinion GLBT should never be treated like that. Although the exercise was not real, but I felt happy and lucky, and I also felt that other students did not feel comfortable, especially, students who were GLBT. That exercise allowed me to feel how difficult should be when we were treated unequally.  And still I don’t understand why it is hard to see these people as humans. There is absolutely no difference between a gay person and me. It is important to note that more than 80% of gay people were born like that, and they were not practicing to be gay. The situation of GLBT in my home country, Iran, is horrible, and they are treated as deviant and sinner. Sadly, if their sexual orientation is revealed, they might end up in prison.

The presentation was exciting and each group contributed their part very well. In my group I was responsible for chapter 4. I think these kind of presentations help us to be more comfortable to give a speech in front of the students. As we give more presentation, we will be more comfortable to speak in front of students. I practice my part enough, but I don’t know why as soon as I stand up in front of students, I forget most of the things that I practice. Usually, I am an active student in class, and I am willing to participate in most activities in class, but when I stand up in front of student, I don’t why I don’t speak in a way that I practice.  Other students were well prepared and gave a nice presentation, and I enjoy following the Cedric’s story and my classmates presentation.

When I was reading the articles and chapter nine from the book, the incredible improvement in higher education that women showed during the past several decades really surprised me. Historically men used to have more power in society and before 40s, the American society, in my opinion, was a patriarchal  society. We could see inequality everywhere, especially, in higher education. Women had an extraordinary improvement in many areas in higher education. Women got bachelor degrees more than men, and they had less dropout rate than men. Those incredible achievements did not come easy, and women had to pay high prices and worked very hard to gain those achievements. For example, in the house, the resources were not distributed equally among boys and girls. Boys got the best resources for continuing their education especially in STEM. It was not the case in the house; girls were treated unequally in schools when it came to study STEM. The reason that women are not willing to study in STEM or not successful in STEM, perhaps, is the expectation that society have from women. From the early childhood, boys and girls are treated differently according to their gender. Their toys are different and they always hear from their parents that boys are boys and girls are girls. These are socially constructed, and are society’s expectation from different gender. If girls from the early childhood are exposed more to technology that are supposedly boys job, we would see different reaction towards technology from girls. This is true for STEM, too. Men and women experience many things differently and that is why they react differently to STEM. Gender segregation in science and engineering is another reason that women are less interested in those areas, however, gender desegregation, recently, in STEM has been changed in a good way. Once in college, women, are more likely  than men to change to a science major after beginning a non-science major. Therefore, women dramatically change the ratio of gender in higher education and this achievement change the expectation of American society from women. Today, 57 percent of students enrolled in colleges and universities are women and women should be proud of this achievement and should be a role model for other people around them for continuing their education.

Here are my questions:

What are the reasons that women dramatically made a progress in higher education?

Why women earn more bachelor degree than men?

Why women are less interested in STEM?

What are the institutional factors that change gender roles  and expectations in higher education?

How research can help men to dropout less than women?

In this episode we see the merging of both teams into ONE, something that nobody saw coming. I think in every episode we have seen the relationship of verbal and Non verbal communication amongst the group members. In this episode we had a scene where Josh and Baylor have a conversation in which he asked her if they were still good and she says yes knowing that deep inside they are not, Later Baylor decides to talk to her mom about the situation and tells her that she must tell Josh that she is voting him off. Baylor plays it off very well because she left Josh thinking everything was okay even though things weren’t really that way.

Julie in this episode is hating her stay at the Island and is showing it by making the worst mistakes, she steals her tribes food and later is caught which has people talking about how selfish she is by taking the groups food for herself. Julie is having a hard time communicating with her group about her feelings and everyone just see’s her as a selfish person which is making it harder for her. She decides to quit the show and leaves many shocked at why she would just give up the opportunity of being on the show.

Tensions between certain people are arising and it all depends how they communicate from here on to survive the show or they are putting themselves at risk to be the next one to be voted of the show. You don’t want to be talking bad about other people or making bad expressions towards them because that will just eventually get you on their bad side and we all know what happens when someone isn’t the favorite on the team.

Part I

Our last two sessions in class where pretty interesting.  Two weeks ago the activity with the stars was touching. During the activity i had a blue star i believe where my family and friends where having a hard time accepting but still supporting the decision. The whole time i was thinking about my cousin because he went through that scenario when he came out of the closet. I found it interesting how he waited until the day of his high school graduation to confess that he liked males instead of females. I understand why he waited because in high school every kid judges and more when someone is different. Like Jaimie described, our whole family knew but we never said anything because it wasn’t our business.  When he took me into the room and confessed all I had to say was, “your my cousin and I’ll love you for who ever you choose to be”, and he responded by, “Thanks, I know i can count on you”.  Not just me, but i am happy to say that the rest of my family is supportive too, and I know that means a lot to him. Then our last session we did our chapters presentation. I enjoyed the book, it was a powerful story. Lavar is like a role model. Someone who came from a bad neighbor hood, had his ups and downs in life, and yet still made it to be someone important that people can look up too. This book reminded me of the first activity we did outside. I see it as no matter where we come from or the struggle we went through, at the end we all together in the same school, in the same class, with the same professor, with the same goal of getting educated to be someone in life.

Part II

The readings where about gender in higher education are more about the females progress and discrimination in education. In chapter 9, it states that in over two decades, women are stepping up and achieving more in higher education than men. Before college, males are more likely to drop out than women. Years ago in the 1990’s males where the ones that where two times more likely to graduate than women. Somehow this has changed and I believe it’s because women have more rights and more choices to choose. In the article of Goldman, he says that women are underestimated to earn a degree in STEM. Women are expected to have easier career choices like education, art, nursing, or other topics that men don’t really go for. But it is said that once in college women tend to change their majors for one of the fields in STEM. I believe that women can be smart like men in solving math problems , studying technical courses,  being engineers, and figuring out science. Me on the other hand STEM was never my favorite topics, that’s why i chose communication. I rather speak than doing math.

Questions:

1) Why is it that men are dropping out instead of completing their education?

2) Why are women not encourage to study STEM

3)Why are women more interested in education than men?

4) How can we make women interested in STEM?