do no harm:


idit dobb-weinstein: "teaching is action and thinking at once. What I try to guard against most when I teach is not speaking as if my answer were conclusive, so as to avoid (to the extent possible) any kind of dogmatic appropriation. It is understandable why students might wish to imitate their teachers, but there are different modes of imitation. I try very hard to avoid the mimetic appropriation that is immediate, passive, and occludes thinking. One other reason is that if I made clear what my views were, and my views appeared as if they were final, it would preclude the possibility of first, students challenging me and second, learning from my students. The relation between the student and teacher is, to me, a dynamic relationship . . . Teaching and learning is a movement that occurs between. In other words, we are at once both agent and patient, both teacher and learner. If we are not very careful, we can do a great deal of harm. And that, too, I have learned from my teachers, Maimonides especially.

I believe my task is to provoke students to think and to engage them in genuine dialogue and questioning. To paraphrase a rabbinic saying, 'I have learned from my teachers, and I have learned from my peers, but I have learned most from my students.' And that is a continuous process of learning."

Sunday, 30 May 2010

LACC teachers threaten to sue student (for pell grant?) for blogging

don't despair!

times are tough!

being threatened to be sued by two teachers at LACC is wow!

i highly recommend it!  bloggers, mobilize!

if the blogosphere is so powerful, take it!!!  take the power!!!!  demand respect!!!!!  if you are shy, anonymize yourself!!!!

women: in the future you will be respected!!!!  men: in the future we will work together for mutual respect!

equality is not a crime, it is not a crime to request it!!!!

homophobia, sexism, racism, etc. are on the way out!  our generation will liberate humanity, free humanity, for total human liberation!!!!

if i ask for respect for women, or vegans, or dyslexics, or whoever, in the future, we will not be ignored, marginalized or coerced!!!!

we will not accept cold war silencing tactics.  we are too intelligent!!!!!  we will not be called "inappropriate" for asking for justice and respect for all people!  our karma and truthfulness will protect us!!!

we will prevail!!!  eckford will not sue me, but rather join me saying," yeah mary, great idea, so sorry you faced harassment, beating, discrimination, rape, etc.  this school is going to be 100% respectful, a hate-free zone where you can study and attain your intellectual dreams!  we will strive to protect you from an unfair hostile atmosphere!!!!!  women in the classroom will be respected on par with men!!!!  we will not reinforce the status quo of 17% representation 70% of the male dollar underpay etc by further marginalizing and objectifying you linguistically!!!!!!  if you have something to say, we want to listen!  we will abide by the state and federal laws guaranteeing  you equality in the classroom!!!!!"

i was so inspired by the lawyers guild meeting i attended with sheila in april.  at the meeting they discussed radical politics.  if agroup has a great agenda for instance: anti-racism, is it okay to accept sexism within the anti-racist movement?
the answer, on the very progressive side of the room is: absolutely not!

so within any progressive movement, a questioning process must occur in regards to equity and integrity.
i think it is super fabulous that eckfor teaches african american studies.  and i think it is super fabulous that bartelt teaches about the effects of globalization and colonialism.
but since we have so much in common, it hurts extra much for them to knock women.

so the irony too is that eckford while being all che-gueveraed-out, is using stalinist gulag style tactics to disrupt my attempts to offer an alternate perspective.

i wholeheartedly encourage the students of the future LACC to approach their classrooms with a grain of salt and a self-empowered attitude.  if a teacher is sub-par, or teaching with no self-critique, empower yourself to speak up, blog, write letters etc.

now i don't really recommend the administrative remedies.
they are more there to make you think they are ensuring a fair atmosphere.
cristy passman said "if the boys are getting off" it's okay.

so prepare yourself for what is OK at LACC:
pussy--lewis
bitching--bartelt
hooker--lewis
slut--lanzer
cheesecake--duffy
tits--bartelt
tits and ass--bartelt
shitty--bartelt
whore, the n-word---film in vargas criminal law
tits and ass and bitch and asshole--eckford as he apologized for, repeated all of these.

hey and guess what!!!!??????
i like the concept of free speech!  but when the atmosphere is so non-academic and hostile and degraded, and women are the targets, i am pretty confident that this is not fair, and not okay by the state and federal law guaranteeing me a schoolplace free of harassment and epithet and slur and a hostile atmosphere.

and furthermore, it's just not nice, recommended, flattering to oneself to speak this way.

it makes you look archaically sexist, and misinformed.

and silencing the blogger who writes about it, just makes the whole atmosphere look even more repressive.

say if your vocab-deprived mind thinks all those words are awesome ways to keep women in their place in the classroom, you might object to silencing the woman journalist who wants to blog it.

LACC started as an all-male sexist school.  now in 2010, women get to go, if they don't mind linguistic stratifications protected by the administration . . . .

that's repressive.

if the boys can say it, i can blog it.

and if you are considering taking classes at LACC, it may concern you to know.

if you have a child going to our school, it may concern you to know.

i for one, wish someone had warned me.

so i hope this helps.

now school scandals get big.  like murder, rape, etc.  in fact LACC has a severe scandal of its own.  peters, moore, passman, and bradford are protecting james butler-zetino who harassed a minor after deliberately feeding her an excess of alcohol on a school trip to the student government conference in sacramento.  the girl ran to her room in tears, told other women, spoke to the school newspaper, and may be pressing charges.  but Bradford is excusing the perpetrator who got 500/a semester to be ASO president, and to harass a minor, and then harass sheila dharod when she attempted to shine a light on the corruption.

these creeps won't touch me.  they have LACC associate district counsel eric kim to send me a letter telling me to take down my blog.
so LACCD is cover-up oriented.  i wonder how the trustees feel.  how bad would it have to get for LA times to get involved???

school president jamillah moore was so disturbed when i told her about tits and ass screamed at me in anthropology, that she gave me a meeting time to discuss the future of equality at LACC.

i told her that i lost my appetite, got very depressed, dropped classes, and that it was hurting my ability to study.

this is important.  a hostile atmosphere inhibits a student's ability to learn.  i really like modern progressive anthropology and thank bartelt for introducing me to it!  but i don't think i should have to hear the words shitty bitching asshole tits and ass just to learn some anthropology.  nor should i have teachers and department chair eckford threatening to sue me because i complain.

that in itself is hurting me now.  why should i have to be threatened?  when i recommend a best practices approach to the teachers, i want to offer them the good advice of how not to damage their careers and how not to get sued, generally speaking.

i thought this kind of junk would be screened out.
are taxpayers okay with paying for this????

i think i could get this lingo on TV after 10 pm if i wanted to hear slut, pussy, tits, tits and ass, bitching, shitty etc.

eckford's assertion:  "i would sue you" and soandso "would have every right to sue you" is so funny.  anybody can sue anybody.

why don't they sue me for my student loans?
wouldn't that be funny????

why do they have to get so personal!  why do they think i am worth suing?  do they think i scare so easily?

all i ask for is a non-harassing, non-profanity-laced lecture.

and therapy . . . for the unequal atmosphere . . .
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