Period 3 - Christopher Robson

[CALIS]

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Required Format:
Session 1 materials: [The first line of your report is the session number and full title of the database item(s).]
Focus Q: [On a new line, list your focus question from your TAP form. If you changed the question then add the new version after the TAP version.]
*** For the minimum of 3 student specifics, do not refer to students by name; instead call them Student A, B or C.
*** For the minimum of 500 words, guiding questions are here: https://www.forums.usc-calis.net/showthread.php?tid=297

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4. Each report must be submitted by midnight within 3 calendar days after each session.

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We welcome any questions or concerns you have about scoring.
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Session 1: Evolution of ideas: Equality
- On time 0/3
- Substantive 6/6
- Student specific 6/6
Comments: You did a great job of providing a detailed lesson plan including the exact stopping point and readings not included on the TAP form. Overall, very thorough and helpful.

Session 2: Equality is an ideal: Dimensions and Distinctions
- On time 0/3
- Substantive 6/6
- Student specific 6/6
Comments: The group used the continuum instead of the 4 Worlds as described, but you did a good job acknowledging where the lesson fell short/was not completed.

Session 3: Coping Multiethnic Groups at the Bargaining Table
- On time 3/3
- Substantive 6/6
- Student specific 6/6
Comments: It was great how you included what the class is learning during their normal lessons and how it related back to what you were teaching this session.

Session 4: NYT: What makes us all radically equal?
- On time 3/3
- Substantive 6/6
- Student specific 6/6
Comments: You did a good job highlighting the parts of the lesson which could create some conflict and how you acknowledged the complexity of the issues in order to prevent it from becoming heated.

[Christopher Robson]

Session 1 Materials: Evolution of Ideas: Equality
Focus Questions: How do you interpret identity? How can you apply your interpretation?

This week's session was our first meeting with our students so in order to make them feel more comfortable with us, we started by going around the classroom answering an ice breaker, what is your name and what is a fun fact about you. After introducing ourselves and getting to know the students, we introduced the topic that our four weeks would revolve around, equality and identity. Wanting to understand the students' current knowledge of the topic, we asked the students as a class "what comes to mind when you think of equality?" In response, we received many comments including fairness, equal pay, equal rights, LGBTQ rights, racial equality, etc. Once we were happy with the responses, we then asked the class "what is the opposite of equality?" and got answers along the likes of racism, discrimination, and sexism, etc. Feeling confident that the students had a good understanding of the overarching concepts, we dove into our first exercise, the Evolution of Ideas: Equality.

The exercise comprises two primary activities that require students to place various terms relating to equity on a continuum that ranges from fascist on the left side to cultural relativism on the right. The first of the two activities was placing 16 adjectives that are either related closely with equality or inequality on the continuum. Given that the students in the class were AP students, a decent percentage of them were familiar with the terms, but many were still uncertain regarding the more complex adjectives. For example, one student, student A, asked what bigoted meant, and when we we responded with something along the lines of "someone who strongly dislikes other people based on race, ideas, etc.; think of something along the lines of severe biases" many other students nodded in understanding. This response by the majority of the students to our reply made us think that we should ask other students if they had questions as some were really shy given it was our first session. This decision proved to be beneficial as when we called on a couple other students we got questions about the meaning of prejudiced and domineering. After giving students time in groups to place the adjectives on the continuum, we brought the class back together and began calling on groups, asking them what terms they placed under different categories and explaining their rationale. For example, one group of students, group B, said that they believed hateful and racist belong under xenophobic. After a group spoke to the class and explained their reasoning, we then asked the class if they had any disagreements, and to our delight many did. One student in particular, student C, disagreed (in a positive way) with several groups as he saw many of the terms from a different perspective. More specifically, in response to group B, he believed that racist should be placed under ethnocentric instead of xenophobic as he believed that to be racist didn't necessarily mean that one fears other cultures, a key concept of xenophobia. The disagreements helped us express a major point we wanted to showcase which was that many of these terms have different meanings to different people. Our experiences and identity form how we think of and interpret these terms, meaning that they do not have a universal definition. Once we got through all of the terms, we gave the groups handouts with speeches regarding the idea of equality from famous individuals like Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. It was helpful that the students were taking APUSH as they already had background knowledge on some of the individuals. Unfortunately we ran out of time for this activity but plan to pick it back up at the start of next week's session!

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Session 2 Materials: Equality is an ideal: Dimensions and Distinctions
Focus Question: How do you rank different forms of equality?

To start our second session, we decided with Ms. Mejia to finish the activity we started in session one with the equality continuum. More specifically, we returned to the readings we handed out, but in order to save time only focused on the Lincoln and Douglas articles. We started with the Douglas article and had students take turns reading, alternating each sentence. After the students finished the first article, we asked each table to think collectively and come to a decision as to where they would place Douglas on the continuum. We then had each group share their answer. Most groups placed Douglas between xenophobic and ethnocentric. Once all the groups had told the class where they placed Douglas and explained their reasons, we moved onto Lincoln following the same format. Many groups placed Lincoln between ethnocentric and cultural awareness with a general skew towards cultural awareness. Having finished the spillover of activities form our first session, we then moved onto the exercises for this session.

The Equality is an Ideal: Dimensions and Distinctions exercise builds on the continuum from the first session but instead of comparing adjectives and their definitions, this activity has students think about their own experiences within the US and rank their perception of equality in different areas on a scale from 0-10. The areas of equality they were tasked with considering were equal rights, treatment, political access, political influence, and opportunity. An additional part of the activity tasked students to come up with real life examples of recent advances toward equality and continuing problems within each category. After explaining the directions we set the groups to work and walked around the classroom to answer any questions. I was personally asked by student A, "what is the difference between equal political access and equal political opportunity?" I responded with an example, citing equal voting rights as equal political access versus lobbying, and the importance of wealth and power as an example for unequal political influence. Once the groups had enough time to think through the assignment, we went around the room and asked each group to tell the class where they placed one of the forms of equality and why. Similar to session one, this think-pair-share activity sparked debates (positive debates that is). For example, student B thought that the US scored highly in terms of equal opportunity. However, student C was quick to respond in disagreement stating that she believed it was much lower, citing unequal pay between men and women and an overall lack of diversity in higher education. This comment about equality in education prompted Ms. Mejia to join the conversation. Given that the class was APUSH, she asked the students whether or not they believed every student had equal access to AP classes. Initially many students said yes, but after rephrasing the question and digging deeper, many students came to the conclusion that there was not much equality in terms of access to AP courses.

Following our discussion of AP classes, the focus shifted towards college and Ms. Mejia told us that the students wanted to know more about USC, so we used the last 5 minutes to talk about our experiences. Unfortunately this meant that we couldn't wrap up the exercise but I think the students found a lot of enjoyment hearing from our experiences as for many of them, USC is their dream college.

[Christopher Robson]

Session 3 Materials: Coping Multi-Ethnic Groups at the Bargaining Table
Focus Question: How does identity impact governmental decisions?

This was by far the most engaging and fun session we've had. The premise of this week's meeting was to simulate a government, similar to the house of representatives, where different ethnic groups, parties/factions, had varying amounts of power. The timing of our activity actually worked out perfectly because the class had just learned about the Senate and House of Representatives.

In terms of the activity, we started by reading to the class the details and premise of the exercise. We explained that it is centered around the fictional country of Zabros where four different ethnic groups live, the Zabos, Obos, Abas, and Boros. The Zabos have the most power, 9 of the 22 total votes and the most people, whereas the Obos have 6 votes, the Abas 4, and the Boros 3. After splitting the class up into four groups with the number of votes a group has directly correlating with the number of students, we gave them a paper that outlined their factions beliefs and desires. After letting the students read the document in their groups and discuss their position, we asked one person from each group to come up to the front of the class and express their group's desires for the new policy. Once each group had gone, we revealed to the class that the supreme leader (us), would only accept one list of four desires, and that the groups would need to comprise to pass the legislation as no one group had a total majority. Once they were allowed to interact, a clear leader formed, student A, who began to lead negations between the Zabos and Abas. Amongst the chatter we could clearly hear her making compromises with the Abas but still retaining the key demands and desires of the Zabos. We intentionally were hands off during this period as we wanted the students to negotiate for themselves. However, after 11 minutes, we brought the class back together and received the list of the four demands. After reading the demands aloud and asking clarifying questions, we held a vote among the groups. The bill received 9 votes for approval (all of them Zabos) and 13 votes for disapproval. It was awesome to see the shock on the faces of the Zabos as despite being confident in their number of votes, the bill did not pass. We then asked the students: who had the most power? While many said the Zabos, student B said that the Boros had the most power as they were the swing vote, without them, neither party could achieve what they wished. This was music to our ears as it revealed the purpose of the exercise. What we wanted the students to learn was that despite having a small percentage of the total votes, oftentimes the small parties can have an important say in policy, giving them more authority than one might presume.

At the end of the activity we asked the students some wrap up questions about their experience, and one comment stood out in particular. When asked why they thought the bill didn't pass, student C responded by calling student D a dictator, making the entire class burst out laughing.

[Christopher Robson]

[size=1][font='Times New Roman', serif][font=Tahoma, sans-serif]For our last session, I wish it had been a little more lively but I think we still got the message across. We started off the class by introducing the topic, gentrification. After we defined gentrification, we showed the class photos of Detroit, specifically abandoned homes and the divide between suburban and downtown Detroit as an example. It was in that moment that Ms. Mejia, returning from a phone call, saw the topic and immediately ran over to the window and opened the shades. She asked the students about the nearby luxurious condo buildings to which student A responded, “that’s where the rich live.” Student B then shared a story about how her sister was looking at apartments nearby and toured one of the new buildings but was shocked when a studio was going for $2,000 per month. We followed this up by asking the class, “is it nice to have luxury buildings in your neighborhood?” Many were keen to point out that while it makes the area look better, most of them were cut off from using any of the luxuries. Given that gentrification is a very complicated and sometimes heated issue, we were quick to point that there is no correct response to gentrification and that it is important to view the issue in a comprehensive manner, looking at all sides.[/font][/font][/size]
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[size=1][font='Times New Roman', serif][font=Tahoma, sans-serif]            Once we finished the discussion on the nearby area, we showed the students a video from Life Remodeled to give context to the reading. While the video was playing, we handed out the readings to not waste time. After the video, we turned the attention towards the reading and had students take turns reading sentences. After the first paragraph, Leo asked the class something along the lines of “reflecting on the video and first paragraph, do you think Life Remodeled is a good organization?” Many students were unsure at first, but we probed the class a little further, highlighting important pieces from the video and text that could guide the students. Finally, student C stated something along the lines of, “while their intentions were good, they weren’t able to effectively convey their mission to the community, resulting in distrust.” This was a perfect Segway as it was a key point we wanted to bring up in that uniting organizations with communities that have been made empty promises takes significant time. It is important to ensure that the community clearly understands the organization’s intentions instead of rushing into developments and creating further divisions. We then continued with the reading but noticed that a lot of students were losing focus and when asking the class questions, students seemed less engaged given the reading heavy nature.           [/font][/font][/size]
[size=1][font='Times New Roman', serif][font=Tahoma, sans-serif]            Seeing the shift in energy, we remembered that Ms. Mejia told us that the students wanted to hear about our experiences at USC, so we opened the floor to any questions the students had. Many students perked up and raised their hands asking us many questions about our experiences and how to get into colleges. We answered most of their questions and ultimately left our emails with the students in case they had future questions or wanted us to look over their essays. It was sad to leave the classroom but after our hour was up, we knew they needed to move on with their class and we wished them the best of luck in their future endeavors[/font][/font][/size]