Class Diary #2

What a week! I have slept less than 20 hours, I have eaten and not even remembered eating, I have spent more hours on a train then on facebook and I couldnt be more jazzed. The above photos are from Occupy Boston;s Dewey Square camp where I have been for a week. In the context of our course material arguments about the intersection of class and other identities, and the invisibility of class have been rocked. The Occupy movement is not leaderless, it is a movement of leaders, and the conversation of class has become visible on signs, in chalk, on the news, in the policing of civil rights. Kevin said it best yesterday- we have already won in some way because we are on the table of the national dialogue. The statistics we have encountered in our readings, the conversations about tuition and the industrial complex applied to education based on age and not ability, on production over intellect, and the social and cultural capital reproduced to maintain class are all concerns of the 99% and the movement.

Assignment 10-4

Growing up in a town of upper and middle class predominantly white families, I saw first hand the impact of town funding on the educational experiences provided at the local schools. Whether it was the prevelence of after school activities, the consistant structural improvements, or the list of colleges attended by graduating seniors the results were clear. However, being a product of the then emerging culture of bullying in our k-12 schools, I attended 3 schools in 5 years, changing those schools 4 times. It is in this way that I was exposed to the varying degrees of both class and race experience in the classroom. The multitude of backgrounds as well as the ideological differences of catholic, private and public schools had this lens always changing for me. However, for me, Gorski struck home with his analysis of a student's basic need for survival regardless of desire to learn. If it is any testament to my love of education it is that I plan to make higher education my profession, thus requiring mass amounts of schooling. However, if it were not for my social capital, I would not only have dropped out but would also be dead. Social capital kept me connected to my studies as best as possible when the need to not be beaten up, or to find ways to eat while being blackmailed for my lunch and spending money was the more pressing issue.
Years later, in times like these when asked to reflect, it is only now that I am able to realize and name the tools which carried me through this period of my life. :)

Class Diary 1

Hey guys,
Heres a link I came across while making my way to Facebook... interesting invisible juxtapositions of age, sex, and class. Apparently you are a girl until 35, and since you expect to make 21% less (at least in the EU) you want a job thats fun and socially aware. Reproducing class? I think so.

http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2011/09/30/girls-just-want-to-have-fun-until-theyre-35/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmaing10%7Cdl6%7Csec3_lnk1%7C100638