School Girls by: Peggy Orenstein

Premise:

• women vs. men
• unequal
• dominance
• hidden curriculum
• male dominance

Author's Argument:

Orenstein argues that we need to have a gender fair curriculum in the public school. If there is gender equality in the curriculum than girls and boys will both enjoy the learning experience. There is only a male dominance curriculum.

Evidence:

1. " it is a mirror opposite of most classrooms that girls will enter, which are adorned with masculine role models, with male heroes, with books by and about men classrooms which the female self is, at the best an afterthought."
2. "because I include a project based on women, I'm seen as extreme."
3. " if I took those lesson's that concentrated only on men's experience for a whole year, that would be normal."

Comments:

I think that what Ms. Logan is doing is great and more teacher should do what she does. If teachers made the class do a project solely on men and one on women the classroom would seem fair and equal for all the students. If they only focused on men little girls would be discouraged and would not have a role model.

I think that Ms. Logan should not only fill her walls with women role models, I think she should put males and females on her wall and I believe that the children would enjoy this. She should mix them around her classroom.

Citizenship in School: Reconceptualizing Down Syndrome by: Christopher Kliewer

Premise:

• Segregation
• Schools
• Unfairness
• Down syndrome
• Individuality
• Learning
• Democracy
• Ability

Author’s Argument:
Kliewer’s argument is that Down syndrome kids learn differently from other children and they are not the same as other children. The author also tells how children with Down syndrome are treated differently from children who do not have Down syndrome.
Kliewer says that students with Down syndrome should not be separated form other students.

Evidence:

1. “It's not like they come here to be labeled, or to believe the label. We're all here, kids, teachers, parents, whoever, it's all about us working together"
2. “Success in life requires an ability to form relationships with other who make up the web of community”
3. “I don’t tend to see Down syndrome as something. If you look at those three kids running around then room, they’re incredibly different from each other.”
   

Comments:
I did not like this article; this was kind of personal for me. I hated how they told us how children with Down syndrome are treated different from other students. My cousin is not Down syndrome but she is mentally retarded, and when they talk about these children it hurts me hearing about how these children have to live.
I think all children are different no matter if you have Down syndrome or not but all children should also be treated equally. If the community treated all people equally we would not have this problem.

"One More River to Cross" Recognizing the Real Inury in Brown: A Prerequisite to Shaping New Remedies by Charles Lawrence

Premise:

• segregation
• separation
• Brown vs. Board
• inferior

Author's Argument:

Lawrence argues that the decision that Brown made was suppose to be a successful one but it did not solve all the segregation issues. It also made blacks feel unequal to everyone else. The decision also effected the way that the people thought of segregation.

Evidence:

1. "The first is that segregation's only purpose is to label or define blacks as inferior and thus exclude them from full and equal participation in society."
2. "social scientist indicating that the effect if school segregation on black children was to generate a feeling of inferiority."
3. "Segregation has only one purpose to create and maintain a perminate lower class or sub caste defined as race.

Comments:

1. I did not like this article because I felt that there was no solution to the problem. I felt it just left me hanging there. I also had a hard time understanding the article, Lawrence was just venting out he was not telling us a solution to the problem that was faced. I wished he would have given us a solution. He also repeated thing over and over, I thought it could have been shorter.