Be 聪明 (smart) it's Chineasy

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GpI1fNSk8m0

One year ago I began learning Chinese also known as my first step to becoming a polyglot. While it is certainly challenging it is far from impossible. When beginning to learn many people would comment "oh that's so hard, why would you learn Chinese?," Well cause I want to go to Taiwan and teach English. Also learning this language will help me to much more entirely understand the culture. When thinking of this it makes me wish I would have begun learning the language much sooner than I did.  This video gives great reasons to learn a second language. While never impossible studies have shown that it is much easier to learn multiple languages if you start young. Also as a future educator I see the impact this could have in learning. Knowing these languages would help expand groups allowing for inclusion of those that would previously have not been understood. It also may get kids interested in learning and other cultures from an early age, which would help promote tolerance and understanding. Finally this would be a great opportunity for students. With such a competitive job market students who know a second language are invaluable to our current global economy. As stated in the video only around 24000 people are studying a second language!  These are all reasons why I hope to see language become a larger part of adolescent and youth curriculum.

Classless Cats

When I first heard the title of this book I immediately thought of how many in America believe that they live in a classless society. Clearly this is not accurate. This is also exemplified in the book. Bettie discusses how, often, upper class students are much less aware of their and their classmates socio-economic status and thus often disregard their many advantages such as high cultural capital. This in turn causes strife between these groups. Like when girls think kids from "bad families", seeming to nearly be synonymous with poor, are determined to be less apt or to have less desire to succeed, when in fact they may be working extra hard to succeed along with supporting themselves. By disregarding this advantages and disadvantages we blind ourselves to class and in turn further disadvantage those who are already in the worst of situations, instead of working to equalize them and give them fair and equitable opportunities.

Interesting Intersectionality

In early childhood I did not have much contact with people of other ethnicities because I lived in incredibly small towns from kindergarten through senior year of high school. This does not mean that I didn't experience intersectionality. I am a white, lower-middle-class, male.  A big result of this is that before college I had little contract and experience with people of other classes and races. This gave me less perspective intro other people and their life experiences. I think this prevented me from understanding how other people view the world. This could have played a role in the low number of friends from other social classes. This may be also do to habits of varying parts intersectionality. As discussed in "Women Without Class" this intersectionality can lead to a division of physical space for use by varying groups. I think this leads to acquisition of friends of similar social groups due to common interests and shared space such as how many of my friends smoke cigarettes and this are often ostracized by passers by thus when they meet a fellow smoker they often quickly make friends. This seems to lead to greater division along intersections of society.

Emerging Adulthood, and Expanding Adolecence

When I think of the emerging adulthood essay I just always end up thinking that we have to stop being so prescriptive. While I certainly understand that this will happen and many kids go through similar patterns. However, I also think that if we focused in children as individuals, not some abstract idea that is entirely uniform. Certainly kids will mature at different rates, but this idea ofmaturing is also somewhat of a socially constructed idea. Like many points in sociology it seems that the potential problem may be that our society chooses to define its ideal person much to narrowly to be realistic, much less a broad consensus.

Too Much Tech?

After reading Electronic Media Use, Reading, and Academic Distractibility in College Youth, and having our subsequent discussion in class I began to think more about how closely intertwined our society is with technology, more specifically youth.  I remember when I was in junior high and maybe even slightly before that people I knew began to get cellphones.  Old Nokias that you could build a house with.  I remember wanting one to some degree though I think I would have much rather my mom bought me an Xbox 360, though that probably wouldn't have done me much more good than the phone.  While the study focuses on "Iming", a phrase not as prevalent as it used to be, however I think that the data still seems accurate.  It is surprising to me that we get as much accomplished as we do seeing as how distracted everyone seems to be.  We are getting less sleep, no where near the 9 1/2 one of the films we watched in class recommended, and seem to cram every last free second with a hodgepodge board of bright multi-colored screens.  While I am not an advocate for the complete abandonment of technology, because it has massive opportunity for good, I do think we need to strongly reconsider how we are using it and attempt to be as purposeful as possible when accessing it.

The "Glorious" White City

An issue topic that is discussed by Lesko in Act Your Age is the ego of the White American Male.  This is clearly illustrated early on when Lesko gives a portrayal of the 1893 opening of the World's Colombian Exchange in Chicago, and its subsequent "White City".  While I was born in a moderately diverse town in Texas and later lived in Omaha, Nebraska for a time before I started Kindergarten, after that time I was living in relative cultural isolation.  After living in Omaha, and until I moved to Columbia to begin my College career, I lived in a myriad of small towns, the largest being around 1,200 residents.  I did have a few African American friends in Omaha and worked for an Indian family in High School, however, these were essentially the only two instances of my experience with those outside WASP culture.  This, to a moderate degree, effected my relationship with people of color, or perhaps more of just a lack of cultural understanding.  I was used to being around people more or less the same as me, when coming to college I met many new people with vastly differing heritage and cultre.  After some time at college I have come to relish this situation and long for more instances to learn about others ideas and ways of life.

Stage Presence of a Skater

When discussing identity in children it is important to think of how individuals present their identity.  Until discussing this in recent classes I had not thought much about my own "presentation of self", especially in my youth.  Goffman discusses the importance of shared symbols.  Examples I can remember from my childhood the relate to the use of symbols are many.  One such example was was both my friends and my essential obsession regarding skateboarding, and "action sports" more generally.  During most of elementary school my friends and I would skateboard or ride our bikes outside, inside we would watch the X Games or play Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.  We would build our own ramps and design unique games to play with various tools of the trade: wood planks, rails, skateboards, bikes, roller skates, and the like.  Not only did our play revolve around these things, our dialogue reflected it.  Aside from the common "dude" and "rad", we delved deep into "Action Sports" culture and jargon discussing such intricacies as lazer flips and the superfluousness of risers.  This knowledge allowed us, in some cases, to verbalize our thoughts with more ease by using the aforementioned genre as a may hodgepodge of metaphors and comparisons to the world we were discovering.  Along with that I had to assume some personas, similar to Goffman's idea of performers on a stage.