PAWS Meetings

PAWS stands for Professional Advocates With Students...or something like that. Either way, it's a more structured form of homeroom. Teachers at my school hate it.

The other day, my supervising teacher gets an IEP (individualized education plan) for a student in her PAWS. An IEP is designed for students with special needs. My teacher is livid. "WHY!? Why do I need to modify my instruction for a student that's in my HOMEROOM?! We don't do anything in there anyway?"

Silently, I considered that she was overreacting. After all, if nothing truly happens in advisory, then modification won't be necessary. Done.

But then it was time for our mandatory PAWS meeting to discuss the plans for the next month. My teacher seeks out the special ed teacher, Phyllis, for advice about this new IEP. Now, I knew Phyllis was a little shady when she casually commented during the meeting, "My juniors are more stupid than my special ed kids!"

And what did Phyllis say to my teacher about having to modify instruction for a student with special needs in her homeroom?

"That's SOOO RETARDED!!!"

Blondes, Brunettes, and...?

Check out THIS latest advertisement series for the Sunsilk hair product line. I suppose the hair possibilities are divided into blondes, brunettes, and other? I'm not surprised that the hair care industry doesn't cater to black hair, but its never been this obvious. And yes, there is the argument that brunette includes black hair, but seriously, as Ani points out, brunettes is what white people with brown hair call themselves. Alright, media, woot.

This entry is brought to you by Sunsilk.

Jean

Food Crisis

I suggested we order in Thai food today at work (cause when we work late, we always order in... and its ALWAYS burgers or sandwiches).

Everybody looked at me like I was psycho.

And then a blonde girl said that they try to order American food so that everybody can find something they like.

This is food deprivation, yo.

Can I just take this moment and rant a little about "sandwiches". Why would you pay somebody 6 bucks to make you a sandwich? That's not even cooking, you don't even add heat. You're baisically taking about 5 individual items and stacking it on top of each other. Not too hard or complicated. I don't get what all the buzz is about sandwiches.

Moral of the story? No heat = not cooking = boring food = food crisis.

Jean

Im in my foreign policy class and we are talking about groups who tend to vote democratic or republican and we are looking at a statistic that states that African Americans tend to vote more Democratic.

An African American gentleman raises his hand and says:
"That's cause Black people don't know what the hell they are talking about. I'm from Southside San Antonio, and they are pretty ghetto, you know, they are as black as they come...

Professor stops at this point with the WTF look on her face and says "maybe you need to stop right there..."

and he says, "No no, I'm serious, they are really ghetto, they live in project housing and they don't know what they are doing, they vote democratic cause they think it will get them more money. I can say this cause I'm black, it's ok."

I found it interesting that he chose to say "they" and also that when he wanted to talk about the whole entire African American population, he referenced section 8 project housing. Nice. Seeing as he is the only African American student that showed up in class today and the professor doesn't know jack squat about race relations in America, the rest of the class slowly absorbed this and concluded that it had to be true.

sigh

Black Heritage Celebration

Wednesday was the high school's Black Heritage Celebration aka Celebration of Religious Privilege.

Featuring: Church hymns! Praising the Lord! Lead singers of local church choirs singing about Jesus saving people's souls!

Weird Moment: when the 85% white jazz choir sang "Thank You" by Boyz II Men.

WTF Moment: when I noticed that the posters entitled "From Slavery to Freedom" on the walls featured great African Americans like Denzel Washington playing Malcolm X, Tyra Banks, and Mrs. Brisco...the school's speech teacher. I know we're aiming towards moving past the token Black Americans that have impacted history, but REALLY!!?!? Mrs. Brisco can be replaced by Josephine Baker or Marcus Garvey.

AND WHY is the theme from slavery to freedom? Is this a national theme?


I'm sorry this wasn't a very cohesive post.

Early this morning, I walked past the YCT table in West Mall and saw a Desi female there.

A little part of my soul died :(