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This isn't right
Apr. 28th, 2017 09:42 amOne of the professors at the college is having her students do a genealogy project for class which is coming due soon - or rather it appears that they all have to present what they find in class and some have already and some have not. The have nots are finishing up now.
And there is somethings deeply flawed with this assignment.
First off, students are told that they must trace their ancestry back to their arrival to America. This makes it pretty damn easy for our first and second and heck third generation Americans. A little harder for others. But you know who's really struggling? A number of our African American students. Slaves weren't exactly recorded in the census with the best of accuracy, you know?
Students are also told they need to have and answer to-in the class presentation-lots of personal information. Like: why didn't you include a picture of you with your grandmother? Why don't you keep in touch with your father? Etc.
More to the point, we had a student in the library (who we know pretty well because she does work study) freaking out because her father abused her, she has no contact with him (he's legally not allowed to have contact with her) and she does not want to discuss it in class. She's trying her hardest to craft her presentation so that she won't get any questions. She's in a position where she's trying to talk about her abuser in her classroom as if she wasn't abused by him and everything is a-okay between them to try to avoid any questions. And she feels like she has too because she states that one of her other classmates ended up having to talk about her father's affair (and resulting half-sister) when she obviously didn't want to and another got probed onto why her mother wasn't working which lead to why her mother was in jail.
This is deeply wrong.
One of the other librarians has plans to go the VP of Academics about it.
And there is somethings deeply flawed with this assignment.
First off, students are told that they must trace their ancestry back to their arrival to America. This makes it pretty damn easy for our first and second and heck third generation Americans. A little harder for others. But you know who's really struggling? A number of our African American students. Slaves weren't exactly recorded in the census with the best of accuracy, you know?
Students are also told they need to have and answer to-in the class presentation-lots of personal information. Like: why didn't you include a picture of you with your grandmother? Why don't you keep in touch with your father? Etc.
More to the point, we had a student in the library (who we know pretty well because she does work study) freaking out because her father abused her, she has no contact with him (he's legally not allowed to have contact with her) and she does not want to discuss it in class. She's trying her hardest to craft her presentation so that she won't get any questions. She's in a position where she's trying to talk about her abuser in her classroom as if she wasn't abused by him and everything is a-okay between them to try to avoid any questions. And she feels like she has too because she states that one of her other classmates ended up having to talk about her father's affair (and resulting half-sister) when she obviously didn't want to and another got probed onto why her mother wasn't working which lead to why her mother was in jail.
This is deeply wrong.
One of the other librarians has plans to go the VP of Academics about it.
