Conversation Of The Week X: A Professor And Class Examine Ethnicity And Identity

This is a very fascinating article because it offers an interesting project for college students. The project is that a student should take some sort of conceptual framework. The concepts that they were offered were choices of different social groups or racial identities that exist in society today. They had to choose one of these groups and choose them for the reason that the topic interests them. The students then had to take the group they had chosen and analyze them in different steps that the teacher had required. They would have to define the groups and give evidence to things the group has done in society. They would also have to give examples of how the government had changed what the group was able to do. I read many of the projects by the students and many of them seemed to be very interesting. Many students chose interesting groups to write about in their projects. This project seemed to be very powerful to the students who were assigned to do it. This project should definitely be used in other universities and colleges because it is a good way to go about learning about different groups. In order to do the project, the students would have to look up a great amount of information about a group that they may not have know anything about. That is the most important thing that can be done when trying to figure something about something that confuses you. You need to look up as much information in order to express an opinion that has any type of validity.

After reading this article, I thought that Professor Rodriguez is very creative for making this assignment. It teaches the students about different races and identities. It gives them a better full understanding of the frames and backgrounds of different people. This requires the students to look more into depth about this and know that it is beneficial to know about different ethnicities and how they live. What goes on in their living style should be understand. This is a great assignment to be assigned to students of other schools. Furthermore, this can get students involved and interested in politics for the future.

I think was a great project. It made students think. They had to pick a group and it was for a reason that they took an interest in. the project made the students sit back and analyze the groups with evidence and examples, which made them do research. I believe that is was a very powerful porject that seemed to work. I know in Social Differences and Ethnocentrism within Africa Americans By: Sebastian Santos, I was very interested in what he had to say about African Americans. I agree with him. It is true that when a certain group is superior and knows that they are superior they have a tendency to take advantage of the "power." Each group has something certain that they are better at than everyone else, but they have to know how to handle it. He also talks about what other people think about certain groups. The thoughts that go around are based on how that one group presents theirselves. I believe this project should be used more by different universities, you can always change the idea to make it fit. It lets the kids use their opinion along with real evidence.

I feel like this project allows students to really take a look at separate groups critically. Although these topics are surely addressed within class, assigning a project that forces students to take a different perspective than their own always makes for a challenge and most likely an eye opening experience. I thought that the identity in politics section of the project was especially thorough in taking a look at society as a whole and how certain groups have entirely different experiences and life chances than others. By looking at all aspects of society it would allow students to analyze the structure and perhaps why things are the way they are.

-I liked the experiment or the project that the Professor is doing with her class. I found it extremely interesting and eye-opening due to the fact that many of us do not know about other races and ethnicities besides our own; therefore, it is nice when we take courses like race and ethnics and we get the opportunity to study/experiment other races and ethnicities. Until we are not educated about other ethnicities/race then it is quite impossible for us to learn and make a change in our daily lives. I was going through the different papers written by students and one of the papers that stood out to me not that other papers were not interesting but just because this particular essay/research project relates to me in many ways; therefore, I thought to mainly comment about this specific essay. The essay is titled as “The Muslim American” and it is by Philip Peedin. I entirely liked the essay due to the fact that I am Afghan Muslim American myself. I found it interesting that the author had it titled as “Muslim American” because I personally am Muslim and U.S citizen; however, I do not identify myself as “Muslim American” so just the title by itself, I found it interesting. Some of the points that I liked about the essay and I wanted to point out are when Mr. Peedin discusses regarding the fact that U.S provides aid to international Islamic countries which show that U.S is helping Islamic countries. For how much I liked this point, that much I wanted to point out another factor here, when Mr. Peedin talked about this issue/comment, I was hoping to see if he was going to mention anything about U.S going and taking over other Islamic countries in which that could be a reason to some of the Islamic countries that create hatred toward U.S for being dominant over their countries. Another two points that I agreed and liked are 1) when the author talks about the checks that occur in the mosques in which Islamic centers are supervision which in some cases bothers many of the Muslims because that makes it seem like every other Muslim is a terrorist just like how almost every other Muslim is stopped in the airports. Also, another point that I liked is the ignorance level of people that can be erased by becoming educated and knowing the history and the beliefs of Muslim people.

This is a very interesting project for it allows students to think and analyze different groups using evidence and examples that they had to research. By making them do the research it ensures participation on the behalf of the student. This participation creates an understanding on different ethnicity and backgrounds of different people, which allows for a greater understanding of difficulties faced separately by each culture. Other than taking a course that fufils the cultural diversity requirement students are never really forced to have to learn about difficulties another race may face. This assignment allows for a new wave of information to flow into a students mind.

We do things like this in Power/Privilege/Social Change class often! I think next semester I would love to examine one particular culture and understand it as much as possible- then read what other's researched as well, I think it's important to create educated diversity. Without education, intolerance can show up.