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Reading Log #1- Dancica Paramanantharajah

The article that I will be focusing on is called, “The Null Curriculum: Its theoretical basis

and practical implications”. I learned specifically three words that stood out to me which are the

three curricula: the explicit, the implicit, and the null. I read that explicit are the subjects that are

in the Ontario curriculum and are mandatory, the implicit is learned by students and are part of

their school experience for example, social skills. The last one is the null curriculum, which is

information that does not get taught.

What I find important in this article is the importance of hierarchy. We have a lot of

curriculum to cover about multiple things that the government finds important that children

should learn. This leads to the null curriculum where some subject matter does not get taught.

The government decides that some information does not need to be taught which raises the

question, how does the government know what is important to teach and what is not? I feel that

there are some subjects that schools should teach but students are not educated about it.

This definitely relates to my world because I find that not until high school when I took

biology, I realized that the information I was learning was important. Learning about how your

world is constructed and about the big bang theory is something students should be learning at an

earlier age or should be mandatory. I feel that students should have options in science especially,

if it is believing in Christianity or the other way of Charles Darwin.

I remember when I was in probably grade 8, my dad yelled at me saying, “You don’t

know how to write letters properly, why do you even go to school, what are they teaching you?”

I realized now that it is not my fault for not knowing how to write an address when mailing a

letter, the school did not educate children on how to write professional letters. When we were
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having a class discussion, I heard Krista saying that now they are adding letter writing into the

curriculum which makes me happy because students need to learn that skill for the future.
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Reading Log #2

I will focus on Chapter 2 in the book, Is Everyone Really Equal?: An Introduction to

Key Concepts in Social Justice Education. I find that when it states that, “Knowledge is socially

constructed”, it is true because not every fact is right, there are other ways of thinking about a

fact. For example, in the book it states that people used to think the Earth was flat but then

realized that it is round. Analyzing knowledge construction depends on the positionality of a

person; their cultural values, beliefs, experiences, and social positions. People tend to form

ideologies and we have to think critically about these ideas.

Children learn about knowledge in different forms in the 21st century. Knowledge can be

influenced by television; forms of mass-mediated popular culture, mainstream knowledge where

theories and concepts taught by professors, and school knowledge where students are taught,

both explicitly and implicitly, but also what is not taught. All these examples are socially

constructed by people. This is why students should be thinking critically about what they learn

and see on television. They should not think that the information given to them or the way they

are supposed to act is ‘common sense’.

When I was growing up I used to watch all the Barbie shows and I would also want

my parents to buy me many dolls. I would want the white Barbie doll with blue eyes and skinny.

As I grew older I started to think critically about the media that I was watching. I realized that

Walmart sold many cultural Barbie dolls, but the media made me believe that there were only

white Barbie’s. The media portrays these dolls to make money and to get children interested so

they can buy a lot of dolls! I also had many experiences in classes where I was critical in what I

was learning. I know that not all information is true, there could always be another way to

interpret it. For example, even in my placement, when I broke my leg, students and teachers have
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the ideology that people with exceptionalities cannot perform their regular tasks. We as a society

feel bad for people that cannot perform what is socially constructed as, ‘normal’. This is

certainty because of cultural beliefs and television.

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Reading Log #3

I will focus on Chapter 3 in the book, Is Everyone Really Equal?: An Introduction to

Key Concepts in Social Justice Education. What I thought was important is gender socialization,

it is an example of cultural education. “Socialization is the process of learning the meanings and

practices that enable us to make sense of and behave appropriately in that culture.” Everyone

unconsciously just knows that girls are to wear pink and boys are to wear blue. This is because

society is socialized into thinking that this is the norm. I also questioned this because why should

it matter if a boy wears pink or grows up playing with a Barbie doll? Just by playing with a

Barbie doll is it going to change the child’s gender?

The glasses that the chapter talks about are the frames and the lenses which is

important because we should be following the lenses. Everyone looks at the frame and what is

the norm, we have to go beyond what is the norm and look at the individual perspective. For

example, girls should be quiet and boys should be loud is the frame because it is the norm for

society. Even though parents try to sometimes challenge the gender roles, there are always going

to be commercials, media, and socialization at schools.

In my childhood, I would not have noticed the norms and how I have been socialized

by my community. My parents would always give me dolls, make me draw and help around in

the kitchen. Whenever I wanted to climb trees, or I start hitting people, my parents would say,

“Don’t act like a boy!” I have been taught how to act like a ‘girl’ since childhood. I feel that

there should not be a gender we define and each individual is just considered a human with

different personalities.

I also really enjoyed reading the part about the armpit hair women at the dinner

because I have experienced these multiple times not only on buses but at malls as well. I also feel
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guilty now that I would make a disgusted face. Unfortunately, I believe the ideology that all

women should be hairless and represent themselves as clean and professional. Also, when I was

in grade 8, I would be self-conscious about the hair on my legs when I wore capris. All my

friends would have their legs shaved but my parents did not let me. I knew that all the girls in my

school did not have hair on their legs, so I wanted to follow because it was a cultural norm now.
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Reading Log #4

I will focus on Chapter 4 in the book, Is Everyone Really Equal?: An Introduction to Key

Concepts in Social Justice Education. I learned that prejudices start as stereotypes. We make

common assumptions about people that sometimes might be incorrect. We are socialized into

believing that these stereotypes are real. For example, the stereotype that Americans eat a lot of

fast food and Canadians all love hockey. I always wondered how these stereotypes maintain their

accurateness or why people believe it. Even if people see one person that fits the stereotype, they

will confirm it.

Once people act on prejudice, they are discriminating because this means that we are

ignoring or making jokes toward people. An example of discrimination is, if there is a blind

person next to someone, automatically, they are going to put them into a new social category and

might even start to ignore them. This might be because, they feel awkward or do not know what

to do in a situation like that.

In the movie Akeelah and the Bee, I noticed that a lot of stereotypes and prejudice were

stated. For example, one of the bullies at the school told Akeelah, “Join the spelling bee brainiac,

you freak!” Just because Akeelah is black, they think that she does not have a chance and is

wasting her time. Also, Dylon’s father said, “You have to beat a black girl.” This is

discrimination because his father has made an assumption about the black social group and is

now implying that Asians’ are better at spelling and that it would be embarrassing if they lost to

a “dumb black girl’.

I have experienced discrimination when I was at the movie theatre one day with my

broken leg and in crutches. I was looking for a seat and asked the man if the seat was being

taken, he did not even look at me. He pretended he did not hear me because he thought it would
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be easier if he did not have to speak to me. I was really disappointed because I did not want

anyone looking at me differently. I know that it is something we do unconsciously, even if he did

offer help or talk to me slowly, it would have been an issue.

I watch a lot of television and read magazines and there are many images in there that I

would want to be. For example, the media shows great images of women, they state that being

overweight is not good and to lose weight. Their ideal picture is something that is not true. This

is misinforming because many women are wanting to look like the perfect women, but what all

photographers are doing is just editing the pictures by shrinking their breasts and making their

waists smaller. These ideas allow us to rationalize our prejudice and are marketed to all people.