Thousands have been displaced as a result of storms and flooding in Texas and Oklahoma. You can donate to Red Cross relief efforts at their website, by calling 1-800-REDCROSS, or by texting “90999” to REDCROSS (to make a $10 donation). Please feel free to leave links to other orgs doing relief work in TX/OK in the comments!
On the importance of cultural competence training for white teachers:
“Society generally has an aversion to seeing children of color as actual children,” said Jose Vilson, a middle school math educator in the Inwood/Washington Heights neighborhood and author of “This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and the Future of Education.”
Vilson said it’s important to make cultural competence for teachers a mandatory part of teacher development. …
“We need to speak up and say that cultural competence is professional competence, because you can’t teach students if you don’t actually value the students as students.”
SPEAKING OF WHICH, this story is very upsetting [h/t @mdawriter]:
PS 120 in Flushing held a carnival for its students Thursday, but kids whose parents did not pay $10 were forced to sit in the auditorium while their classmates had a blast. …
The must-pay rule excluded some of the poorest kids at the elementary, where most parents are Chinese immigrant families crammed into apartments and “struggling to keep their heads above water,” staffers said.
“It’s breaking my heart that there are kids inside,” one teacher said.
The teacher hugged a 7-year-old girl who was “crying hysterically.”
“She was the only one from her class who couldn’t go, so she was very upset,” the teacher said.
The girl told others, “My mom doesn’t care about me.” But the teacher said parents possibly did not see or understand the flier that went home or didn’t have $10 to spare.
“Are we being punished?” one child asked an aide in the auditorium as kids sat there with no movie playing, a staffer said.
Principal Joan Monroe tacked up a list of the number of students per class: “How many attending, Paid,” and “How many not attending, Not paid.”
Here is the actual list Principal Joan Monroe posted (with the names blocked out): over a hundred kids publicly humiliated and left out of a school carnival because their parents didn’t or couldn’t send in ten bucks. HOW is this a choice someone actually made?? The carnival company is now offering to throw a free party for the kids who missed out, which is great, but the principal should still have to answer for her actions.
“Equality in Marriage May Not Bring Equality in Adoption”:
With the Supreme Court set to rule on gay marriage in June, couples like Bode and his husband may not have to wait much longer for complete marriage equality. Yet, the adoption landscape in the United States is so fractured that a win for same-sex marriage might not translate to an immediate win for same-sex adoption. Legal experts say it will take time for certain states to adjust to a federal ruling that would require them to recognize gay marriages—and thus, gay adoptions—including those performed out-of-state.
Housekeeping note! We’ve been working hard to get rid of the auto-play ads on the site that cause trouble for some readers, but people smarter than me tell me that even though we’ve set up the ad quality settings so that auto-play ads shouldn’t slip through, sometimes companies self-classifying their ads misidentify them. So, if you see an auto-play ad and if you are so inclined, you could screenshot it and then send that — plus the clickthrough URL, if there is one — to nikki@the-toast dot net. And then I’ll shake my fist, and forward it to the aforementioned smart people, who can then block the clickthrough URL. Got that? I’m not sure I do, and all of you should feel 100% free to continue reading/enjoying the site while paying zero attention to the advertising — that is what I do, most of the time! — but I thought I’d mention it because some kind readers, in addition to voicing their understandable frustration with the auto-play ads, asked what they could do to help. And this, I’m told, would be helpful!
(Also if you see that horrible Asian ladies/”Asian beauties” ad again, send THAT to me with a screenshot/clickthrough URL; despite our best efforts to kill it, it seems to show up with some regularity on my many thoughtful and dignified posts about Asian Stuff, and I want it GONE.)
you know, just in case you were wondering
Sarah Hagi on sending money to her relatives in Somalia, and how this obligation has become “one of the most meaningful reminders” of her heritage:
We’re Muslim, and one of the major tenets of our religion is charity. Charity, we are often told, does not decrease wealth. Meaning: If you were in a position to give, your status would always be elevated in the eyes of God. If you were in a position to spread your wealth, it was an honor.
Once I had been working more steadily for a couple of years, my mom began to ask how much I had in my account. I was 17, and my fast-food habit meant there wasn’t much left over before my next paycheck. She never had to force me; it was very much a “give what you can” request. I didn’t always know who the recipient would be or what they needed it for, but I trusted my mom wouldn’t ask us to give away our hard-earned money for no reason. …
For much of my life, the entire process felt like going through the motions, like paying a bill or doing my taxes. Neither pleasant nor unpleasant, just something I did sometimes without putting much thought into it. Now that I’m an adult, I realize how formative this tradition is to what I value now.
There’s an interesting discussion over at Disability in Kid Lit about the romanticization of mental illness in literature, particularly YA:
JJ: The reason I would prefer to see a narrative from the PoV of the character with mental illness is that said character is the one experiencing the micro-aggression. And that is a much more powerful way to correct romantic notions—when you experience the micro-aggression along with the character directly. …
Lee: It’s a matter of figuring out how to make the history and experience of the character real for the normative reader. Which can be a real challenge. Especially for the reader for whom this is their first (or early) exposure to the concept.
Alex: There is a balance to strike. Ideally there would be plenty of stories within and outside of the perspectives of mental illness. Because lots of outsiders don’t really relate until they hear a story from the outside perspective.
No surprises here, being terrible to adjuncts is also terrible for students.
Toast contributor Christina Tesoro on how she learned to love being naked:
I once had a writing professor who stressed the importance of extending positivity and kindness to each other in a class where we bared our souls. We were naked in that class in a different way, but there’s still something revolutionary in looking at yourself with compassion, with love. Taking the time to see and appreciate yourself exactly as you are — I do it every day. I stand naked in the mirror and let warm shower water dry cool on my skin. I dance. I stage a revolution of one.
I have spent quite a bit of time in Bandon, though it wasn’t Our Usual Beach Town when I was growing up, and this plan to “develop” Oregon state coastal parkland by building a golf course (this dude’s SECOND golf course in Bandon, wtf) bums me out.
oh hey this seems perfectly tailored to my needs and desires: How a Lazy Person Cooks Indian Food
I’m not in charge of your life or anything, but I really don’t think you should see Aloha this weekend. I don’t think anyone should see Aloha. Just my opinion.
