This week in class, we watched the film "A Girl Like Me," made by New York City high school student Kiri Davis. The film explores issues of self-image among African American girls, and discusses how white/European images of beauty that dominate the media can have a damaging impact on the self-concept of girls of color.
What did you think of the film? And, more importantly, how does it relate to the work of teachers? What specific things can teachers do to provide a curriculum and school experience that affirms and validates their students -- especially students who come from cultural backgrounds that differ from the mainstream?
It was sad to see these young girls going through these self image situations and even more startling was how the younger children were starting to define the image of being African-american and white and how one was good and the other was bad.This is definitely a problem and its starting at a young age as we saw in the video. It is important for teachers to recognize everyones different cultural background. At a young age you can celebrate special holidays and have an international party which involves food, books, traditional games so that children that come from different backgrounds feel respected and validated. As these children continue their education together they have a better background knowledge of one another. As the kids turn to adolescents teachers need to provide a curriculum that gives students a better understanding of cultural backgrounds. For example, maybe looking at similartities between cultures. Grouping students and having them find similarities with one another. These students would come to respect eachother more. But before we can educate our children we need to educate ourselves and appreciate diversity.If a student does not have that self confidence about themselves then the are less likely to succeed in school.
ReplyDeleteWatching the film was quite disturbing for me. To see how these little girls preferred white dolls instead of black dolls was astonishing. I feel that in conjunction with parents, teachers need to embrace the diversity that we have in todays society. We must provide curriculums that celebrate and educate all cultures. That way, it will prepare our students to accept diversity that is among us. In addition, we need to focus on the similarities that we share, instead of focusing on the difference that we "see". Unfortunately, most of these "image" distortions start within our own family. Family members discriminate among their own family members for being lighter, darker, thinner, taller, etc.. Therefore, the education must start at home. We need to embrace and celebrate our similarities, instead of focusing on our differences.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that it was very sad to see these girls choosing white dolls over black, or brown faced dolls. It is pretty sad that in the twenty-first century, African-American girls have their minds set up that way. But the fact is that such way of thinking is deep-rooted in this country. Assumptions that "white is beautiful"is just wrong and sad. It is an image created a long time ago, when the white people did not want the slavery to vanish and be done away with. As a society, we should encourage people of different backgrounds to research their culture. The first place to start with is the house and school. Moreover, massive, national awareness about other cultures would be very helpful. I know that we celebrate different nations during different months of the year, but this is not enough.There is more nations living in this country that available months in a calendar.Why not have days that celebrate different nations. We could go to Italian restaurant or just cook Italian at home during the Italy Day for example on November 5th. During this day, TV should broadcast Italian movies and provide people with the deep history of Italy etc...I think that would be good start in honoring other nations and cultures.By the way, I know that Link TV does that, bot not everyone has access to it.
ReplyDeleteThe video left an image, fused in my memory, of how children perception of themselves was negative. It's the image that some schools, media and society inflict upon our children. Diversity learning and teaching is one way to combat this disease of superiority. Through opening the students minds to many different cultures through books, lessons, and field trips. We, as educators, must teach them that all are equal and no other race is superior than another.
ReplyDeleteWatching the film "A Girl Like Me" was very sad but realistic. Many african american girls does have a negtive images of themselves not because they want to but because the media dominates whites as beautiful. These young adolescent girls are developing physically and their self-perception of themselves is very critical during these young years. Believe it or not these young years have a BIG effect on the rest of their lives. I think as a teacher with a classroom full of students with different backgrounds I would need to intergrate more cultural lessons into my curriculums. As teachers I think it is good to group people of different background for activities. As a group, the kids also learn from each other about their culture/backgrounds.
ReplyDeleteI though that the film was very interesting. The most interesting part of the film was when the African American girl is asked which doll is prettier. The girl stated that the white doll. When she was asked which one she looked like she hesitated to say the black doll. The girl was not happy that she looked like that doll. I think that as future teachers we must teach our students to love themselves for who they are and not the color of their skin. I think that as a teacher we can have activities, mentor these students, and have social emotional learning included in the curriculum.
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ReplyDeleteAfter reading some of your comments, I'm wondering: Do you think these issues of self esteem and media representation apply only to African American children? Or do narrow representations of beauty in popular culture have an impact on other children of color (Latinos, Asians) as well?
ReplyDeleteWatching this video brought a sad emotion in me. Not only African American girls go through this socia and physical stage but all girls in general at one point face this situation. The reason behind this is because the media and the home enviroment has to do a lot with it. Young girls are not born with a self-esteem. We as teachers need to help them and educate them to have a good self-esteem. Therefore, s a teacher we can reinforce safety, encouragement and time.
ReplyDeleteI think these issues of self esteem and media representation apply to all kids. Asian kids who think their skin's too pale or eyes are too small. The Latina girl who thinks her hips are too big or hair to nappy and curly, or maybe too white to be Latina. Even the red head kid, or the kid who tries to cover up his/her freckles to avoid being teased, or is too skinny or too fat, not blonde enough or tall enough.
ReplyDeleteThis country focuses on efficiency and thus we create the best machines and use the best products to get the job done. But not only do our machines have to be efficient so do the people. The media feeds images of what success looks like by showing us who is successful because they make the most money or have the potential to do so. And since they make lots of money and we live in a capitalist society they have to be the most successful, and thus the most efficient. So who wouldn't want to be like them. We don't see the mass marketing that goes behind what becomes a "success", and how everything is really just a product and not a true form of expression for the sake of expression, but merely for the sake of cashing in. And now because media, like almost everything else, is global, kids all over the world will suffer from some of these media images and realities sold, and begin to feel inadequate about not only themselves but also where they live,
Do I have a solution? Not really, I guess just don't watch so much TV and teach our kids to be critical consumers.
I think self esteem issues definitely applies to all minorities, but I think it affects African Americans more. I remember a couple of times wishing I had straight blonde hair with light eyes as I was growing up. There were sometimes situations where I asked myself,If I looked a certain way(white) would that situation be any different?
ReplyDeleteI actually thought this video was very interesting. I thought that it was very sad that this little girl and many others decided to go for the white doll. The part that stuck on me the most, was when the teen asked the little girl which doll was prettier? the little girl pointed at the white doll right away. Then she was asked which one did she look like? The Little girl put her head down and hesitated to answer. This was so upseting to me, and I told most of my family members about this video and their reaction was just about the same as mine.
ReplyDeleteI was so sad when I saw this video. Image it still bothers me to see how the children saw/related to beauty, good and bad etc. After I saw that video I was telling everyone I encounter that week about it I really wanted to see what people had to say about it and if anything give them a heads-up educate yourself and your children. I think parents and teachers have a big mess to clean up. The media has corrupted our childrens self image. That's were we as teachers need to really reinforce the beauty in all cultures and celebrate all cultures. Educate are children that differences is what makes us unique. For example if you have a lower grade like Pre-k or Kg have dolls from all cultures at least the ones that are in your classroom. Make it a point to say that the other dolls are pretty so that the children can see that the white doll is not the only pretty doll. But the media corrupts more than just black or white girls are obessed with their looks, hair, skin color, eye color, weight you know you need to be a size two to be beautiful etc. I think this media self image has gone out of control. For instance, if you don't look to par never fear you can always fix it with a good tummy tuck, face lift, hair relaxer etc the possiblities are endless.
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