[Jess Goldstein]

Although I agree with what everybody has said so far I’m going to try my hand at playing devil’s advocate for a little. I agree with Daisy in that the Racism that exists today is not the kind of racism that existed years ago. I definitely agree with what Julia said earlier. Our generation has developed this tendency to want to agree with or believe anything negative anybody has to say about white people (specifically white men). For example this whole issue with white cops attacking and killing black men just because they are black is a sensitive topic and something that a lot of people jump on. In many cases it’s true that there was evidence of excessive force by the police officers. Then there are some cases where the police officers where trying to do their jobs and now they have to be careful about everything they do and say because they are afraid of somebody video taping it and calling it racism. I think that a very real way in which prejudice can really affect the way we learn and our education is in our generations need to defy the white man. I think we need to realize that there will always be people who hate African Americans, who hate Indians, Native Americans, Asians, etc. Our job as readers and learners is to sift through all of the information that comes our way and to figure out what is racism and what is fact or information. Just because a news article or a tweet or a novel is written by a white man does not mean that there is automatically going to be a hint of racism hidden between the lines. That is where our generation falls into this deep pit of prejudice. I don’t think its possible to get past prejudice, I think that people will always have their opinions and be bias towards certain things. I wish I could say that we can just put our feelings aside and all come together and love everybody, but unfortunately that;s not the way the world works and its not the way people work. So although we can try to read and learn with an open mind, there will always be a part of everybody that feels some type of way about another group of people.

[Jess Goldstein]

I agree with you Anthony, I think photography is one of the purest and expressive forms of art. It allows the audience to interpret the photograph or sculpture in any way they so please. An interesting addition to this though is comparing color photography to black and white photography. Does one allow more room for the imagination than the other? With black and white photography there is even more room for the imagination to roam. Black and white gets rid of racism to some degree, the  neutral colors blanking the evidence of skin color. With colored photography there is less room for imagination or racial preferences which can also be a positive. So? What do you think? Colored or Black and White?

[Jess Goldstein]

One of the changes my group noticed was the deletion of “the living” in the first part of the 10th sentence. In only one version does it read “It is rather for us, the living…” while in all of the other versions it says “It is rather for us to be here…”. The fact that the living was taken out shows that the speech does not want to concentrate on the living, but wants to remember and commemorate the dead. Instead of mentioning those that are still alive the speech concentrates on the sacrifices the dead made and the young lives that were lost. This not only shows respect toward the dead and their families but also encourages the remaining soldiers to fight for those who have already sacrificed their lives, to honor their memories. I thought this was a very touching change to the speech and made it more memorable. Most speeches of this nature would concentrate on “moving forward” whereas this speech concentrates more on remembering the sacrifices made and to use the memories of the lives lost to push the remaining soldiers forward.

[Jess Goldstein]

I actually believe Thoreau believes in experiential learning but to his own standards. I think that in Thoreau’s mind, if you are going to live your life through experience then you have to have the right kind of experiences to live a fulfilled life. So when Thoreau meets the Baker family and analyzes the way they are living he doesn’t consider them to be living through experience. Thoreau has a certain idea of what living through experience is, in his mind if you aren’t living the way he is living then you aren’t living through experience. So i think he does believe in experiential learning but to his own standards. If you consider yourself to be an experiential learner but you aren’t living the way Thoreau lived then he would consider you to not be living through experience. When it comes to institutional learning, I think Thoreau believes it is necessary but that you could learn more by living through experience. Institutional learning is a basis for your future as a student of experiences. So while Thoreau believes you should read the classics in their native language, i think he sees them as a basis or guide  line for how you can experience the world once you are ready to go out and live through experience.

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