December 12, 2014 - 15:04
I believe we might carry our 10-week project forward by calling this to the attention of someone who is in charge of encouraging diversity or choses the classes for our school. By sharing this with someone who might have the power to inact change regarding it, we can aid the school in expanding its contact zone with all different types of people, thus making us more circumspect individuals. I would like to know how my classes next semester would fit into this study, or how the most popular classes at Bryn Mawr would. Our classes were admittedly biased—maybe there is greater diversity that just didn’t surface in our study? Maybe not. I would also like to know what the people who aren’t given voice in our academic educations would have to say. What do they think is important? What do they think about Gothic literature, Anthropology, French and Cleopatra? I feel like these voices have something to offer that isn’t being heard, people with different lives have different experiences and perspectives, and when learning I believe these are things that would greatly contribute to our educations. Maybe someone without a formal education won’t know that Cleopatra died in 31 B.C., but they certainly can have an opinion on her life and offer a perspective from a different angle than someone who spent their whole life walking a different path from then could…
I found the range of presentations interesting. Just the fact that people chose so many different things to write about suggests the differences in people’s consumption habits and ideas. In presenting these things, we learned ideas from many perspectives. I think that’s very important in being educated.
Moveover, the expansiveness of these contact zones really makes me think about global interdependence and unity. Think of all the cross-relainces and how much our consumption habits of one thing affect a chain of people. Then look at the screen in front of you, the rings on your fingers, the clothes on your back, the mug beside you with the tea inside, think of how far each of those items go back and how many more things you have besides what you can see right now. It’s wild.