maize Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 1 hour ago, Melissa Louise said: I still can't see how that would have any impact on my self-esteem (or that of a student). It would be so far back and so removed from any real-world outcomes to be functionally meaningless. Thats why I labeled the ancestor thing as a bunny trail; it isn't really relevant to this affirmation one way or another. Just an interesting-to-think-about tidbit--to me anyway! And of course all of us have ancestors who were among the oppressors. We have ancestors who were murderers, ancestors who were thieves, ancestors who were rapists. Those people are among humanity so they are among our ancestors. The sorts of powerful men who become oppressors to large groups typically have more offspring than the average human, so they're actually a larger percentage of our ancestry--all of humanity's ancestry--than the percentage of the population they represent. It's just reality and statistics. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melissa Louise Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 28 minutes ago, maize said: Thats why I labeled the ancestor thing as a bunny trail; it isn't really relevant to this affirmation one way or another. Just an interesting-to-think-about tidbit--to me anyway! And of course all of us have ancestors who were among the oppressors. We have ancestors who were murderers, ancestors who were thieves, ancestors who were rapists. Those people are among humanity so they are among our ancestors. The sorts of powerful men who become oppressors to large groups typically have more offspring than the average human, so they're actually a larger percentage of our ancestry--all of humanity's ancestry--than the percentage of the population they represent. It's just reality and statistics. It all just seems very abstract to me. I've got a bushranger in my family tree, so I'm comfy with having baddies 🙂 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YaelAldrich Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 9 hours ago, Halftime Hope said: I doubt she would go along with the "ancestors were created for me" part, but I don't think she would pick apart the "reverence my elders" part like many here have, interpreting it through an abusive lens. I've heard her speaking about and seen her modeling the deep devotion, care and respect for her own elderly, and sometimes difficult, relatives. It's kind of a riff off of the slogan, "I am my ancestors wildest dreams" https://medium.com/@RachelDecoste/my-ancestors-wildest-dreams-more-than-a-t-shirt-slogan-4da0dbdc293b 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gstharr Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 21 hours ago, Faith-manor said: I read that. I am still gobsmacked that anyone would think this is how to curb gun violence. I wonder if they considered just say no? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stephanier.1765 Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 (edited) 13 hours ago, maize said: Probability says the chances you don't have royalty somewhere in your ancestry are virtually nill. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/charlemagnes-dna-and-our-universal-royalty We are related to Robert the Bruce through my mother's line, which then leads to royalty as you go back further. Through my father's line, we are related to Daniel Boone so relations can go either way. LOL Edited July 31, 2023 by stephanier.1765 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKL Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 I think the concept and intent are fine, but someone needs to start from scratch on the wording. It's too long for most people to bother reading to the end, for one thing. Others have pointed out some of the choice of word issues. And if a person needs to feel "royal" in order to have self-esteem, someone has screwed up somewhere. Not seeing the connection to reducing gun violence. There are many movements built on high-sounding principles that fail to curb ... even sometimes encourage ... violence. I don't disagree with reverence for elders. I think our society has some work to do to balance the need for respect of elders against the need for self-protection. I think they can and should co-exist. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garga Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 17 hours ago, Scarlett said: I think they are using the word royalty when they should be saying ‘dignity’. Bingo! That’s the key. In this context, royalty means dignity. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Idalou Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 (edited) Maybe, just maybe, it's trying to affirm a child's self worth so that they feel no need to be a part of a gang or think violence is the answer. It is not meant to literally be the answer to stopping gun violence. Do any of you actually know the purpose of a personal affirmation? It may be as productive as thoughts and prayers, but how many of you continue to give those? This is a black city council and a majority minority area with an affirmation written by a black man and meant for mostly black youth. I've been trying to thoughtfully understand the part about ancestors existing for them. I think it's talking about what slaves had to endure, what those endured during Reconstruction and Jim Crow and lynchings and the Civil Rights era and now to BLM and unjust murders today. Those ancestors tried to make each generation better, they were fighting for their future selves and families to come and to give it all up today and become a bad guy, a criminal, or just a regular person who doesn't care is in a way disinheriting those that came before you, maybe like abandoning your birth right. I mean, that general belief works for white Americans, too, but certainly not as impactful as they AA experience, and I do not think it was even written for white school children. We fought an ungodly war to hold out country together, yet many today still disagree on it's reasons and still some are itching to do it all over again? To me, it's just an extension, maybe extreme, of saying we should not ignore our ancestors' efforts. Edited July 31, 2023 by Idalou 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Idalou Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 (edited) 10 minutes ago, Garga said: Bingo! That’s the key. In this context, royalty means dignity. Possibly, but in a significant part of black culture, it's referred to as being royalty. In a Christian context, it's being a member of the royal family of God. He chose the word on purpose. Edited July 31, 2023 by Idalou 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnM Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 WEIRD We had some weird thing the kids had to say (in a high school!) when I was teaching. I found it ridiculous but we had to do it, they did it over the PA for announcements in the morning. I don't even remember it now but it had to do with doing your best job but had way too many other words in there. I don't personally have a problem with the words designed or created as most religions believe in some sort of creator or designer, but I can see how that might be offensive if you aren't religious at all. Royalty? Um....no. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garga Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, Idalou said: Maybe, just maybe, it's trying to affirm a child's self worth so that they feel no need to be a part of a gang or think violence is the answer. It is not meant to literally be the answer to stopping gun violence. Do any of you actually know the purpose of a personal affirmation? It may be as productive as thoughts and prayers, but how many of you continue to give those? This is a black city council and a majority minority area with an affirmation written by a black man and meant for mostly black youth. This is what I think. If the people living there think this will help, maybe they know what they’re doing. Of course, they might not, but I just don’t feel fit to dismiss the affirmation out of hand. I don’t think the affirmation would work in my little rural town, but in another place with different stressors? Sure, I can see it having meaning to the people there. Edited July 31, 2023 by Garga 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Idalou Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 (edited) 10 hours ago, YaelAldrich said: It's kind of a riff off of the slogan, "I am my ancestors wildest dreams" https://medium.com/@RachelDecoste/my-ancestors-wildest-dreams-more-than-a-t-shirt-slogan-4da0dbdc293b Thank you. This explains it much better than what I was trying to say. All in all, the affirmation is just one guy's way of trying to empower them. It's nothing new or unique or expertly written. I tried google with no avail, but I think I remember Ta-nehisi Coates saying something similar about ancestors existing for them in an interview a few years ago. Edited July 31, 2023 by Idalou 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tree Frog Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 On 7/30/2023 at 11:42 AM, Idalou said: If anyone cared enough to google it instead of bashing it, they'd learn the how and why answers. You can see it came from a black man as a way to lift black children up and away from the gun culture. You can also google the royalty aspects and how it pertains to many black families. I don't believe it was ever meant to be recited daily in a public school by all children, but maybe I'm wrong, as I can't find that information. You can still disagree, but at least know what you're talking about. I try to be unbiased and generally consider myself to be unbiased. However, sometimes things pop up that make me think twice or hit me in the face that tells me I'm not as unbiased as I'd like to be. I had a similar moment last night talking with my daughter, then I read this. Thank you for a different viewpoint with some background. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 3 hours ago, Idalou said: This is a black city council and a majority minority area with an affirmation written by a black man and meant for mostly black youth. It's not an all-black city council (4 out of 7 members appear to be black), and the city of Roanoke is not majority minority (57% white). About 30% of the population of the city is black. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Idalou Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 (edited) 2 hours ago, EKS said: It's not an all-black city council (4 out of 7 members appear to be black), and the city of Roanoke is not majority minority (57% white). About 30% of the population of the city is black. I stand corrected. It's a majority black council, 4 out of 7. And the city school district is a majority minority. Yet the affirmation was a unanimously approved vote, so they must know more than we do! Edited July 31, 2023 by Idalou 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 24 minutes ago, Idalou said: I stand corrected. It's a majority black council, 4 out of 7. And the city school district is a majority minority. Yet the affirmation was a unanimously approved vote, so they must know more than we do! I do think that there was probably more discussion about it back when it was first introduced. That was apparently about a year ago. I can't spend the time searching for that meeting in the city records, but if a link were to suddenly materialize before me, I would be interested to listen to that discussion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melissa Louise Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 See, I don't think they know more (I mean, obviously they know more about their district!). There's mixed evidence for the use of affirmations, to begin with. As I mentioned up thread, affirmations can worsen self-esteem in a subset of students. Was this taken into consideration? Can student improvement on any measure be linked to the affirmation? No. There was no way to control for the teacher-student relationship, which is likely to have a greater effect than a daily affirmation. Nor, presumably, was teacher skill measured - self-esteem rises with efficacy. Why does it matter? Because every minute in a classroom lost to non-evidence-based practice is a minute that could be spent on evidence-based practice. If student improvement was actually linked to a particular teacher skill, but what's been memed across a district is a non-causal affirmation, that's a missed opportunity. In general, I come back to the knowledge that efficacy is what will build self-esteem. Provide good resourcing, good leadership, and good teachers, and deliver evidence-based teaching of a well-written curriculum, with adequate, targeted learning support for those who need it - and scores of self-efficacy will increase. If royalty is a Christian thing, I'd be pretty unhappy about that. 3 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melissa Louise Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 Seriously, if ppl have to act 'confused and angry' about wanting schools to focus on delivering evidence-based teaching, I don't know what to say. Education is full of b/s fads, and it's a problem. I would think most people who value education would like to see the fads replaced with enduring, proven interventions. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sneezyone Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, Idalou said: I stand corrected. It's a majority black council, 4 out of 7. And the city school district is a majority minority. Yet the affirmation was a unanimously approved vote, so they must know more than we do! Roanoke has a lot of older southern white voters that ill serve the majority non-white STUDENT population, yes. That is true in many school districts. The majority of k-12 kids in public schools are non-white. Edited July 31, 2023 by Sneezyone 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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