In-Class Reader's Notes: Rosa Parks is not the woman you think she was (and why that matters)

10/9/2020

OVERVIEW: The point of doing our Reader's Notes in class today is twofold. 1) I want to show folks how to do them so they feel more confident when they do it on their own--including how much time it actually takes to do this work and what you have to do to prepare to do them well and 2) I want to make a connection between this TED talk on Rosa Parks and what we are doing with the BSU archives.

DETAILS: Remember that Reader's Notesare 250 words. For roughly 100-125 words, write a detailed summary of the TED TALK.Make sure that, as we've been saying, you've included the most important details and enough of them for use in your analysis. For roughly 100-125 words, try to answer this question: Why does the author, Dr. Ikard, want us to think about how Rosa Parks's story gets told incorrectly--why is the story we think we know about Parks so different from the real story? And why does it matter that we correct it? Remember that to answer these questions you must use the summary you've worked on to prove it--so you want to draw on the facts of the TED talk to prove your analysis of the talk. That's the relationship between thesis and evidence that we need to think about as a reader and as writer.

If you can complete these two parts, you will have written a successful set of Reader's Notes

But I have one more question: connect this to the paper we are about to write about Bridgewater? What is the story you think you know about this school--it's reputation--and what is learning about the history telling you about the school? And why does it matter to perhaps correct the perception of Bridgewater. If you answer this part of the prompt, it will earn you one free set of Reader's Notes. That can help you if you have a lot to make up and it will give those of you who have posted all of them a day when you don't have to do an upcoming assignment.

12 Comments

Wicahpi Chaddlesone-Yankton

10/9/2020 09:05:44 am

This Ted Talk is talking about people's different stories and ideas of how Rosa Park became a social movement activist. The speaker is David Ikard ( A historian) and he learns from his children that many schools tend to often watered-down many historical people and history by using whitewashing. One day, his son came home being excited that he learned about African-American History in school. His son was talking to Rosa Parks using the basics that she was an older lady and she was very tired. So the bus driver told her to give up her seat for a white man and she didn’t give it up since her feet hurt (to be honest I wouldn’t give up my seat if my feet hurt). His son said that she was tired of oppression and marched with Martin Luther King and she was a very nonviolent person. I am going, to be honest, that I can relate to his son and I had always remembered this version of Rosa Park, and I never deep dive into her real story as a kid or even now. So David had decided to tell him the truth about Rosa Parks and her story. David had bought his son an autobiography about Rosa Parks and his son wondered if he learned wrong about her and he told him “No”. As his son reads the autobiography, he slowly learns that people tend to hide the truth about history. The ted talk's main focus was based on schools and people tending to whitewash history without knowing the truth about history. A prime example would be the history between Native Americans and the government not telling the truth in schools and in general.

Kyle McCrea

10/9/2020 09:06:40 am

This Ted Talk, is about the whitewashing of black history. The speaker talks how his son went to school and in class, the teacher was misleading him on the story of Rosa Parks. The son would talk to the father and the father would start to teach him life lessons about how he should go about his life to be as safe as he can possibly be. The speaker really wants to enforce that the whitewashing of black history should be a major concern for us all, even self-identified individuals. You can connect this Ted Talk to the paper by showing how much diversity is at Bridgewater State. Also you can connect it to an article of the BSU's newspaper "The Comment" which showed how BSU accepted a student from Austria during the second world war. Austria was part of the Axis Powers but that did not matter to BSU, we accepted them and they led to a prosperous life.

kaia souza

10/9/2020 09:09:32 am

I really liked this ted talk i think it shows a lot and can be a real eye opener. This man a father had a nine year old son and one day his son came home talking about what he had learned about rosa park and this teacher was a white women and when he told his father the son had a complete wrong image of rosa parks and shown her as a frail old women with tired feet and got accidently involved in the civil rights movement not a 40 year old black women whose family is largely involved amd sick of being mistreated. The father had gave the son rosa parks autobiography after the son had finished reading he went back to school and basically taught his teacher on this and the teacher went back and re taught the lesson but this still upset the father because his NINE year old son had to teach his HISTORY teacher on this major part of the civil rights movement. The speaker feels like this is important because this history is being taught wrong and still is to this day and this affects young black student and so on because their history is not being portrayed to us properly. Along with that this history deserves to be portrayed in the way that it actually occurred and not how white people view or see these events. This connects to what were working on right now with the BSU paper because in the past BSU has had its own problems/issues with its reputation and has worked to fix it and sometimes you do have to just go back and reteach things or change the way that you have portrayed something, with that fixing the reputation BSU is important because it makes the school become closer.

Colm McD

10/9/2020 09:15:09 am

Black history had always been changed by white washing. The TED talk is about a black father Dr. Ikard, who gives his son a few lessons about black history. His son's teacher taught him a different story of what rosa parks actually did. She was not a weak old woman. She was only 42 and tired of the inequality. Dr. Ikard wants us to know why Rosa Parks’s story is told, not wrong, but told differently. It is beuse for years white washing has been in play to tell any black history. To make the story sound reasonable for why someone did something. It matters that we correct the story because what we were told is not what actually happened. If we change the story, it isn’t history, it’s a lie. Sometimes I feel like the stories are changing because people today are embarrassed or scared of what will happen if the truth is told. Which is wrong. To connect this to our Bridgewater State University history paper I think it connects really well. Rosa PArks story was white washed to make the white side of the story sound good and not as bad as it really was. I am not saying the Bridgewater State University history was white washed, but we definitely did not have as many people of color in the school. Also the school was filled with women going to be teachers. Which is almost “Men washing”. I think the fact that women were only allowed teachers jobs proves men were dominating over them .

tk okla

10/9/2020 09:17:12 am

Dr.Ikard wants us to think about how Rosa Parks' story gets told incorrectly because it’s feeding the younger generation the wrong information. When Dr.Ikard’s son came home telling his father what he had learned it seemed to me that the Teacher tried to butter up the story a little bit. She said that Rosa’s feet were tired and that's why she wouldn’t give up her seat, but that wasn’t the case at all. She was tired of inequality and society recognizing her as less of a person because she was a black person. The story we think we know about Park’s is different from the real story because it is what we were taught in school growing up. My senior year I took a African American Studies class and throughout this class we realized that as we were growing up starting from Elementary school we had been fed the wrong information, but we wanted to know why. We came to a conclusion that most of the teachers that teach these topics are primarily white teachers. There was a document that stated that most white teachers didn’t feel comfortable speaking on things like racism or the civil rights movement or even slavery, so they tend to change the story a little bit to make it sound not as harsh as it really was. It is important that the story is corrected so that the upcoming generation understands why things are how they are today. A person's true legacy is important.

Emily Bachman

10/9/2020 09:23:15 am

The author wants us to think about how Rosa Parks story gets told incorrectly because he wants people to know about the history correctly. The story that I thought I knew was that she had just gotten arrested for sitting down on the bus in the wrong place and refused to get up because she was colored. It is super important that we correct the story so that the story can get passed down to every generation so that next generations know exactly what happened to Rosa Parks and why she did what she did. In the TED talk, the father was told by his son that he got taught about Rosa Parks at school by his teacher. The son got told the incorrect story of Rosa Parks, which was where Rosa Parks was an old woman who just didn’t want to get out of her seat because she was tired and old. That was not at it the actual story. The father went and got him the autobiography of Rosa Parks and told his son to go and read it. It is really sad to know that the teacher really had to be taught by a nine-year-old what the actual events were. The teacher eventually corrected her wrongs and told the true story to the class. This connects with what we are about to write about Bridgewater because this kind of ties in with a lot of the topics we could write about. Some people may write about how different the standards were back then to now with gender at the school and also race. The difference between when Bridgewater first opened to now is insane. It seems like everything about the school over time has changed. Bridgewater is a more diversified school and the school is more accepting to certain this and that is something that I really loved about Bridgewater. That was a big part of why I chose Bridgewater State University as my school for the
next four years.

Alexis Maldonado

10/9/2020 09:30:41 am

In the ted talk Dr.Ikard talks about how his son went to school and how he came back home to share that he had learned about Rosa Parks. As his son begins to share the story he has learned Dr.Ikard is not very amused because what his son is saying isn't but what his teacher has taught him is. He proceeds to tell his son that the information is not true and tells his son some information that interests him and then his son asks to talk more about it and gives him a book to read to learn himself. After his son learns the real story he then teaches it to the class and the teacher then apologized for teaching them the wrong information and teaches it correctly the next day. Dr.Ikard is happy at first but then he gets upset because his 9 year old was the one who had to teach his teacher and classmates the truth. It matters that we know the real story because we were taught a different version of the truth and we teach the wrong story over and over that is far off from the truth. The story that we think we know about Rosa Parks is so far off from the truth because we were never taught the details or any background information, the only thing we were taught was that she was tired and didn't want to Give up her seat.
We might be missing some parts of the history of Bridgewater that we thought we knew and accepted as correct. We are leaning right now that Bridgewater was primarily a teaching school and mostly females attended.

Miah Poindexter

10/9/2020 09:32:08 am

In the ted talk David explains how he gave his nine-year-old son a book to read about Rosa Parks, which he was taught about in class. After not wanting to read about It his son finally gets over the fact that he needs to read this lengthy book he reads it and realizes that what he was taught in class by white Caucasian teacher was in fact not correct. So, he went back to school and explain to his teacher her wrong teachings. So, she decided to reteach the class the lesson. Not only did she tell the story wrong she also portrayed Rosa wrong, she describes Rosas influence and part in history as if she was accidentally thrown in the mix of the black lives’ movement. When her and her family were actively involved in the movement. I feel that David explains this story in order to stress the fact the kids in teachings today are being taught the wrong this about the black lives’ history. For such an important time in history the fact that it is not being taught correctly is a big deal. It was portrayed and taught wrong in the past and it is still to this day being taught wrong. As stories of history are being taught wrong and no one is fixing the errors in the stories it will soon be changed. In my opinion I feel that people are trying to make light of the situation and troubles that people had being colored back in the day. Those problems are still going on today.

Grace Reardon

10/9/2020 10:06:56 am

Dr. Ikard has a 9 year old son and he came home one day telling his dad that he learned about Rosa Parks. Dr. Ikard then asks his son what he learned, his son replied saying “Rosa Parks was old and tired and just wanted to sit down.” Dr Ikard, being a historian and Black man, was in shock. He was livid that his son’s school would portray such an important woman like this. Dr. Ikard then went out and bought his son a book on Rosa Parks and had him read it to educate himself. Dr. Ikard was still astonished about the school so he told his son that he wanted to go down to the school to have a talk with the teacher and principal. His son suggested a better idea. His son said he has an assignment coming up and his topic is going to be proving the myths about Rosa Parks wrong. This was a very proud father moment for him. The son’s teacher ended up apologizing for teaching about Rosa Parks like this If everyone learned about her injustices and what she went through correctly maybe our world today wouldn’t be facing these same problems. We wouldn’t need a movement like BLM because people would have learned from past mistakes. This story is easily connected to Bridgewater and how I thought about it. Bridgewater was always shown to me as an incredibly inclusive and diverse community. However, from reading about it i learned it was not always so fair to their students.

Laura Schnitzer

10/9/2020 10:09:15 am

David Iklard talks about The Real Story of Rosa Parks- and why we need to confront the myths about Black history. After listening to this Ted Talk I found it interesting and sad that David Iklards son, Elijah had to educate his teacher. Elijah is a fourth grader so probably either nine or ten years old. He got home from school one day and was ecstatic about what he learned that day. He told his dad what he learned about Rosa Parks. “I learned that Rosa Parks was this old frail black woman in the 1950s in Montgomery Alabama. And she sat down on this bus and she had tired feet, and when the bus driver told her to give up her seat to a white patron she refused because she had tired feet. It had been a long day and she was tired of oppression, and she didn’t give up her seat. And she marched with Martin Luther King, and she believed in nonviolence.” After his dad heard what his son learned he was disappointed because he knew this was a myth. What we really know about Rosa Parks was she refused to give up her seat not because her feet were tired but because she believed it was an injustice. It was not fair and she made a powerful statement that just because of her color of her skin I am not giving up my seat. This relates to the essay we are currently writing for this class because this is a topic that happened during the history of Bridgewater State University. We now have at Bridgewater State University a diverse community and everyone is welcomed.

Allyson Spencer

10/9/2020 01:43:59 pm

In this TED a man named David Iklard talks about how his nine year old son went to school and was taught a completely wrong story about Rosa Parks. After hearing what his son had just learned, he bought his son a book where he found out the truth about Rosa Parks. David wanted to go to the school and confront the teacher and the principal about this matter but, his son had other plans. His son decided to write an essay on all the common misconceptions and lies about Rosa Parks. After reading David's son's essay, she apologized for the misinformation she was sharing with the class. By sharing this story I believe that David Iklard was trying to show to everyone that you can't always trust what one person tells you. Even if you are following the curriculum, you should still do research of your own because it's important to see things from an unbiased perspective. After reading the introduction to the book “There There” by Tommy Orange, I found out all the horrible things that happened to the natives that were not mentioned in history class and I came to the same realization that you can't always trust the textbook because people will write what they want you to believe.

Essiah Marcial

10/14/2020 07:49:22 am

n this TED a man named David Iklard talks about how his nine year old son went to school and was taught a completely wrong story about Rosa Parks. David Iklard talks about The Real Story of Rosa Parks- and why we need to confront the myths about Black history. After listening to this Ted Talk I found it interesting that Elijah, his son learns the real story he then teaches it to the class and the teacher then apologized for teaching them the wrong information and teaches it correctly the next day. Dr.Ikard is happy at first but then he gets upset because his 9 year old was the one who had to teach his teacher and classmates the truth. It matters that we know the real story because we were taught a different version of the truth and we teach the wrong story over and over that is far off from the truth. For such an important time in history the fact that it is not being taught correctly is a big deal. It was portrayed and taught wrong in the past and it is still to this day being taught wrong. As stories of history are being taught wrong and no one is fixing the errors in the stories it will soon be changed. In my opinion I feel that people are trying to make light of the situation and troubles that people had being colored back in the day. Those problems are still going on today.

In-Class Reader's Notes: Rosa Parks is not the woman you think she was (and why that matters)

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