community

One of the communities that I am a part of is the School of Ed College at U of M Dearborn. I first became part of this community when I changed my major to Elementary Education but I didn’t feel as though I was part of this community until I began taking classes with other people in this same college. My role has changed slightly in this community as each semester goes on. I slowly become a person in the community who is higher up than others. I am no longer the lowest in SOE but I am definitely far from the most experienced. There are some moments when I feel more or less of this community. I feel less of it when I’m talking to people about classes I haven’t taken yet that they have. I feel behind during these situations. However, I feel more of the community when I am taking summer classes and my friends from SCE do not.
In some cases it is clear who is and is not part of this community. When we are doing homework together or are talking about our requirements, sometimes people there are left out of the conversation because they aren’t part of that community. Other times, it is impossible to tell if someone is part of this community because unless you ask them or ask about their classes, they could be a part of any college. Someone would cease to be a member of this community when they graduate or change majors. Once a member graduates, I’m sure they can still be part of the community but with them not being on campus as much, it is likely they drift away.
Obviously we share a lot of the same values. We all strongly believe in education. We are all furthering out education by going to college and we all believe in helping educate others. Other than that, I assume we all share other values but that is the major one. I firmly believe in this value because if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have chosen this major. I participate all year round in being a part of this community. I take classes constantly and am always looking to become employed in a job based on education. Membership is this community is very important to me and my personal identity because it is what I’m going to be doing for the rest of my life. Participating and learning everything I can, will only help make my abilities as a teacher even stronger.
I think the most important way of defining a community is a group of people who are interconnected with each other based on a common goal. Everyone in SCE plans to become teachers. With this goal in mind and working together as a community, we will all succeed.

Civic Art

A major civic art project I would create would be a mural or even many murals across walls of buildings throughout Detroit. I know that they already do this throughout some organizations but I think that it should be a more public event. It would be difficult to appeal this to the entire public because the idea may be taken over by graffiti but I feel that there are ways around it.
First we would have to set a designated area, a few blocks perhaps, and then have groups of volunteers design patterns, scenery or even recent local Detroit event advertisements. These volunteers would be from a beautification committee that was formed with this idea in mind. Once a group decides on an idea for the painting, they will begin to cover the wall with any type of décor they choose, that is obviously publicly appropriate.
These sites will be watched nearly all day around and will be worked on nearly every day. With the nearly constant attention, it will be easier to keep an eye on the projects. Once they are finished, they may stay as the same as long as desired or they may be altered when needed. If a big event, such as the super bowl, were to come to Detroit, a mural could be painted to advertise and get the city excited and once the event is over, it can be painted over with something else. With the constant over painting and altering of the murals, if there is any graffiti painted on the murals, it could easily be covered or altered during the constant renovation.
The idea of this art project is to promote the idea that art in the community is something that is made by the community. This is an important issue because people are always upset about the appearance of Detroit but no one wants to fix it. Forming a beautification committee and making multiple murals around the city would show people and even get people involved in the creating of a more beautiful Detroit

my community

In my neighborhood in a 25 block radius of Detroit, I would first start off by knocking down the factory that used to be up and running there if it hadn’t been knocked down yet. After that I would start off by planning the layout of the streets. I would make them in even, or close to even sized blocks.
I would have a school in the center because with an area of that size, at least one school is necessary. The people that would come live in this place would be families with children who will be attending this school so I would definitely have houses and a few apartments.
One of the main things I would like to incorporate into the area would be a grocery store. A Kroger carries not only foods but hygiene products and other needs that people of a local community would really benefit from.
There would have to places of worship for the local community however I feel as though I might wait on exactly which type of places of worship to build depending on what types of people move into the area. More than likely, there will turn out to be a few different types of religion in the area so I would leave plenty of space open for future needs.
This is one of the things that will attract my residents. They will be drawn in by the ability to choose the places of worship along with how and where exactly they will be built. This is a great way to create diversity along with solidarity within the community.
I would have open entries to the city all the way around, however; places of worship and the schools will be heavily secured because that is two places that people should not be frightened. I am going to of course need people to work within the community of 25 blocks however, because the city is so much more than that, I’m sure there will still be people who will be working outside of the perimeter who will not be my responsibility to employ.

Five places to tour

If I were to give a tour of five places in Detroit I would tour:
1. Comerica Park: Comerica Park is a great place to spend a Saturday afternoon. The hype of the people getting pumped for a Tigers game along with the aromas of the food creates the perfect atmosphere. One of the best parts about it are the bricks that pave the way up to the main entrance with names on them of true Tiger’s fans. These bricks were laid when Comerica Pack was transformed from Tiger’s stadium. One of the things that still remain though the park has been redone is the one old fashion hot dog vender. They always taste better when they are brought to your seat.
2. Charles H. Wright Museum: I hadn’t visited the museum until a few months ago but it was a trip. You are basically taken through the lives of the slaves from the early 1800’s and it is scary. I can only imagine going through that museum as a child; I would be terrified. The entire aspect of actually seeing how things were on the slave ships and on the farms after really gave me a while new insight on how things were then. I think a tourist would get the same effect I did form it.
3. Fox Theater: I would hope to give a tour of the Fox Theater in December so the tourist could go see the Radio City Rockettes. I used to see the show every year when I was a kid and absolutely loved it. I remember waiting for the show to start and admiring the gigantic ceilings and other sculptures around then theater.
4. Hart Plaza: Hart Plaza is a place that holds a lot of memories for me. When I was a kid my parents used to take me and my sister down there for the jazz festival. Now that I’m older, I go down there for the Downtown Hoedown every year. It would be something I could give a tour of because I could let an outsider in on the culture of average people of the area by sharing my memories.
5. Heidelberg Project: I hadn’t even heard of the Heidelberg Project until I started doing my research o it earlier this week but it looks amazing. I would love to go down and see it someday. I am no artist myself but I strongly believe that art can change the world. Tyree Guyton’s idea of creating art to creat a better place for everyone seems to be a great idea and now that the city is no longer trying to abolish it, it is doing a pretty good job.

Dublin Ireland

If I were to visit a city for a week that I had never been to I would have to choose Dublin Ireland. My favorite book, P.S. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern is set in Dublin Ireland. Ahern is from there and she constantly talks about the city and its environment. The cobble stone roads and the rolling hills just seem so peaceful. She has written other books too that I have read that take place there. I adore every one of them, but feel as though I may not if they we to take place somewhere else. I love the idea of a pub. Although it may just be a bar, it just seems a lot cozier than an American bar.
One of the things that attracts me most to Dublin is the way they talk. Although it is English, the use of phrases like “love” really makes everything more welcoming. However, this is the same thing that may cause me fear when I go there. The language may e the same here as it is there print wise, but just as American English, Ireland has a slang of its own. I would be afraid I would be looked at as a stupid American who couldn’t understand what people were saying sometimes. However I adore the accents the people have so I wouldn’t mind listening to their conversations and not knowing what was being said.
I also saw the movie P.S. I Love You and although it’s not set in Ireland as the book is, they do travel there and it is an amazing sight. They may or may not have actually filmed that part of the movie there, but they did, what I thought, a great recreation of it. The images from the film and the images in my mind from the books put together the ideal Ireland. I feel as though Dublin wouldn’t be as great and wonderful as it seems in the books but there would probably still be small coffee shops and other things that would make the trip worthwhile.

Detroit Interview

I interviewed two different people who both lived in Detroit at different parts of their life.

The first person I interviewed was Sandra Dennis. Dennis grew up in Detroit; the first street off of the Southfield Freeway. There was a fire station at the end of her street but after a while, she calims that the sirens became hardly noticeable. One of the things she remembers that was different growing up there than it is for kids growing up here is that in the city, garbage trucks came through an alley to pick up trash, instead of putting it at the side of the road in front of your house. One of her expiriences of living in Detroit was that there was a lot of violence. Her older brothers friend was in a store that got robbed and he got shot in the spine and is now paralyzed. Things like that don't happen to often in the suburbs. She recalls taking public transportation in high school to get to shopping mallssuch as Northland. During her college years, she had a car. Her car had gotten a flat tire on her way to school one day and she had to walk to a pay phone to call her husband, Jamal, to come help her. When she got back to her car from the phone, her battery had been stolen out of her car. These types of things could possibly happen anywhere but are sterotypical to happen in Detroit.

The second person I intervied was Jamal Dennis, Sandra's husband. Jamal moved to Detroit for college while his family lived in the suburbs of New York City. Jamal drove and old orange VW Hippy type van. He lived between Cass and 3rd where vehicles often got broken into by drug addicts and poor people. When his eight track player was stolen from his car, he was upset but not surprised. When he went to a gas station later that day, he saw it sitting on the counter. He told the guy working it was his and he told him he just bought it from his buddy for ten bucks. Jamal tld him that it was definitely his and if he didn't let him haveit he was going to call the police. Before Jamal let him respond, he took the eight track player and walked out with it.

When Jamal and Sandra got a house together, they didn't live in a great neighborhood. They lived in an old Alley House that was being lifed from the ground in certian parts (under the bathroom to be specific) by the roots of a huge tree. They also didn't have very goo neighbors. Their neighbors down the street stole their lawn furniture and put it in their own back yard. The neighbor across the street used to point a BB gun out of the window of his house and shot their cat, Tyrone, once. However, the bullet was lodged so deeply into his eye brow area that the vet said it was better to just leave it there. Another thing the expieriences living in the city of Detroit was the fruit man, milk man, and knife sharpener. There people came down the street to serve anyone in need of asistance. Because Detroit is so much more densely populated than the suburbs, this was a busy bussiness.

Detroit

Detroit is thought of as a very negative city by many people in the suburbs. We think of broken windows in worn out buildings. We think of homeless “bums” and people with guns. We have heard a few stories of robberies and other crimes and we are scared. We think that we are safer staying outside of the city limits. This may or may not be true but people get a very “ghetto” impression of the city from media so it becomes hard for them to form a different opinion.
The culture, language and even architecture of the city are very stereotypical. The movie 8 Mile definitely helped fuel this negative stereotype. With guns, fights and drugs, we really don’t get a very positive image of what it is really like. Eminem, the main actor of the film, is supposedly showing how his life was growing up in Detroit. His music is also very influential of the way people view Detroit. People who have never even been to the city may think all these things that aren’t true, but they believe everything Eminem says because he grew up there. I’m not saying that his views are not accurate to his life, but it is not accurate to all of Detroit.
The culture that Detroit is thought to have is a very poor, dirty culture made up of mostly black people. Granted, most of the population in Detroit is African-American, they are not all trashy. There are definitely different parts of the city that have different cultures than other parts. There is a strong Hispanic culture in the city which brings about a different culture in their community. Race doesn’t define a culture; the people who live within a community define it. There may be some parts of Detroit that fit this “ghetto” culture but not all parts.
The language of the city varies with culture. There are different languages between the Hispanic community and English speaking communities, but there are also variations among the English language too. Ebonics brings about different words and slang among different communities. You may hear someone speaking English, you may understand some of the words, but the meaning and pronunciation may be very different from what you know. This may cause for some of the conflict within the city.
Personally I feel that Detroit is a great place if you go to the right places. There are dangerous places and dangerous people within Detroit but there are other dangerous places with dangerous people outside of Detroit as well. It’s all about putting yourself in the right situations. Going down to Detroit for a Tigers game or a show at the Fox Theater is a great way to spend free time, but going down to Detroit to just walk around neighborhoods in the dark hours of the night is just asking for trouble.