In the first reading “How to Engage Constructively in Courses that Take a Critical Social Justice Approach” many things make me open my eyes and many things also made me feel upset. Something that really stood out to me was and made me excited was when they were talking about opinions that people had. When DiAngelo and Sensoy (2011) stated, “everyone has an opinion” it really made me realize that not everyone may know what they are truly reading or learning about if they continuously just make opinions about what they are reading instead of looking at the facts. To me, opinions can make someone feel down on themselves, or even make them fall behind. Everyone should have an opinion, but I think that they should look into material before they judge. One thing that made me upset, and on edge was when DiAngelo and Sensoy (2011) stated, “they hired an unqualified black guy instead because they needed to meet quota”. There is a difference between someone who is qualified and who is not, I do not think it should matter the race of the person or the gender. If someone is qualified they should get the job. I think this article was very insightful and brought out many feelings with in myself.
In the second reading “Critical Thinking and Critical Theory”, I had trouble understanding many of the topics. The part of the book that stood out to me was the part about theories and how teachers should care about them. I never thought about a theory in the way that it was explained. Theories actually can change the way that you look at a child and what is going on in their life. In this book the topic of opinions came up again, and I think that everyone has a right to an opinion but they should know the difference between “opinions and critical thinking” (Sensoy and DiAngelo, (2011) pg. 10).
I think that this is important if you ever want to have a relationship with someone or if you want to talk about a serious topic with them. Knowledge was a big part of this reading and I never thought about the social side of knowledge until I read the reading. The line “knowledge is socially constructed” (Sensoy and DiAngelo, (2011) pg. 7) made me want to read further into the topic. It made me realize how much people actually rely on society and what they are involved in to form their beliefs, instead of actually researching or looking into a topic. I think that the importance of critical thinking stood out to me because I realized that without it, you would not be able to be involved as deep with a topic. This reading did not frustrate me like the first one did, and I think that the issues that were addressed are important.
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