Classroom Theme

This year I knew what my theme would be by last Christmas, thanks to a dad who adores Charlie Brown.  I projected up the Peanuts gang and traced them onto a piece of white butcher paper.  Then colored it.  The slogan is "The Gang's All Here".  Matt found a Peanuts Poster set at the Learning Palace, so I knew it was meant to be. 

Here's to a great school year...so far at least  =)
 

Lion King, Racist???

Hakuna Matata Friends,

As most of you know; Matt is currently in grad school for school counseling.  One of his classes this term is "Social Justice".  His first reading assignment is from a book called "Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?" by Beverly Daniel Tatum.  This book has a lot of controversial and interesting topics that Matt and I have been discussing.

Did you know the Lion King is a racist movie? 

APPARENTLY: "The film uses very ethnically identifiable voices to characterize the hyenas, the clearly the undesirables in the movie. The Spanish Accented voice of Cheech Marin and the Black slang of Whoopi Goldberg clearly marked the hyenas racially. Simba is warned to never go where the hyenas are as that is 'bad land' or to where the evil lion 'Scar' lives."  The evil lion is also a darker shade than the others and when given or gained power Scar and the Hyenas ruin the kingdom (such as the "there goes the neighborhood" stereotype).  

The author admits that she has been challenged about the fact that James Earl Jones(A black man)s' voice as Mufasa, who is a good character so therefore these points are not valid.  Her counter is that "the target audience is small children and they won't notice his voice as a voice of color but the others are more obvious". 

Matt and I did some more research about this just for grins and found someone else's research project.  http://www.newint.org/easier-english/Disney/diswomen.html.  Check it out if you are interested.

WTF....I love the LION KING!!! 

I feel like there isn't a problem until someone looks so far into a situation and in turn creates the problem.  How many people even noticed these things before this blog? 
The Lion King, Racist?  Really? 



Final Week of Summer

We tried to make the most of our last week of summer. We spent a day at the zoo, a day at the beach and a weekend at Detroit Lake. So much fun!

We managed to time it right for Penguin Feeding ;)

Painted Dog

Meerkat Timon

Pumba

Playing or Fighting, You decide?

We had a great time at the zoo.  It was warm but the animals were still out and active.  We also made a trip to the Oregon Coast where we did a little shopping in Lincoln City followed by some cheese in Tillamook.  Very fun day!

Cold and refreshing

Sunset from the view point outside of Tillamook

Our final excursion was camping. We had a great time relaxing, playing games and paddle boating.

 

Detroit Lake Camping

We spend our last weekend of summer camping at Detroit Lake with Matt's family. Due to a crying baby in the tent site next to ours, I was awake at 6:30 and decided to go down to the lake and watch the sun come up. What a great reminder of amazing our God is!

Take a look!

So peaceful

Being goofy

Getting a bit brighter

peaking over the mountian

Hello Mr. Sun

A little bit higher

So pretty!

Getting closer

Beautiful

The sun is big ;)

Mr. Sun, Mr. Golden Sun, please shine down on me!

What a site!

Now, I don't have a fancy camera so I know I am not doing it justice, but trust me, it was pretty incredible to watch. And....when the sun finally peaked over the mountian, it took less than 2 minutes until it was all over. Amazing and well worth the wait.