Don't Judge a Book by it's Cover

After watching the film with Crabtree and 30 days, I now have new outlook on the way our society views the poor.  Most of society just thinks of them as filthy and worthless, but many don't know that they are just actually trying to make a living with what they can afford to spend.  Seeing the way that Crabtree's son reacted to her was embarrassing and shameful because no one should want to be known without their mother in the picture, no matter what the income of the family may be.  Also, on 30 days, a real couple got to experience how hard it is to live off of minimum wage and they started to appreciate the little things like furniture and food. There are a lot of good people in the world who donate to charities and volunteer at food or homeless shelters, but nowadays, I think that those genuine kind of people are harder to find.  Society can judge everything about a person just by looking at them, or so they think.  If someone in society looked at Crabtree, they would see a dirty old woman wearing a burger king shirt, walking down the street.  But what society doesn't know is that she is just trying to provide for her family and even if it isn't under the best of circumstances, society never takes that into consideration, they just shout inappropriate sayings at her to ruin her already dreadful day.  I think that the way society views others will never change because just by a single glance, everyone thinks they can determine what social or income class another is in, but really, this is unrealistic.  I am going to stop judging people by what I see on the outside because after watching these films, there is no way that doing that is a proper representation of a person's personality.  I see many people daily talking about others if they look dirty of don't blend in, but people need to start realizing that others have many difficulties that lie way deeper than what you see on the outside.

Positive Deviance

Many of us witness or engage in deviant acts on a day to day basis, and many people have different definitions of what they would consider to be deviant behavior.  I believe that deviant behavior is anything that would have a negative outcome or that would hurt someone or something due to the act.  An example would be stealing or cheating because these acts either hurt the person you cheated off of or hurt the storeowner who worked hard to make their money.  Then again, some acts of deviance don't hurt people like consentual cheating because both people are doing a deviant act, but they don't realize that in the long run they are hurting one another.  There is also such a thing as positive deviance which is something that usually goes against a societal norm, but will in turn have a positive outcome.  I did an act of positive deviance on Monday when I went dress shopping with my friend.  We were in line to check out when I noticed that someone had left a huge wad of money sitting on the counter so I gave it to the cashier and asked if he saw anyone that had left it.  Most people would quitely take the money and put it in their wallet, but I knew that if I had lost my money, I would hope that someone would be kind enough to return it to me.  The man said the person in front of me had left it there and she was very thankful and admiring that I returned it to her and after she received it back, the cashier gave my friend a free dress bag that usually costs ten dollars because he thought my act was so kind.  Many people would consider this act deviant because they would just pocket the money and run, but I consider this positive deviance because since most people wouldn't return it, I did and it had a very positive outcome for many people.  I felt very good about myself after  because the lady and the cashier and people around me were sort of shocked that I returned the money so instantly probably because they thought I, or anyone would just take it.  But I was brought up with better morals and standards than that and I knew it was the right thing to do to return the money, even though many people in society would consider that deviant nowadays.  Overall, I felt very good about my act of positive deviance and I think it had a greater outcome on many people than I could've anticipated.

Societal Stereotypes

Society has constructed many stereotypes based on gender that everyone is just expected to follow. Many people feel that they identify themselves as a different gender and by doing this, they are societal outcasts.  This is very wrong because everyone should have the right to do,dress,say, and act how they want no matter there gender, but our society says otherwise.  Girls are supposed to wear skirts and makeup and high heels whereas boys are known to wear baggy pants, snap backs, and gym shoes.  As a girl, I am expected to wear makeup everyday and to always have my hair done and wear nice clothes.  Boys, on the other hand, can roll out of bed and throw on sweats and be considered acceptable by society.  If a girl went out in public looking like she just rolled out of bed, society would consider this strange because girls are always supposed to look "pretty" and boys just have to look "tough". This stereotype has been very prevalent throughout my life and they have grown even more noticeable in high school.  Many people in high school question which gender they identify with and when most kids see someone that identifies with the opposite gender, they immediately exile them, and I have seen this happen.  There are certain gender roles that I find obvious at home such as the men mowing the lawn and the women cooking the meals and cleaning, and this is all based around society's standards.  I feel that people should be able to do whatever they want no matter what gender they identify with without being punished and looked down upon by society, but in this day and age, it's impossible.

Who am I really?

One of the biggest factors of what shapes me being me is my friends.  Friends are a major socialization agent in everyone's lives because they always surround you with new trends, words, slang, and ideas.  Many people go through many friend groups throughout their lives and this is why they don't figure out who they truly are until they realize that they don't always have to do what their friends do, and they should worry about doing what makes them feel comfortable.  Friends can be a good experience in the socialization process because people get to experience new things and face new fears and in the end, these all help to build the person you are today.  I feel that my friends have shaped me into who I am because I finally found a group that I'm comfortable in and I can be myself knowing I won't be judged. They have socialized me through many different ways. A lot of the clothes or trends I like I have discovered from seeing my friends wear them.  I know also that some of the words I use I distinctly developed from my friends like certain slang words and phrases.  My family sometimes questions some of the things I say, and recently I have realized that all of the strange things I say that my parents don't understand, I have learned from my group of friends.  My friends have also been a socializing agent "socially".  I like to go out a lot probably because that's what we always do and I'm not a rule breaker because all of my friends think before they make decisions and I have definitely adapted to doing this as well because you avoid many problems by doing this. I am thankful that I have had my close group of friends around me for many years because without them, I wouldn't be the person I am today.  That being said, looking back on my freshmen year I was much different because I had different friends whose choices I sometimes didn't agree with and that is why I chose to find a new group, that I have now, that I feel comfortable and safe in.

Realization of Norms

After this week in class, I have realized that I follow almost every norm in this society, but I have never actually stopped and thought about it.  We have talked a lot about norms and values and there are many of these that I agree with, and some I disagree with.  I definitley agree that Americans value time and schedules way too much. We are so worried about doing everything based on a strict schedule and if we deviate from it for whatever reason, we haven't accomplished that much that day.  I realized this week that I value time very much in my personal life because everyday I run on a strict schedule of when I will workout, do my homework, eat dinner, and go to bed.  I also constantly look at clocks because I'm always thinking about what is going to happen in 20 minutes from now instead of embracing the moment.  Another that I would agree with is that our society values material culture.  In a film we watched about people in Denmark, one lady said, "Less things, more life" and I believe that this saying should be followed more often because we all our so worried about having the new product and having excess of items instead of just being happy with what we have.  This is also true in my life because I always want the next big thing, when the iPhone 4 came out, I immediatley wanted the iPhone 5 even though my brand new, 600 dollar phone was perfectly fine.  This says a lot about our society and why everyone is so individualized because we are constantly competing for higher status. Overall I have come to terms this week with the fact that I follow almost all of the norms brought up during class because that is what I have been surrounded with my whole life and it has shaped me into who I am today.

The Silence of Cards

Cards really have no meaning until you are unfamiliar with them.  This week in class there were about six groups with a different set of rules for a card game.  Each round people would move tables, but weren't allowed to talk so you had to play by your rules, or figure out the new rules.  For me, this equated to culture shock in a small room.  When people are thrown into new things, they don't realize that their way of doing certain things may not be everyone else's way.  For example, in my group for the card game, our trump card was a club, but the next table I went to the trump card was different.  I never realized that because our group sort of just followed the dealer but this is different than culture shock in the real world.  Many people feel vulnerable and don't know whether to adapt to the new society or stick to their own values, but I believe it is always beneficial to adapt to a new society.  I have experienced culture shock when I went to Mexico because everyone spoke a different language, and their sense of time was different.  I learned to adapt to their views by trying to find ways to communicate with them with the little Spanish I know, and I also tried to not be so worried about time, but just to relax through my day and see what happens.  I think that people need to embrace new cultures and values instead of always believing that their way of doing things is the only correct way.

Three New Perspectives

This week in class we were introduced to three new theories in which to study human interactions.  They are Structural Functionalism, Conflict, and Symbolic Interactionism.  I use the Structural Functionalism perspective to look at my days at high school.  Our school is considered one big society and within it our many factions.  There are different factions that play different parts in creating this school to be unified.  I see teachers, students, counselors, coaches, and many more other groups as manifest functions to this school. These groups are intended functions because they are how we learn and grow from our peers.  There are some unintended, latent, functions such as nerds, geeks, jocks, cheerleaders, but all of these stereotypes are prevalent in all schools while looking at them through this perspective.  You can look at high school through a conflict perspective as well because there are many groups in this school competing for power at large.  The teachers and the principals have the power over the students because they are superior to us in ranking, which makes us feel inferior to them.  Mostly everyone in this school is aware of their status as either a student or a faculty member, and this is an example of class consciousness.  Not many people deny their rankings which would be an example of false consciousness, but in high schools their are always those students who deny that they are inferior to their teachers. The last perspective you can look at my school from is the symbolic interactionism perspective. There are countless symbols seen in the hallways everyday that are vital for this school to function and create relationships.  These symbols are produced through interactions within the people at this school such as a smile, a wave, a kiss, an eyebrow raise, the list goes on and on.  One thing about this perspective is that peoples interpretations of these symbols may vary so people have to be careful whether they smile, or wave sometimes.  Through learning about these different perspectives I now have a completley new way of seeing how people interact with each other and I now have more knowledge on how to analyze the ongoing power struggle between teachers and their students.