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.

The Boat

This week, 17 of us volunteered to participate in a class activity where we had to sit in an imaginary life boat, but we had to kick 9 people off.  We all had very brief descriptions of the characteristics each person had such as age, occupation, weight, family, and skills. There was one person who sort of took the role of leading discussion as to who should be voted off the boat.  Others sat there silently and just listened to the conversation that the other students were having.  I decided to mostly just sit and listen because I figured that the other students wouldn't think of me since I wasn't screaming at them. People started to get kicked off of the boat due to age or size or skills, and many didn't even fight for their right to live. After everyone had gotten kicked off, even the person who demanded the conversation, 7 were left. What I found most interesting was that my character had been voted off the boat almost every time this game was played, but this time he didn't.  Since I didn't really speak much, I was forgotten about and that is why I believe I stayed on the boat even though I had no hands.  Overall, this activity was interesting to me because you got to see different peoples beliefs and what the value because many people had different reasons to want to keep someone on the boat o r kick them off.