Race

This week we started to learn about race. I think the major thing I learned was that race is not biological, but because of our history we have been brought up to think that way. Race is a social factor, it is not the color of someone's skin or their features. One day we had to look at a group of people and classify them into what group we thought they belonged to. Out of I think 16 people, we only put 4 into their right group. Many people will look at someone and automatically judge what group the belong to. You see someone who is black and they are just black, but that's wrong because they can be half Jewish like Lenny Kravitz as seen in the Dave Chappel video "Racial Draft". This video intrigued me because I am currently dating someone who is black and if you never got to know him you would not know that he is part Portuguese. Race is part of people's culture not what color their skin is, and unfortunatly most people don't think that way because they have been brought up to think people with dark skin are bad and people with white skin are good.

Rags to Riches

The past couple of weeks we have been talking about social class, and this week we were finishing up a movie about the classes in America. They showed the "very wealthy" in the Hamptons of New York who were wealthy because they have old money like money from the Vanderbilt estate, or Rockerfeller estate. There were two ladies who commented about a new house that was built, and that the person that lived in it was "nevo" or new, as in they were not born into the money, they had to work for it. It's the American dream, the rags to riches, which is what most celebrities today are, their "nevo". Everyone wants to be "in" with those in their social class, but the people with money cannot accept the people with new money because as said before, they were not born into it. This goes along with Monopoly- the social class version that we played this week in class. Everyone was a certain class and the idea was to see if we would move up or down. I was the upper class, and I was more interested in seeing if the poorest and the blue collar workers would move up in class as oppose to me moving up in class because I'm use to hearing the "Rags to Riches" story. Social class is a major part of the American society no matter how much we don't want to think about it, it's always around us. At school, especially high school and high school girls, people always judge where you get your clothes or what label they have on them, or if you have higher grades you can afford a tutor for your ACT and get high scores. Your life depends on your social class, because most of the time you will always remain in your social class unless you pursue a dream and go from rags to riches.

Social Classes

Living and growing up a certain way is all part of being classified in a certain social class in America. Being brought up in a highly populated suburb near Chicago the average income is about $90,000. When someone from a trailer home in Alabama thinks about someone who makes $90,000 a year, they have their stereotypes as to what those people are like, as do the people making that much money in Chicago have their stereotypes of those in trailer parks in Alabama. People say you can never change the social class you're in and in a way I think it's true. Watching a video in class on social classes, a middle class woman wanted to try to go out with a wealthy man. With training and a makeover she looked the part, but still looked out of place and awkward at an art gallery, even looking uncomfortable because she had not grown up in that type of atmosphere. I think it's unfair that people are looked at by social class but in reality when you see someone's house or car you automatically say they have money or don't. When you talk to someone for the first time, the first question you ask after their name is "what do you do?" which relates to how important Americans think social class is.

Deviance

Deviance exists in everyone's world. There is positive deviance such as random acts of kindness, and negative acts of deviance such as theft or violence. We read an article called Saints and Roughnecks which was about two different groups of boys in high school and how they are deviant. The Saints were the upper/ middle class boys that would do little pranks and skip class to think they were cool, or stealing little things not worth much. They would never get into that deep of trouble. The Roughnecks were the boys who were more poor and would a t more violent and steal things worth more value. With adolescence, many people think they can get away with things and that it is no big deal to get in trouble, but the way you act as an adolescent will reflect how you are as an adult. Many of the saints went of to college getting degrees, becoming lawyers and business men, while most of the roughnecks wound up becoming druggies or getting caught up in jail. The saints and roughnecks can be found in a lot of schools. There are always the kids that think if they try in school they are wimps or they are peer pressured into doing what the rest of the group is doing to be accepted. If you want to do something deviant, make it positive.

Teenagers

As a society, we all generalize people, but one of the main groups generalized is teenagers. They aren't children, and they aren't adults. They're in the middle which makes people unsure how to deal with them. This week we read an article called "The Teen Mystique". I personally started to get angry reading it as a teenager because it generalized all teens to either be having sex, doing drugs, drinking or being a part of criminal activities. Many people judge teenagers as troublesome kids who don't know how to grow up. The article said that this generation of teenagers will basically ruin our society. Not all of us are that bad...sure we make mistakes, but that is what being a teenager is about. It's learning our mistakes to be able to become good adults when it comes time. Teens are immature, is the general assumption, but there are teens that graduate high school early and go off to college, or kids that don't do bad in school or out of school, are they immature too?

Masculinity

So last week we talked about how society affects women and girls especially in media, but this week we talked about men and how they are genderized. Guys are suppose to be fearless and never back down, be tough and fight when they need to, be tough. If they don't fit that role, they are considered wimpy, and called names that degrade their masculinity. I know a lot of guys that have to keep that "macho" appearance for other guys to respect them, but when they are with girls they will be sensitive and talk more about things they wouldn't even think about talking about with other guys. Some guys get so pressured for not being man enough that they even go crazy and have killed the people who put pressure on them. Most girls have always thought that guys have had it so much easier with appearances when they are pressured as well. When a guy wants a girl they see in the media that is overly beautiful, women want the same thing when they see men in magazines and on tv that are perfect and are attracted to guys like that because of the media. Many people think women are pressured more, when men are just as much pressured to be a man and tough things out. It's wrong, and actually learning more about it opened my eyes especially because I always thought girls have it so much harder with body image and self esteem, when it is the same thing for guys. I give them much more credit because they have to deal with the physical violence of not being man enough as well.

Media affecting us

This week we talked about how the media affects men and women in America today. Women in t.v and movies are always tall, thin and beautiful and men are always muscular and "tough" guys. When people watch t.v, many start to question their own appearance and notice more imperfections. People try all these different products to make them look a certain way when they don't understand that half the time people are airbrushed and not even real, or they starve themselves to death to look a certain way making them unhealthy. I don't think it's fair to have a little girl watch tv and already start to question the way she looks because of what her favorite character on tv looks like. Recently, Dove came out with their new campaign to promote self esteem and use models that were normal women. If they had workshops and campaigns like this a long time ago I think the media would not be as bad as it is today. Also, the stereotypes now used for men and women in media are completely unrealistic. Guys supposedly have to be "macho" and like all sports and aggressive, while girls can be bad at math and science or "ditzy" and used as sex objects. Most of the time, people will see those projected characters in the media and think that's how it is suppose to be. It's not fair. It's not realistic, and it needs to be.

UN-TV

So far in sociology I've learned that it is not your typical academic study in school. It makes you think outside the box and do things that you would never do unless it was given to you as an assignment. Last week we had to "do nothing" which I blogged about as being one of the hardest things I had to do, but this experiment we had to do this week was hard as well. The Un-TV experiment had a few steps: Watch any show and look at the technical effects, watch a show in silence, watch the news in silence, watch someone else watching tv, and watch the tv without turning it on. After doing the whole experiment it showed how much tv has an impact on our lives. We literally turn into zombies. The amount of our blinking even decreases. When the sound is off, I did find that you become more aware of the show because you want to know what is going on. It was a great challenge, and another way to learn sociology hands on.

Just DO nothing

I think I got the most challenging assignment ever this week. In class we were told we had to literally "do nothing". I thought it was a joke at first because I didn't understand it exactly. It was basically zoning out, but still being aware of surroundings. I decided to do nothing at my homecoming after party. It took me forever to decide how I was going to take on the experiment. I stood against a wall kind of in a corner where it wasn't really noticeable, and just stood there. I kept thinking "why am I doing this?" I couldn't get myself to concentrate for at least 5 minutes. Finally I started to do nothing. It was weird just standing there, watching and listening to what people were saying. I got stares from people, weird faces, people asking each other questions if I was okay, and people that didn't even notice. It was so hard not to be able to stop and tell them what was going on. I could have told everyone for ten minutes I was just going to stand there, but then I would not have gotten the full experience of people looking at me like I was crazy. It was a great experience to step out of the real life for a second and just view the teenage culture/society.

Tuesdays with Morrie

In Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch values hard work by getting his articles done by the set deadlines, he travels all over the place to report the latest in sports, and committed his life to his job. As he starts to spend more time with Morrie, he starts to learn that achievement and success aren't necessarily related to how well you do in a career, it's how well you do in life. Morrie told Mitch that he wanted to become a teacher because he didn't want a job that would make him walk all over people. He wanted to do something that would make a difference, and it shows that he did make a difference because Mitch was a former student, and Morrie was a big impact in his life. Mitch learns that commitment to work is not everything, and success is having Janine in his life, and proposing to her shows they'll be happy together, and he said he wanted to start a family, which in a lot of people's minds including my own, makes you successful. I think successful means to be happy. If someone is making millions of dollars and they are lonely and miserable, I don't think they're successful when you look at their life as a whole. Yes they're successful in making money, but someone once said "money doesn't buy you happiness" and it's so true. My parents always talk about how they wish their parents pushed them harder in college to go in the field they loved. My dad would have gone to Loyola University to become a writer, and instead went to Columbia College and works for a big corporation always saying how he wished he became a writer. I think once you are in high school or get your first job, you start to value hard work and success. In school, I always take my work seriously, and when I first became a camp counselor, I valued hard work and success from the beginning because I was once a camper at the camp i work at, and I knew the campers wanted a counselor that cares, and at the end of the summer when they are crying and hugging you not wanting to let go, you know you were successful for making that child's summer the best it could be.

Being an American

When we were asked to prepare an outline for what it means to be an American, I thought it was going to be really easy. I later had the paper sitting in front of me and had no idea what to write. I tried to think like I was one of my cousins from London. I thought about what they thought about how we dress, talk, act, and then I knew what I was going to write. I've never been to London yet, but whenever my cousins come here, I'm always able to pick out what they do differently, and it would seem like they were weird, but that's what they were use to. When my cousins try to do an "American accent", it always comes out sounding like they are from the south. Even though they know they have family in Chicago, they think of Texas and the south when they think of America. Whenever we would go out to eat they would never order anything else besides a hamburger or steak. The food is another thing when they think of America that comes to mind. They all eat sooooo much when they're here it's crazy! Even if they were walking somewhere they would take the time, never hurry up, and someone in my family would ask them to pick up the pace. Thinking like I was my cousins helped me with this assignment. It showed that even though my uncle was originally from here and moved to London where he started a family, he no longer really remembers how to be American after he has been there for so long. I never realized how different we look to other countries, but I guess I haven't really been out of my fishbowl.

Culture Shock

This week starting a new unit on different cultures has been really interesting. Learning about the Japanese toilets, and other things that would be considered normal in other countries was an eye opener. When I saw the picture of the toilet in the middle of the city that looked like mirrors on the outside and on the inside you can see everyone else out there, it reminded me of when I went to St. Martin. In 5th grade, I went on my first Caribbean cruise with my family and one of the stops was St. Martin. St. Martin is split because of the two countries that originally settled there, so the side that we docked on was Dutch, and the other side was French, and they would both speak their native languages there, along with having each countries flags. I really liked the Dutch side, but my family wanted to see what the French side was like. When we got there, we got to this really nice mall but me and my mom had to go to the bathroom. We got there and the doors went from floor to ceiling with brass door handles, but you could see the shadow of someone sitting on the toilet. You could see every move that they made and I didn't feel comfortable with people watching, but to the natives it was no big deal. You would have to pay ten cents for toilet paper and you would just go in and do business without even thinking about women standing outside possibly watching. It was a huge culture shock for me.

"Never Waste Good Talent"

"The Bronx Tale" was a movie about Chazz Pomenteri's life growing up in the Bronx. I'm not usually one to watch that type of movie, but it sent a really good message to "Never waste good talent", and it was powerful to see what was really happening back in the 1960's. The main character, Collogero, was shown as a kid and then eight years later when he became a teenager. It showed the types of groups he was classified in as well. If someone were to watch the movie that wasn't in a sociology class they would probably say that C was a part of Sonny's group. After learning about how people are put in different groups, C was not as much part of the large group as he and Sonny were in their own group. All of the guys in the group feared Sonny, and once he was dead they didn't care. Sonny and C cared about each other, belonging in their own group. C also belonged in the group of his friends. He would try to do exactly what they were doing because they were the kids he had grown up with, but because he was growing up, he realized some of the things they did were stupid and wrong. When he saw his friends in body bags after being caught in a fire from the flame throwers being thrown back at them, C understood that he was only with them to have people his own age around him. Above all, C's master status was a son, not just to his father, but to Sonny as well. He would take advice from both of them, and would never try to upset either of them, even though he hurt his father a few times.

We all have a master status even if we never think about it. My master status is being a friend because I'm the one that everyone can trust, depend on, come to for advice, or just for a good laugh. I do my best to make sure other people have a good time. Even though that is my master status I'm a sister, a daughter, camp counselor, swim instructor, best friend, and many more. This movie made me understand how groups are formed better, especially with having segregated areas.

Should we generalize about people?

After reading the article "Should we generalize about people?" by Joel Charon, it made me understand the difference more between generalizing and stereotyping.  There was one part that stands out clearly to me, and that was when it talked about how we get our generalizations from the past and whatever we have heard, no matter what, we stick with it.  The example was the common cold, and how it's contagious and if you don't want to get it then you don't touch that person.  Everyone just "knows" that.  The difference between that and stereotypes, is stereotyping is on a specific group or person, so for example, if someone wears all black then they are weird, which isn't true at all. People stereotype without even realizing it too.  During this past summer I was a camp counselor, and all the staff seemed to talk to each other about the different "cliques" or "groups" at the camp.  For instance there were the college counselors, the high school counselors, the junior counselors, the counselors from the one unit that wasn't "cool", the specials staff, office staff, and the pool staff.  Everyone would always get ideas about the different people without even knowing who the were.  Why would they do that?  People use what they are thinking as a way to show more knowledge in one situation to the next.  So doing the "Short Sleeves" and "Long Sleeves' activity helped me understand that after being split up into my own group, immediately ideas were going through my head as to why the other group was wearing short sleeves without even asking.  

Abandoned Ship

In class we did the abandoned ship simulation and not being one of the characters on the ship made me able to observe what was going on and actually start to think like a sociologist.  One of the first things I noticed was that everyone wanted to do "Nose Goes" to see who would have to leave the life boat without really thinking about what social status anyone had or what anyone else had to say.  I really liked watching how teens try to decide on things.  It's like they're advertising, trying to sell why they should stay on the ship.  When the nine people that needed to be kicked off were kicked off and everyone went back to their seats someone asked the "Army Captain" what character he was and at what time he was kicked off, and then said "Oh, you should have stayed".  When that person said that, It made me realize that teenagers will make decisions without really thinking it through.  As teenagers growing up in America, we live in a fast-paced society and want to get things done as quickly as possible and try to make the right choice.  If you try to make a choice quickly, you really don't have enough time to think about it.  So if the class was really on a ship, and that person that they "should have" kept on was told to go overboard, they would not be able to bring people back.  Teens have to slow down and really think about their actions and choices because if they don't it will only get them so far down the road when they are adults.  

That's it for this week!

Ali

Service Projects

So for Sociology classes at school there are no finals but every sociology student is required to do up to ten hours of community service.  It seems like a lot to someone who hasn't really spent time doing community service, but it's really not.  I like the idea of making a difference for others instead of sitting in a classroom for ninety minutes taking a multiple choice test.  When I was in middle school a representative from a summer camp called Summer of Service came to talk about the camp and how much fun it was to help others.  For three or four summers I went to S.O.S and it made such an impact on my summer.  Every Monday we would give options of the service projects available for each day for the rest of the week and would sign up for what we wanted to do. We would go to nursing homes and have barbeque's, play with kids at Boys and Girls Club, help with gardening centers, etc.  On Fridays it was like a normal day camp: water parks, whirley ball, Gameworks, and a lot of other fun places.  A lot of the times the service projects were a lot more fun than the field trips because even though we did little things to help, they made great impacts on the people we helped.  So hearing that we are doing service projects instead of finals makes me happy to be able to help others =]

Still getting use to it

So I'm not sure how to fix my first blog post but I forgot to put in some things.  Family and friends are what make me the person that I am.  Most teenagers aren't fans of spending time with their families but it doesn't bother me that much.  When I'm with my friends and family I can be myself.  After this year, I want to go to Michigan State to pursue a career and fashion marketing/merchandising.  It's been something I've had my heart set on for a long time.  I hope to be successful after graduating college, but most of all being happy.  Okay, much better.  

It's a shore thing,

Alison =]

Getting to know me =]

Hey, I'm Alison! I'm currently in a sociology class at a large suburban high school. I'm excited to start this blog because it's a way to show what I learn as the semester progresses with connecting my own experiences. In my past years of high school I've taken the generic classes with an occasional elective here and there. I love taking on new challenges and taking a class like sociology is definitely something I have not done before. This summer I worked as a camp counselor and when I thought I knew what I was getting into, I didn't. At many times I had to think like an eight year old girl on a hot summer day to understand what my group of thirteen was going through. The summer helped me mature more and become more responsible. I now understand how frustrating it is for my mom to ask me five times to go clean my room. I love sharing ideas with others, especially with music. I'm not the typical teenager when it comes to music. Classic rock from the seventies and eighties is what is mostly on my iPod. Friends usually tell me I was born in the wrong time period because of the way I dress as well. Anything that is neon, tie dye or has peace signs has my name written all over it. I love to have fun and I'm not afraid to be my own person. Hopefully you enjoy reading my blog, just getting use to it, but it could get exciting in the future!


Alison =]