5.22.12 THE DARK SIDE - Post here if.....
Jun 1, 2012 13:43:14 GMT -5
Post by smokeyvera on Jun 1, 2012 13:43:14 GMT -5
I am teaching The Outsiders with some of my 8th grade classes. To begin a discussion of labeling and stereotyping, I get a bunch of candy bars and tell my students that we are going to do some descriptive writing and focus on senses other than sight, senses like taste and smell. Students who really like a particular kind of candy and who think they can really describe the sensations of eating their candy bar volunteer to come up in front
of the class and do that out loud.
I tell them to close their eyes so that they can block out the sense of sight. I ask them why they chose that candy (they love it) and why they didn't choose another (they don't like it) and how they knew that (they'd tried them both before.) What the students don't know is that I have carefully switched out all the original candy bars and put other ones in their place. I have a few students do this at the same time.
This activity always leads to a great discussion about stereotyping, labeling, etc... One interesting thing is that very often it takes students eating half of their candy bars, eyes closed, before they realize they are not eating the bar they expected to eat. We discuss how we perceive things, people according to our expectations, and that it takes familiarity with these things, people being different than our expectations before we develop a new reality. We then discuss how this impacts our judgements about others and their judgments about us, and how frequently people may not ever understand reality because they walk away before the bar is half eaten.
We talk about how difficult it is to change labels already established and learned, and that if I don't like you initially as a student, you probably pick up on that and might not act as friendly to me; then I think I am right and am even less friendly, you are less friendly and respectful, and pretty soon I know you are a bad kid with an attitude and I am waiting to jump all over you.
We talk about how changing labels and prejudices takes time and frequent positive interaction. You have to give people, teachers for example, time to experience half of the candy bar that is you. Show them their label is wrong by being your best self in the face of their prejudice.
And we discuss how finding something good about the person who may have reservations against you, and concentrating on that during your interactions will help them pick up on your goodness. And that you have to keep doing that for awhile before you expect results. They need to eat half your candy bar. When people hate you, love sometimes works better than hate to change their mindsets. Be the person to change the circle that has been created.
Yesterday, one student whom I love but some other teachers do not, lol, came in to tell me she had tried that with one of the teachers who "hated" her and that it had worked. This teacher apparently pulled her aside and sincerely complimented her etc...
I feel like Adam is so good at changing perceptions because he has learned to be positive and focuses on positivity in his interactions with people, and they can feel that, so that even those going in with judgements about him, or his music or American Idol, leave with a changed mindset. I want him out there enough so that reasonable people experience him in enough "sound" bytes to see him for who he really is, and to hear and recognize his talent.
Aww Lynne, I just read that book with my *8th grade son. It was his final reading project in school. I wish the teacher had done what you did to make the kids rethink the way they perceived things. My son and I had innumerable discussions on each character in the book. At the end there was a section on the author. My son was amazed that a girl had written a book and that it was for a project in school. She was 15 at the time and published at 16.
But my son had been thinking a lot lately, about gangs, and came home and told me a story of one of the girls in one of his classes. My son is extremely protective of kids that get bullied and also befriends the friendless. She had confessed to him, she was a member of a gang. They had a long conversation about what her expectations were to be a gang member, and I was astounded at how my son responded to her. My kid makes me proud, every single day.
Lynne, your students are blessed to have you as a teacher, as is Adam to have you as a fan.