As time goes on people begin to explore and interact with the world around them, a reality is created. As I have already shared, on the first day of class, I learned that the "rules" of school is a
reality that my students are all too familiar with. However, I also learned that group dynamics change when survival is in question. Somewhere along the lines, many of my students learned how to put a value on their own life and the life of others. They have learned standards that dictated their decisions about who should be left on a life boat and who was expendable. After my students were given character descriptions and told that they were on an overcrowded lifeboat and seven people would have to be "offed" their sensitivity left the boat right along with Mr. & Mrs. Eldridge (the elderly couple). What is it about the society in which we leave, that most of my students immediately pointed fingers to the "old people?" In addition many of them were in consensus about saving "able-bodied" people, those with families and children, and although this class saved the draft-evading drug dealer, when students made decisions on their own, most of them decided that this lack of moral character was enough to put you overboard. It led me to wonder just how many of my thoughts and my perceptions have been constructed? Have the lenses in which I see the world been given to me or did I choose them for myself? If I STOP to think about, I have realized that I didn't choose to be in a hurry all the time, I didn't realize that if I lived in Spain, I would be eating dinner at 11:00pm or closing down shop at 2:00 in the afternoon. I didn't realize that if I lived in Brazil, I might be able to show up for class when I wanted to as opposed to be conditioned by bells and whistles that constantly ding in my ear reminding me that it is time for SOMETHING!! The social construction of reality is a common theme throughout the course. Just like a fish can only understand that it lives in water, once it is taken out of it. The only way a person can understand their reality is by starting to question it.
As time goes on people begin to explore and interact with the world around them, a reality is created. As I have already shared, on the first day of class, I learned that the "rules" of school is a reality that my students are all too familiar with. However, I also learned that group dynamics change when survival is in question. Somewhere along the lines, many of my students learned how to put a value on their own life and the life of others. They have learned standards that dictated their decisions about who should be left on a life boat and who was expendable. After my students were given character descriptions and told that they were on an overcrowded lifeboat and seven people would have to be "offed" their sensitivity left the boat right along with Mr. & Mrs. Eldridge (the elderly couple). What is it about the society in which we leave, that most of my students immediately pointed fingers to the "old people?" In addition many of them were in consensus about saving "able-bodied" people, those with families and children, and although this class saved the draft-evading drug dealer, when students made decisions on their own, most of them decided that this lack of moral character was enough to put you overboard. It led me to wonder just how many of my thoughts and my perceptions have been constructed? Have the lenses in which I see the world been given to me or did I choose them for myself? If I STOP to think about, I have realized that I didn't choose to be in a hurry all the time, I didn't realize that if I lived in Spain, I would be eating dinner at 11:00pm or closing down shop at 2:00 in the afternoon. I didn't realize that if I lived in Brazil, I might be able to show up for class when I wanted to as opposed to be conditioned by bells and whistles that constantly ding in my ear reminding me that it is time for SOMETHING!! The social construction of reality is a common theme throughout the course. Just like a fish can only understand that it lives in water, once it is taken out of it. The only way a person can understand their reality is by starting to question it.
I liked the fish analogy, and I am enjoying this concept of questioning time as we use it as a society.
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