Sociology and Identity
Society's Mirror Image
Quinn Haughey (10/26/11)
Society’s Mirror Image
What do you see when you look in the mirror? You see yourself, right? Well what if you were to wear a mirror on your face. Then everybody else would see himself or herself. So then you wouldn’t have to worry about saying the right things or looking a certain way because everybody would see himself or herself when they looked at you. You could fit in everywhere. The looking-glass self, the mirror through which we see our actions and clothes as others would see us and think of us, is very much like this mask of mirrors.
That’s the main idea for my mask; there are small mirrors all over the front so when you look at the mask you see yourself and immediately like me. But behind these mirrors I have splatter-painted the mask to show that on the inside, I like to express myself. After I know a person for a while I will expose my true self and expose the things that I actually like. But by that point I am accepted enough that I don’t have to worry about not being liked.
When I started this mask project, a project where we make a mask to represent a social identity category, the groups that make you who you are, and an essay explaining it, I had no idea what to make my mask about. So then I thought about how I could incorporate my past into the project. I thought about how I have never stayed at the same school for more than a year and how I had always had to change myself to fit into the new environment. So I decided to make my mask about that. At first I didn’t know how to represent this concept into my mask. Then I thought about the “Okay Dave” video, the video about the guy who thought that the problem of self-image was bigger than anyone cared to acknowledge, where Dave used mirrors to get his idea through. And I thought, why can’t I do the same? So I decided to put lots of tiny mirrors on the front to symbolize that I reflect the people I think are cool so that I will be cool too.
The mask of mirrors I immediately put up when I meet new people, representing the concept of the looking-glass self, is useful because I don’t have to worry about whether the things I like or do are “cool” enough to fit in with everybody because I am like everybody else. For example, at my old school all the kids liked Eminem. So I put some Eminem on my IPod because I thought people would like me better if I liked Eminem. Another example of changing myself to fit in is when I got skateboarding shoes because the guys I was hanging out with at school, the skater crowd, were making fun of me because my shoes were “dorky” and “un-cool”.
Although there are some things that I just won’t say that I like and I just think are stupid. Such as smoking pot or doing drugs. An example of this is when I was hanging out with my friend and he started smoking pot. I said that if we were going to hang out more that he couldn’t smoke. I think that smoking is just stupid. I think that although you naturally want to do what other kids do, you should trust yourself to make good decisions and not do stuff that you think is wrong just because your friends say you should.
My mask connects to sociology because the mirrors represent somebody making themselves look like somebody else just to fit in. I think that it is human nature to want to fit in because when we were just evolving from apes we relied on each other to survive and if one ape was an outcast and no one liked him then he would have a much shorter lifespan because he wouldn’t have any friends to watch his back or help him find food. So he acts like the other apes so he can have a better chance of surviving and passing on his genes.
Almost every school I have gone to has been a new school so I always had to change myself to fit in with the kids. Last year in Texas I started to hang out with the skater crowd and so when I went to get new pants I bought skinny jeans because I thought that wearing them would make me more popular. But sometimes I don’t have to change myself to fit in. When I came to Animas High school, a charter school here in Durango, CO. with a very Montessori-like teaching style, I didn’t know how what to expect as far as what the kids were going to be like and whether I would have to change myself to fit in. I wondered if the kids here would like the things I do. Turns out a lot of the kids here like snowboarding and mountain biking and I enjoy doing both of these things. A lot of the kids here also like longboarding and I have a longboard. So I didn’t have to change myself much to fit in here. Also the teaching style is very familiar to me because I have grown up in a Montessori environment and this school is a lot like Montessori. I think that that helps because if I had had an all traditional school background then this type of learning would have been hard for me because here you have to push yourself to work and have a desire to learn.
One thing that I learned from this project is how important it is to express yourself and show what you really think. If you keep that bottled up inside you and don’t let it out, two things will happen; you will be very boring and you will lose sight of your views and the things you enjoy. You will be boring because, if you are always mirroring everybody then, to quote Ping Floyd, “you’re just another brick in the wall”.
Society’s Mirror Image
What do you see when you look in the mirror? You see yourself, right? Well what if you were to wear a mirror on your face. Then everybody else would see himself or herself. So then you wouldn’t have to worry about saying the right things or looking a certain way because everybody would see himself or herself when they looked at you. You could fit in everywhere. The looking-glass self, the mirror through which we see our actions and clothes as others would see us and think of us, is very much like this mask of mirrors.
That’s the main idea for my mask; there are small mirrors all over the front so when you look at the mask you see yourself and immediately like me. But behind these mirrors I have splatter-painted the mask to show that on the inside, I like to express myself. After I know a person for a while I will expose my true self and expose the things that I actually like. But by that point I am accepted enough that I don’t have to worry about not being liked.
When I started this mask project, a project where we make a mask to represent a social identity category, the groups that make you who you are, and an essay explaining it, I had no idea what to make my mask about. So then I thought about how I could incorporate my past into the project. I thought about how I have never stayed at the same school for more than a year and how I had always had to change myself to fit into the new environment. So I decided to make my mask about that. At first I didn’t know how to represent this concept into my mask. Then I thought about the “Okay Dave” video, the video about the guy who thought that the problem of self-image was bigger than anyone cared to acknowledge, where Dave used mirrors to get his idea through. And I thought, why can’t I do the same? So I decided to put lots of tiny mirrors on the front to symbolize that I reflect the people I think are cool so that I will be cool too.
The mask of mirrors I immediately put up when I meet new people, representing the concept of the looking-glass self, is useful because I don’t have to worry about whether the things I like or do are “cool” enough to fit in with everybody because I am like everybody else. For example, at my old school all the kids liked Eminem. So I put some Eminem on my IPod because I thought people would like me better if I liked Eminem. Another example of changing myself to fit in is when I got skateboarding shoes because the guys I was hanging out with at school, the skater crowd, were making fun of me because my shoes were “dorky” and “un-cool”.
Although there are some things that I just won’t say that I like and I just think are stupid. Such as smoking pot or doing drugs. An example of this is when I was hanging out with my friend and he started smoking pot. I said that if we were going to hang out more that he couldn’t smoke. I think that smoking is just stupid. I think that although you naturally want to do what other kids do, you should trust yourself to make good decisions and not do stuff that you think is wrong just because your friends say you should.
My mask connects to sociology because the mirrors represent somebody making themselves look like somebody else just to fit in. I think that it is human nature to want to fit in because when we were just evolving from apes we relied on each other to survive and if one ape was an outcast and no one liked him then he would have a much shorter lifespan because he wouldn’t have any friends to watch his back or help him find food. So he acts like the other apes so he can have a better chance of surviving and passing on his genes.
Almost every school I have gone to has been a new school so I always had to change myself to fit in with the kids. Last year in Texas I started to hang out with the skater crowd and so when I went to get new pants I bought skinny jeans because I thought that wearing them would make me more popular. But sometimes I don’t have to change myself to fit in. When I came to Animas High school, a charter school here in Durango, CO. with a very Montessori-like teaching style, I didn’t know how what to expect as far as what the kids were going to be like and whether I would have to change myself to fit in. I wondered if the kids here would like the things I do. Turns out a lot of the kids here like snowboarding and mountain biking and I enjoy doing both of these things. A lot of the kids here also like longboarding and I have a longboard. So I didn’t have to change myself much to fit in here. Also the teaching style is very familiar to me because I have grown up in a Montessori environment and this school is a lot like Montessori. I think that that helps because if I had had an all traditional school background then this type of learning would have been hard for me because here you have to push yourself to work and have a desire to learn.
One thing that I learned from this project is how important it is to express yourself and show what you really think. If you keep that bottled up inside you and don’t let it out, two things will happen; you will be very boring and you will lose sight of your views and the things you enjoy. You will be boring because, if you are always mirroring everybody then, to quote Ping Floyd, “you’re just another brick in the wall”.
Project Reflection
Quinn Haughey (11/3/11)
Sociology Project Reflection
1. Now that you have finished your first project, how is Project Based Learning (PBL) different from or similar to what you have experienced before? Give at least 3 specific ways it is similar or different.
My mom is a Montessori teacher so from a very young age I have been around a Montessori environment. I think that Montessori is a lot like this school in the style that they set up the curriculum and learning environment. In kindergarten I went to my mother’s school in Blanco, TX. Then I went to my first public school in first grade. I stayed in public schools until fourth and fifth grade when I went to a little school called Cedars Montessori School in Oak Hill, TX. Then my mom got a job at a Montessori school in Austin, TX so I went there for sixth and seventh grade. By that time my dad really wanted me to live with him because I had been living with my mom for the majority of the time that my parents had split up. So I moved to Georgetown with my dad and went to the public school there. Then my dad got a job here in Durango so we moved here and I came to Animas High School. I think the biggest difference between traditional schools and Montessori and AHS is that in traditional schools the teachers almost aren’t allowed to care as much about the kids as the teachers here because of the way that their curriculum is set up. In the traditional schools the teachers have a set list of things that the kids have to know in order to have all of their kids pass the TAKS test. If a kid is struggling with a particular project or assignment they can’t talk with the kid to work out a solution because all of the kids have to do all of the same material and there can’t be one kid who didn’t have to do a certain thing because then all of the other kids would be wondering why they had to do it and the one kid didn’t. But in a Montessori school the teacher could work with the kid and work out a way that he could do the same content as the rest of the class but in a way that worked for him better.
2. Which habit of heart and mind do you need to work on in your next project to get better at PBL? Show, don’t tell why you need to improve and how that HOHAM will help you.
I think that I need to work on advocacy because since I wasn’t very good at advocating I didn’t effectively get my point across to people at the exhibition. I would stumble over my words and confuse people and then have to start over. What I should have done was said “My mask is based on the concept of the looking-glass self.” And then went on to explain what the looking glass-self was. Then I would say something about how when people go into new places they imitate the people that are there and how that connects to the looking glass-self. Then I would explain how the mirrors on my mask are like that and how I have switched schools a lot.
3. What are you most proud of about your mask? Why?
I think the thing that I am most proud of about my mask is that it really connects to my past. This is my favorite part because I just moved here to Durango, CO. and I didn’t know anybody at first. But then I got involved in things like lacrosse, Devo, and school and started making friends. Since I have had to do this sort of thing a lot because I have switched schools a lot. My mask is mainly about how I have coped with moving into those new situations.
4. Quote the section of your essay that you are most proud of and describe, in detail, why you are proud of it.
The section of my essay that I am most proud of is my first paragraph: “What do you see when you look in the mirror? You see yourself, right? Well what if you were to wear a mirror on your face. Then everybody else would see himself or herself. So then you wouldn’t have to worry about saying the right things or looking a certain way because everybody would see himself or herself when they looked at you. You could fit in everywhere. The looking-glass self, the mirror through which we see our actions and clothes as others would see us and think of us, is very much like this mask of mirrors.” I like it because it is a good metaphor for the looking glass-self. I also like it because I just sat down and wrote it and I didn’t change it much to put it in my final essay.
5. What do you want to take with you and remember from this project?
I want to take away that I need to be myself and not just conform to other people’s views of me. I want to work on expressing myself and not worrying about what other people think about what I do. I think this is important because if you don’t express yourself then you will become boring and uninteresting.