Only after the first couple of weeks i have learned so much about sociology and about myself as a person! Starting off the week we put 3 people in chairs in the front of the room and we were given words to describe them. We then had to vote on what words we felt best described them. I didn't know these 3 people very well so i had to pick from what i felt. I admit that i did judge them a little in order to pick these 3 words, but after the activity and hearing what they thought of themselves i realized that in order to really know what words describe the person you have to know them as a person.
Going along with judging people, in the middle of the week we had to write down adjectives we felt were correct for certain types of people. One of them was a gold medalist. I wrote down many words that an athlete would be. When we then discussed as a class and were showed a picture to describe a gold medalist, my mind completely changed. We were shown a picture of a girl involved with the Special Olympics with a gold medal. This hit me hard. I have a cousin with Autism, along with the fact that I work for the Special Olympics and NWSRA (an association for people with special needs). I realized that our perspective on life and on people is totally centered on our normal everyday life and what most perceive as normal, when really people with special needs are just as normal as us.
Already this class has taught me to open my eyes, be less judgmental and see each person as a unique being.
I really like your blog post. I too wrote about the activity we did with 3 of our classmates and found it very interesting. Going along with the picture of a gold medalist, that was definatly an eye openimg experience for me because my cousin also has autism and it shows that the definition of a gold medalist might not always be the first thing that comes to our mind. . Great post!
ReplyDeleteHey becca, i think the activity we did in the beginning of the week was really difficult. Its hard to label someone when you dont know who they are, but we do it all the time without thinking about it. I also have 2 cousins that are diagnosed with down syndrome, and they are both involved with the special olympics. I love going to their games and watching how happy they are playing golf, or basketball. It was really sweet to see the picture of the girl with her gold medal. It just shows how wrong we can be, and that we all have a preconceived conception of how things are.
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