The Mask Project
Socialization and how it made Me
Everyone changes over the course of time, whether it’s intentional or unintentional. Socialization is the process of learning how to behave in an acceptable way in today's society. In my experience it wasn’t all of society it was more of a subculture. I changed into someone who I really wasn’t. I changed myself to please a social hierarchy. Society and the hierarchy have socialized me to become someone I am really not, a man that wears a thin mask of masculinity and confidence, only to please others and fit their view of what they see as a man. This is how I have been socialized.
I feel like I entered middle school without a care in the world, sort of like a blank slate. It felt like a matter of weeks that people were assigned (social status roles). The geeks, the jocks, the nerds, the weirdos ect… I often felt lost confused and didn’t know where I belonged. I desperately tried to fit in. I became deeply enveloped in the concept of social status. This clouded my head from what is really important. I felt myself become distant with my own family, and my grades quickly deteriorated. During this time I felt not myself and truly lost. These “friends” didn’t even treat me like friends they treated me more like a punching bag. I wouldn’t say anything knowing if I did say anything they would ridicule me even more. This constant loop kept me in a limbo of confusion. I went through this for nearly all of middle school.
I really pushed myself to change. It was a long grueling process. I started to skate again, and it helped me get through a lot of changes in my life. I slowly broke off from my group “friends” and I felt free. I felt this barrier of negative socialization lift off me. I felt myself differ from the crowd, and this caused people to look at me as a target. I would often find my locker broken into and my skateboard in a trash can, I know it sounds weird but during this time I felt happier than I ever have before than. I felt so happy because I was being myself and I wasn’t being socialized by this social hierarchy. These critical events of socialization really made me into who I am today and I believe it has made me a better person.
Despite all the negative things I have said about socialization the human race would be little to nothing without it. Human brains often act as sponges soaking up knowledge of their surroundings, this includes Taboos, social cues, vocal tints and language. If someone has little to no human interaction they aren’t socialized at all. People who aren’t socialized often cannot communicate, and have no concept of social norms. This all happens especially when they miss the pivotal years of learning in their childhood, ages 11-13. A study of 17,000 British children learning French at school has shown that children who had started learning at the age of eleven performed better at second language proficiency tests, compared to those that had started at around eight years of age. This shows that these years are crucial for picking up language and if these years are spent isolated a Human will never be the same.
From when I was about 11 years old I thought I was my own Individual person, I thought I was different from the rest, then humanities introduced me into the concept of sociology. It changed my view on the world and how I will always look at things and it changed my outlook on the past years of my life. Ever Since I could remember I have been obsessed with skating and snowboarding. Then when I got into 3rd grade I lost interest in skateboarding and snowboarding and all I wanted to do was play football and baseball. I was always curious to why I lost interest in board sports and I believe I was socialized to. In third grade all the kids started to play “mainstream sports”. I think that this socialized me into lose interest in snowboarding and skating.
Mask paragraph
The mask is something we wear in society to hide our true selves. My mask tells a story of change and difference. The mask shows how if you are different from the “norm” those differences will be exploited and used against you to make you join the herd of socailed sheep. The mask shows how words can degrade someone until they just feel worthless and ignorant. The mask that I created is not the one I wear, it is the that I wore in the past.
Socialization is a crucial part of the human race. To some standards a human cannot be human without human contact. We learn how to love and care through human contact, but we also learn how to hate. Through socialization we learn how to communicate through language and emotion. Socialization is such a key factor in all humans, so if a human isn't socialized are they really a human?
Everyone changes over the course of time, whether it’s intentional or unintentional. Socialization is the process of learning how to behave in an acceptable way in today's society. In my experience it wasn’t all of society it was more of a subculture. I changed into someone who I really wasn’t. I changed myself to please a social hierarchy. Society and the hierarchy have socialized me to become someone I am really not, a man that wears a thin mask of masculinity and confidence, only to please others and fit their view of what they see as a man. This is how I have been socialized.
I feel like I entered middle school without a care in the world, sort of like a blank slate. It felt like a matter of weeks that people were assigned (social status roles). The geeks, the jocks, the nerds, the weirdos ect… I often felt lost confused and didn’t know where I belonged. I desperately tried to fit in. I became deeply enveloped in the concept of social status. This clouded my head from what is really important. I felt myself become distant with my own family, and my grades quickly deteriorated. During this time I felt not myself and truly lost. These “friends” didn’t even treat me like friends they treated me more like a punching bag. I wouldn’t say anything knowing if I did say anything they would ridicule me even more. This constant loop kept me in a limbo of confusion. I went through this for nearly all of middle school.
I really pushed myself to change. It was a long grueling process. I started to skate again, and it helped me get through a lot of changes in my life. I slowly broke off from my group “friends” and I felt free. I felt this barrier of negative socialization lift off me. I felt myself differ from the crowd, and this caused people to look at me as a target. I would often find my locker broken into and my skateboard in a trash can, I know it sounds weird but during this time I felt happier than I ever have before than. I felt so happy because I was being myself and I wasn’t being socialized by this social hierarchy. These critical events of socialization really made me into who I am today and I believe it has made me a better person.
Despite all the negative things I have said about socialization the human race would be little to nothing without it. Human brains often act as sponges soaking up knowledge of their surroundings, this includes Taboos, social cues, vocal tints and language. If someone has little to no human interaction they aren’t socialized at all. People who aren’t socialized often cannot communicate, and have no concept of social norms. This all happens especially when they miss the pivotal years of learning in their childhood, ages 11-13. A study of 17,000 British children learning French at school has shown that children who had started learning at the age of eleven performed better at second language proficiency tests, compared to those that had started at around eight years of age. This shows that these years are crucial for picking up language and if these years are spent isolated a Human will never be the same.
From when I was about 11 years old I thought I was my own Individual person, I thought I was different from the rest, then humanities introduced me into the concept of sociology. It changed my view on the world and how I will always look at things and it changed my outlook on the past years of my life. Ever Since I could remember I have been obsessed with skating and snowboarding. Then when I got into 3rd grade I lost interest in skateboarding and snowboarding and all I wanted to do was play football and baseball. I was always curious to why I lost interest in board sports and I believe I was socialized to. In third grade all the kids started to play “mainstream sports”. I think that this socialized me into lose interest in snowboarding and skating.
Mask paragraph
The mask is something we wear in society to hide our true selves. My mask tells a story of change and difference. The mask shows how if you are different from the “norm” those differences will be exploited and used against you to make you join the herd of socailed sheep. The mask shows how words can degrade someone until they just feel worthless and ignorant. The mask that I created is not the one I wear, it is the that I wore in the past.
Socialization is a crucial part of the human race. To some standards a human cannot be human without human contact. We learn how to love and care through human contact, but we also learn how to hate. Through socialization we learn how to communicate through language and emotion. Socialization is such a key factor in all humans, so if a human isn't socialized are they really a human?
Mask Project Reflection
We started off the mask project with a lot of research and notes about socialization and how it affects us as humans. We then started the process of molding our masks out of our own face. The task of the project was to show how you have been socialized in the form of a mask and a writing piece. Stephen took a small leap of absence and he was replaced by a sub. During this time we hardly did any work on the mask project. When stephen returned we started to actually work on our masks again. I was finally able to turn the idea of my mask into the real thing. After I made my mask I wrote my essay. I did the mask first to hopefully inspire some topics for my writing piece. I’m really happy the way my essay and mask turned out, I feel they are an accurate representation of how I have been socialized.
I am usually not a very artistic person, but I found myself really happy with the way my masked turned out. I feel my mask shows a strong visual message. I feel with my essay I could have definitely put more effort into it. I feel it lacked more cold hard facts about socialization. During this project I always felt pretty engaged and never really confused, but if I did feel lost at one point I would definitely talk to Stephen about it. I felt that I really had to persevere through my mask. I often felt stumped on ideas for it. I worked through the difficulty to create something I’m really proud of. I went through many stages of refinement with my mask until I came out with a product that met my own standards. I feel I also went through an equal amount of refinement with my essay.
I feel this project really changed my view on society and how humans act. I feel it made me more aware of the way I was acting. I would sometimes ask myself, am I acting this way, because I was socialized to? This project taught me how important refinement is. I were to turn in my first draft of my mask It would have been a disaster.
We started off the mask project with a lot of research and notes about socialization and how it affects us as humans. We then started the process of molding our masks out of our own face. The task of the project was to show how you have been socialized in the form of a mask and a writing piece. Stephen took a small leap of absence and he was replaced by a sub. During this time we hardly did any work on the mask project. When stephen returned we started to actually work on our masks again. I was finally able to turn the idea of my mask into the real thing. After I made my mask I wrote my essay. I did the mask first to hopefully inspire some topics for my writing piece. I’m really happy the way my essay and mask turned out, I feel they are an accurate representation of how I have been socialized.
I am usually not a very artistic person, but I found myself really happy with the way my masked turned out. I feel my mask shows a strong visual message. I feel with my essay I could have definitely put more effort into it. I feel it lacked more cold hard facts about socialization. During this project I always felt pretty engaged and never really confused, but if I did feel lost at one point I would definitely talk to Stephen about it. I felt that I really had to persevere through my mask. I often felt stumped on ideas for it. I worked through the difficulty to create something I’m really proud of. I went through many stages of refinement with my mask until I came out with a product that met my own standards. I feel I also went through an equal amount of refinement with my essay.
I feel this project really changed my view on society and how humans act. I feel it made me more aware of the way I was acting. I would sometimes ask myself, am I acting this way, because I was socialized to? This project taught me how important refinement is. I were to turn in my first draft of my mask It would have been a disaster.
TKAM / MWB Seminar
Socratic Seminar Reflection
Some of the main topics we covered in the Socratic Seminar was race, stereotypes, and gender roles. To kill a Mockingbird has a large portion of the book devoted to race and how the people of Macomb county treat African Americans. We talked a lot about the N word and how it’s used as more of an insult to show that someone is stupid or a lower being, this lead to a conversation about how racism and how it’s still an issue in today's society. We also talked about how Scout goes through this change of being a Tomboy to becoming a lady. We discussed about about how she is socialized at school and how Jem and Dill almost discard her because she is to girly.
Throughout the course of Mockingbird you meet many interesting characters but, the one that stood out to me was Boo Radley. One unique question that stood out to me about Boo was that, is he a metaphor more than a character? Boo never had any real dialogue but he spoke in more than just words. I feel Boo was a further push of the Mockingbird metaphor that was present throughout the book. The metaphor is that you don’t kill mockingbirds because, they are weak, defenseless and they do no harm. Overall it means you shouldn’t do harm to those who only do good in the world.
For the seminar today I feel that I could’ve been more prepared for some of the question better. I feel like I could’ve also been prepared with more annotations. I did read the book in its entirety and I feel that benefited me during the seminar. During the seminar I had trouble staying on topic and keeping the conversation going. I really enjoyed the in depth conversation we were able to get in to as a group and share each other's opinions on difficult subjects. My goal for when we read a knovel next semester would be do take more annotations.
I believe Mockingbird is very important because, it motivates for change. It talks about edgy problems that we still have in our society to this day. It teaches valuable lessons about caring for one another. I feel that a good portion of the first part of the book could be done without but it makes up for it in the end. So in the end this book matters.
Some of the main topics we covered in the Socratic Seminar was race, stereotypes, and gender roles. To kill a Mockingbird has a large portion of the book devoted to race and how the people of Macomb county treat African Americans. We talked a lot about the N word and how it’s used as more of an insult to show that someone is stupid or a lower being, this lead to a conversation about how racism and how it’s still an issue in today's society. We also talked about how Scout goes through this change of being a Tomboy to becoming a lady. We discussed about about how she is socialized at school and how Jem and Dill almost discard her because she is to girly.
Throughout the course of Mockingbird you meet many interesting characters but, the one that stood out to me was Boo Radley. One unique question that stood out to me about Boo was that, is he a metaphor more than a character? Boo never had any real dialogue but he spoke in more than just words. I feel Boo was a further push of the Mockingbird metaphor that was present throughout the book. The metaphor is that you don’t kill mockingbirds because, they are weak, defenseless and they do no harm. Overall it means you shouldn’t do harm to those who only do good in the world.
For the seminar today I feel that I could’ve been more prepared for some of the question better. I feel like I could’ve also been prepared with more annotations. I did read the book in its entirety and I feel that benefited me during the seminar. During the seminar I had trouble staying on topic and keeping the conversation going. I really enjoyed the in depth conversation we were able to get in to as a group and share each other's opinions on difficult subjects. My goal for when we read a knovel next semester would be do take more annotations.
I believe Mockingbird is very important because, it motivates for change. It talks about edgy problems that we still have in our society to this day. It teaches valuable lessons about caring for one another. I feel that a good portion of the first part of the book could be done without but it makes up for it in the end. So in the end this book matters.