Today I broke a cultural norm. Which is rare for me because I cannot do anything without feeling like a freak. So while I've been trying to blend in for 19 years, I now have to try to stand out. And it was hard because mostly I just felt like a weirdo standing on a street corner.
I stood
on street corner barefoot, dressed like a hippie and handed out cookies to
strangers. Mostly I wanted chose this
cultural norm to break because in all honesty we had leftover cookies and we
needed to get rid of them, but I also thought that it was an interesting look at how
people reacted to a random act of kindness. Plus, being dressed like a hippie was
an added bonus. I think some people were a little weary because I was dressed a
little freaky. I found that it was hardest to get people to listen to me
when they were in large groups. They kept avoiding eye contact or would go out of their way to walk around where I was standing. Individuals were more receptive to me handing
out cookies. A couple people asked me why I was doing this, like what
purpose it served. Which sort of makes me sad because people have to make sure
there aren't any ulterior motives to my actions. A lot of people were very polite, though, with
"no thank you"'s and "thanks" and a couple "you're so
sweet"'s. One guy asked me if there were drugs
in the cookies and when I said no, he turned them down. I noticed that most girls refused my offer. Boys, especially cadets, were very willing to try my cookies and I received numerous compliments on them. Some people seemed willing but had just eaten so they said no.
Overall, out of 21 cookies I managed to give away 20 of them with one being lost to the ground. I think that in our culture today we are very skeptical of people who give out free things such as cookies. We are brought up to know that nothing is free and you have to work for things. I feel like people were really surprised that I was offering them something for free with no strings attached.
I know that in my classroom I will be respectful of everyone. And I will teach my kids that it's not cool to make fun of someone who's different. Everyone has their little special things that make them who they are and that shouldn't be made fun of or avoided. You can't walk through life pretending the unusual things don't exist. You have to face them head on and accept them for what they are because they're never going to change. That's what I'm going to teach my students. That no one is different and there is no one version of what a person is supposed to be.
I stood
on street corner barefoot, dressed like a hippie and handed out cookies to
strangers. Mostly I wanted chose this
cultural norm to break because in all honesty we had leftover cookies and we
needed to get rid of them, but I also thought that it was an interesting look at how
people reacted to a random act of kindness. Plus, being dressed like a hippie was
an added bonus. I think some people were a little weary because I was dressed a
little freaky. I found that it was hardest to get people to listen to me
when they were in large groups. They kept avoiding eye contact or would go out of their way to walk around where I was standing. Individuals were more receptive to me handing
out cookies. A couple people asked me why I was doing this, like what
purpose it served. Which sort of makes me sad because people have to make sure
there aren't any ulterior motives to my actions. A lot of people were very polite, though, with
"no thank you"'s and "thanks" and a couple "you're so
sweet"'s. One guy asked me if there were drugs
in the cookies and when I said no, he turned them down. I noticed that most girls refused my offer. Boys, especially cadets, were very willing to try my cookies and I received numerous compliments on them. Some people seemed willing but had just eaten so they said no. Overall, out of 21 cookies I managed to give away 20 of them with one being lost to the ground. I think that in our culture today we are very skeptical of people who give out free things such as cookies. We are brought up to know that nothing is free and you have to work for things. I feel like people were really surprised that I was offering them something for free with no strings attached.
I know that in my classroom I will be respectful of everyone. And I will teach my kids that it's not cool to make fun of someone who's different. Everyone has their little special things that make them who they are and that shouldn't be made fun of or avoided. You can't walk through life pretending the unusual things don't exist. You have to face them head on and accept them for what they are because they're never going to change. That's what I'm going to teach my students. That no one is different and there is no one version of what a person is supposed to be.
I love your choice of norm to break. I honestly don't think I could have stepped that far out of my comfort zone, but congratulations for having the courage to do so. I agree that we are too wary of people who are different than us. We generally tend to judge people that are different than us rather than getting to know who they are. Although you received some negativity, I think it was encouraging how positive most of the reactions were. This experiment will only help you teach your students to get to know someone before they judge them, and I believe it is critical for children to learn that an early age.
ReplyDeleteJust like Shelby, you chose a great and very different culture norm to break! I know that getting out of your comfort zone is a little difficult, but you were obviously brave enough to do something so uncomfortable, yet so nice. I also loved the overall message you learned from this experiment; that in our culture and in today's society, many of us don't believe in random acts of kindness (like handing out free cookies) because we don't see anything as really being free. Many of us believe we either don't have the time or resources to just simply be kind to others, or we tend to think that we must receive kindness first in order to give it to someone else. So by breaking this social norm, and judging by the responses you received from many people, I hope a lot of people were inspired to be kind to others as you were to them. Simple and genuine kindness to strangers is so hard to find in this society, and I think that it is a very important lesson to teach students as educators.
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