Fable For Young People

For the third and last action project of my STEAM class, Systems & Models, we were asked to analyze a particular part of our school while having full creative control. The particular parts of the school have to relatively specific. I chose interpersonal relationships. This entails the relationships between students of different ages and cohorts within the school. I also had to interview 4 people from within the school to get a better perspective than just my own. We were asked to connect our findings to the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) chart. We were also asked to relate our findings to Maslow's Hierarchy and our research on I-O psychology. I had difficulties following the rubric while completing the project, but this project allowed me to write, which is one of my favorite things to do. I wrote a fable type of story for you all. It is about a teenage boy and his little sister. Enjoy!

"Bro & Sis" Web. 26 Feb, 2017.

This is my fable, “The Divide.” The story is represented in the quoted bold text and annotated in the regular text. I hope you enjoy reading it!

“There’s this beautiful thing called ‘divide.’ This is the same divide you have with your younger siblings. How beautiful is ‘divide?’ Or does divide have this negative connotation that everyone generally gives it? If you ask me, divide is a way to separate yourself, and sometimes you have to. The real question is, when does divide become a liability? This story about Jonathan and his sister Joanne will entail the story of ‘The Divide.’”

I chose to write a fable type of story as a creative way of depicting the social divide in my school’s cohorts. The underclassmen and upperclassmen don’t have much of an understanding. It seems as if the underclassmen want to have more fun, and the upperclassmen are used to the freedom that the underclassmen seem to be new to. I will be trying to depict this by the big brother Jonathan, being the upperclassman, and the little sister Joanne, being the underclassman.

“Jonathan was having a rough day. Honestly, it was just a regular day in the Harden household. Joanne is in her room, on the phone screaming irregularly. It would be ideal to check on someone screaming like that, but it was normal in the Harden household. Jonathan, at 17 years old wasn’t having it! He stormed into Joanne’s room with fire in his eyes! Before anything came out of his mouth, a pillow was thrown at his face as his 15 year old sister yelled, ‘get out!’ Jonathan responded, ‘I’ll get out if you please shut-up.’ Joanne teased, ‘I’m telling mom you told me to shut-up!’ ‘Whatever, just be quiet!’ Jonathan said while leaving Joanne’s room.

As you can see, there's room for improvement. Let's analyze the SWOT of this brother and sister's relationship. A strength that I see here is that they obviously have some type of connection or understanding which can be related to the relationship between the cohorts in my school. This is a nice transition to the weaknesses that we witnessed in their relationship. Like the cohorts in my school, these two seem to have different interests and wants/needs. I asked a senior at my school, VG, how he thought the general relationship between the upper and underclassmen was, he responded: "the larger the grade gap, the less friendliness displayed." I asked the same question to a freshman at my school, ZG, and he responded that the relationship between them was, "decent, but it could be better." He claimed "the freshmen are misguided and the seniors can help in certain ways." Although ZG is a freshman, he seems to not be a negative factor in the problem between the cohorts.

"Jonathan knew that Joanne was relatively tolerable some times. Maybe she wasn't too bad. It would be kind of boring without her around the house. He whispered playfully under his breath, 'I'll get her back. She wants to be annoying, I'll show her annoying!' Jonathan planned on playing his music louder than hers. He wanted to play his music so loud that Joanne couldn't even hear herself speaking on the phone."

There's obviously opportunity for their relationship strengthen. I asked a teacher, how she felt the upper and underclassmen's relationship was and she said she thought that "everyone gets along well." She said she thought that, "the freshmen as a group get scapegoated for a lot of stuff, but individually, I think everyone treats each other fairly for the most part." She has a point. The freshmen specifically are blamed for their energy which is commonly looked down upon because the seniors don't share the same energy. As the cohorts in my school do, Jonathan and Joanne need to find somethings mutual. How can they find a way to compromise; to look past age? It's all about systems thinking, and making all pieces of the puzzle come together. I asked the counselor in my school if she believed that there was a "divide" in the school she responded: "I don't know if I would call it a divide, maybe a bit of a misunderstanding between the age groups." This misunderstanding represents the gap in maturity and motive.

"What Jonathan didn't anticipate was, him playing one of Joanne's favorite songs. Jonathan had a maniacal look in his face. He was going to get his sister back! Twenty seconds had passed and Joanne bust through the door singing! 'DON'T YOU OPEN UP THAT WINDOW, DON'T YOU LET OUT THAT ANTIDOTE! Jon this is like my favorite song!' Jonathan's plans were soiled. He tried to find it in himself to be angry, but he realized that Joanne wasn't so bad. The hard part is finding something mutual between the two. Music is just one of the things that they have in common. Jon jokingly responded, 'Haha, I forgot. You know, sometimes you're not too terrible.' After briefly laughing, Joanne replied, 'Yea, you're not that horrible of a brother. I just hope we can keep the house to ourselves. It would be a catastrophe if I had to share my room if mom and dad had another child.' Jon's face showed some uncertainty. He responded, 'I'm leaving next year, so if that was to happen, you could just take my room.' Joanne smiled."

The threat in this case is a newborn child. Relating back to my school, the threat of this situation would be new students. Once the upper and underclassmen come to an understanding, these new students or newborn child will alter the relationship that was once formed. There doesn't have to be this idea of Six Sigma. There doesn't have to be a perfect relationship, but there does have to be a mutual relationship. They have to relate to each other. Within I-O Psychology, there's this idea that innovation drives our economy. I believe this to be true because innovation means interaction and collaboration. Interaction prospers through social skills. Social skills are needed in order for there to be order.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is important to understand in this situation. Esteem on the hierarchy is very important to both the seniors and underclassmen. They want to graduate, and the underclassmen want to be "cool." Seniors really only need water and food, but underclassmen need satisfaction of classmates. There's this sense of self-actualization, and how you want to be viewed. Maturity goes hand-in-hand with self-achievement. This is an interesting way to put it into perspective for you.

THE END

References:
ZG. Student, Interview.
VG. Student, Interview.
Sharon. Teacher, Interview.
Jessica. Teacher, Interview.

"SIOP" SIOP.org. Web. 26 Feb. 2017.