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.

Are You Racist? Don't Answer That Question!

For the second action project of my STEAM course, Systems & Models, we were asked to conduct a social experiment. As the first unit of this course talked about who "you" are. This unit talked about learning who the people are around you. This class is very amazing in building your social analyzation. I tried to really demonstrate this concern for "those around me," by conducting an experiment that would highlight the systematic racism in the environment I stay around. My idea was to grab one of my white friends and then we both asked for money outside the subway station. The results were quite interesting. This project was amazing and right up my alley as well. This project was difficult at the same time, as I did have to create a very detailed lab report. Thank you for viewing my social experiment and enjoy!

Do You See Numbers?

For the first action project of my Winter Term, in my STEAM class, System & Models, we were asked to create a visual art piece of our choice. The art piece had to be backed with a strong artist statement. There was plenty of different points we had to hit and research we had to do. That includes all the personality tests that we had to take. I chose Myers-Briggs and the DISC tests to help you understand my piece! I relay loved this project. Even though I'm not a fan of visual art, and that's not what I do, I truly do respect the visual arts a lot. The influence visual art has in the world is obviously apparent. I'm a wordsmith, which is my forte of art. As you probably can tell, I had some difficulties with the artistic vision, but I took another approach. Please view my action project below!

DNR. “Numbers” 2017. Chicago

My piece, "Numbers," is made up of ink pen on 9.75 x 7.50 sized composition notebook paper. I try to visually represent myself through numbers. The 89 and 44 represent the streets I grew up on. 9-5 crossed out represents my love for self-management. This also represents my past, present, and I hope the near future.The feelings of "doing for yourself," has always made me feel good. There’s this hidden connection to currency.

In class, we were asked to take several different personality tests. The most important tests that I took were the Myers-Briggs test and Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Compliance (DISC) test. The Myers-Briggs is a large database of results where they give you a series of questions and then give you a 4 letter combination in which they show you what type of person you are pertaining to the answers you submitted on the test. I got ESFP. Creepy enough, after reading all of the different types of people, I actually chose ESFP. ESFP is the "entertainer." Often the person who is bold and observant, but easily-bored and unfocused as well. I find myself being more connected to these characteristics then I thought. The DISC test is a unique test that tells you something about yourself by using 4 different pathways and splitting you up into them. My top two "pathways" were Influence and Dominance as I expected. Influence is my number one pathway because I feel like I really do fear losing influence. When people look at my art, they don't necessarily have to approve of it, but I do want them to receive and perceive it.

I once saw this bike experiment that I felt like challenged the norm. They took different looking people and made them do the same thing. There was a white woman, a black man, a white man, etc. They all tried to saw off the chain of a bike and let all of the people walking around react to it. The results were a bit displeasing. This really spoke to me because it showcases the sexism and racism that we all seem to witness every day. This project was also really important to me because it did challenge the norm and that was really my objective in creating my art piece.

The purpose of my piece is to inspire you to think entirely out of the box. Think out of the universe. The more original ideas, the more we progress towards a better existence. I want to say that the rubric is never said in stone. You can still “follow the rubric,” but you are set apart by the uniqueness of your creation. I also try to get across feelings of perception. The way I perceive my art is unimportant, but if anyone shares my perception then they will truly appreciate it, but the thought counts. I see this as an opportunity for people to take my art as their own.

I interviewed an artist that works at my school. Ms.Dianne. She creates human sized art through her own imagination. Her art is really amazing, to say the least. She uses rather inexpensive materials and creates rather expensive works of art. She said to me, "Viewers are given facts about me, the artist and my process and then they compare it with their views and have a more intimate understanding of my art." This statement kind of describes the type of reaction I want from people who see my art. I want people to perceive their own meaning.

The start of my drawing was kind of hard. I just started ripping through draft paper. Soon, I realized all I had to do was just stop trying to be the visual artist that I'm not. I decided to let my mind think for me. The roughness of the artistry is intentional to signify my lack of orderliness and focus. I started with simple numbers. I started to write down numbers that I felt were most important to me. My first number was "89."  The 89 represents the street I grew up on. 89th street made me who I am today. My second numbers were "9-5" which describe my aspirations for having a successful career. "9-5" is the typical "job hours." I express my loathness for this by crossing it out. The next number, "45" is another street I grew up on. It also happens to be the street of my grammar school. I also enjoy music and basketball. Those are represented by "23" and the music notes. "23" is representative of the best basketball player of all-time, Michael Jordan.

The idea came pretty easy to me. Conceptually, I really already knew what I wanted to do. Delivering my piece was something that I had to think about for days. After a lot of thinking, I decided to let my imagination take over while keeping in mind who I am as a person and what the tests told me as well.

Citations:
"DiSC Profile - DiSC Influence (i)." DiSCProfile.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Jan. 2017.
"Entertainer Strengths & Weaknesses." 16personalities.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2017.