As soon as Erin's little classmates saw that the "hip" girls were wearing drawstring skirts, they all decided that they needed to have one of their own.
This (adolescent?) desire to be like everyone else....where does it come from?
Since I've been reading a lot of pro-homeschooling material lately, I'm prone to say that it's the fault of school structuring. This is my thinking:
From the very beginning of elementary school, kids are taught that conformity pays. A teacher faces a classroom full of small children. Her sanity hinges on maintaining order and control. Kids who are not interested in the curriculum or its pace or style often violate the classroom rules. Kids who violate the classroom rules are singled out and punished. (Though if everyone is being naughty at once, there is less likelihood for punishment.) At any rate, everyone quickly learns to do what everyone else is doing-- or there will be trouble. Kids pick up on this attitude-- different is wrong! And start picking on kids who are different from them. This peaks during adolescence, a time when kids are forming a sense of identity and are therefore more likely to criticize those around them (a means through which we develop a sense of self.)
Or maybe it's because of the unnatural social environment of schools: being around a whole slew of people the same age as you has a tendency to invite comparison; so much comparison might invite a sense of insecurity about one's own uniqueness. Imagine spending time in a more heterogeneous age grouping-- among people of all ages, you don't expect to be the same, and you're perhaps freer to be yourself.
What do you-all think?
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Rach,that's a very good question, and I think there is really more than one answer. Sure, I think a lot of the conformist attitudes come from exposure to public school, etc, but I've seen those tendencies start much earlier.
ReplyDeleteMy sister has two girls, one is 5, the other 3. Whenever the 5 year old gets something, the 3 year old wants something just like it. She thinks her older sister is cool and wants to be just like her. I remember doing this same thing with my older sister. And I'm sure you experienced this in your family too. I think the desire to be like the people we admire is largely a natural, instinctual behavior. And ironically, I think that the need to differentiate yourself from others and be unique is also a natural tendency. Maybe this is where public schools and society come in. The rules of society dictate the extent to which it is 'normal' to copy others and the extent to which we show our uniqueness. Any person stepping outside the normal perimeter is deemed as weird or odd. So, we go throughout life trying to see how far we can go in one direction or the other, both in order to get the same things we see our rivals/heroes getting and to show the world how amazing we are all on our own.
Ah. Brilliant!
ReplyDeleteKay, it's neat hearing about your nieces! My bro never copied me; didn't consider me that cool, I don't think. And it's interesting to think about the healthy side of copying/conforming.
ReplyDeleteAlso, as for the more dismal side of the pressures to conform... Ah, Rach, I have just REAMS AND REAMS to say on the topic of adolescents being rammed together in one huge pukey mass of same-age, insecure peers, and the pressures of a narrow-minded, censorious, cruel conformity... and how that all relates to the formation of identity...
I am SO GLAD you brought this topic up... and I wish it weren't bedtime. :D