Symbolic Interactionism

This course has really opened my eyes to many things around me that I didn't necessarily think about. I think my favorite part of the course (that is currently sticking out in my mind) is learning about symbolic interactionism.

The sheer idea of this theory or concept seems so obvious! Obviously we all react to each object differently based on our own personal meaning to the item. This theory explains so much of society. We probably all immediately go to the red light, green light examples. Green- go, red- stop. But what about yellow? Yellow to some means caution, the light is about to be red, slow down; whereas others see it as a moment to push the gas pedal to the floor or you better hurry. Why the difference? It really is based upon what our previous knowledge and feelings are.

I believe phobias and fears are the exact same way. Some people when they see a dog feel scared and want to run away, where as other people want to get closer and touch the animal, exact same object, almost completely different responses. Why do people have such different feeling towards the exact same object? Perhaps to the person that is scared of the 4 legged animal with fur means danger, sharp teeth that can go through skin. While the person wanting to pet the dog it means childhood pet that they miss dearly.

This really should open our eyes as teachers. In my Curriculum and Instruction course for Physical Education yesterday we were playing a variety of different games and sports. Rugby was one of the sports, i saw the rugby ball and it made me extremely nervous, i felt scared. It was just a rugby ball, but all that kept going through my mind was visions of rugby tackles that I have seen in the past. I am sure the girls on the team that were teaching us rugby saw the ball as excitement and pride or at least not scary. We need to consider that perhaps students are fearful of things that we may see as not scary (e.g. fractions, balancing chemical equations...). This may assist in our dealing with students who are perhaps not so eager to start new sections of the course. I think the next step will have to be on working with the student to change the meaning of the object that is causing them stress.