Schools should support individuality only to the point where its not inhibiting learning, because then conformity should be what’s established. A tension between individuality and conformity in schools is schools, for instance. Schools, as shown in Source B, can have an extremely restricting schedule, with spending 6 hours and 45 minutes I’m back-to-back classes. This inflexible schedule, in my opinion due to my own personal experiences, leaves no room for the brain to be creative or even rest, at the least. Schedules can be fitting for students, giving them time to be creative and take a break mentally to leave room for individuality while also supporting conformity as for getting to classes on time. An example of this can be shown in Source …show more content…
The balance between these, makes schedules feel less restricting and makes students want to come to school. In this way, students can pursue their own interests and the school encourages them to socialize within a classroom. Although a mixed, creative schedule is necessary to please students and ease their brains, the schools shouldn’t have such long, strict schedules for them to conform to in general. As said by Gatto in Source A, great people have emerged without strict schooling. Students, in his example, are forced to have “six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year, for twelve years”. He says that this forced schooling isn’t the only way to be successful or to educate, and I’ve seen that as to be true myself. He provides examples of how schools with strict schedules can use examples of how they need to teach certain basic things to a high level because homeschoolers can do the same without the conformity degree of schools. I, personally, have many cousins whom are homeschooled and have learned those basic fundamentals and more, and they don’t have to go through such pressures. They are deemed as being successful and are very
Extended class periods and block scheduling will improve student’s grades and can diminish their stress level significantly. A normal day in block scheduling consists of only four classes a day, alternating each day. These classes would last 120 minutes each, with the same 5 minute passing periods in between classes. This scheduling gives teachers more time to explain their lesson. It also gives students time to recover from the late nights due to sports and other activities because they only have four classes a day. Their homework for these classes isn’t due for another day, so they don’t have to stress over getting it done. 120 minute classes combined with blocked scheduling increases the amount of time teachers have for instruction and will overall increase the student’s knowledge, in turn, raising their grades.
The novel, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley first published in 1932, presents a very bleak out look of what future society will be like. The novel presents a future of where almost total conformity is a carefully guarded aspect of society. Even before one is "decanted" they are conditioned to fill a specific roll and to act a certain way.
Pursuing a personal desire and choosing to conform to societal expectations is a challenging decision to make. A person must decide if their personal desire is worth risking the shame and judgment of others or is conforming the route to take because it is easier. When pursuing a personal desire one must ask itself if it is worth the hardship to accomplish one's desire or if it is best left alone and repressed, in hopes of finding comfort in conformity. John Laroche from The Orchid Thief expresses his personal desire without a care for conformity or societal expectations. Nevertheless, Laroche never stopped being strange as he grew up with fascinations of many objects such as orchids, turtles, old mirrors and fish tanks.
In society, it's difficult to go against the norm. Individuals are compelled to act a specific way, or look a specific way in order to be accepted. For instance, teenagers may encounter pressure from their peers to partake in specific exercises that may not be moral, since they feel the need to fit in. This weight of conformity isn't just present in reality; it can be found in literature as well. The story "St. Lucy’s Home For Girls Raised by Wolves" by Karen Russell depicts that in order to conform to society, individuals abandon their selflessness and compassion and become selfish and apathetic.
Everybody wants to be accepted, yet society is not so forgiving. It bends you and changes you until you are like everyone else. Society depends on conformity and it forces it upon people. In Emerson's Self Reliance, he says "Society is a joint stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater." People are willing to sacrifice their own hopes and freedoms just to get the bread to survive. Although the society that we are living in is different than the one the Emerson's essay, the idea of fitting in still exists today. Although society and our minds make us think a certain way, we should always trust our better judgment instead of just conforming to society.
The Conformist directed by Bernardo Bertolucci follows the rise and fall of Italian Fascism, but tells it through the perspective of one man, Marcello Clerici. The narrative of the film is told through several non-sequential flashbacks that take place while Clerici and his chauffeur are driving to assassinate Professor Luca Quadri, a former professor of Clerici who is an exiled fascist. Clerici is a man of a troubled past and an uncertain future. He joined the Fascist secret police even though he doesn’t seem to really believe in Fascism and he’s marrying a woman that he doesn’t necessarily seem to love. All to have a life that appears normal. Marcello Clerici is a man imprisoned by his need to fit in, to appear socially and politically normal.
Americans, and ultimately every other individual on the planet, believe that we are all different from one another. We contrast from the way we look, to the way we sound, to the way we stand, walk, talk, etc. Overall, we are incompatible. However, what if that’s a false claim? What if we were exactly the same towards one another, like mirrors almost? My own view of conformity and individuality as it relates to humanity, society, teenagers, and the world is that we are the same more than we are different from each other. However, my claim frightens us so much; we practically change who we are and alter our existence into something that we loathe and despise. Ultimately, I believe that humanity is controlled by society and that individuals reap
It was the first day of school. I was eager to see most of my friends who I went to middle school with. There was one big thing that struck me; I noticed my friends changed. They started dressed differently, acted differently, changed their hair style, and even started wearing makeup. Since the transition fresh out of middle school and into high school, my friends wanted to look older. The biggest factor that bothered me was how they would conform to look like the sophomores, juniors, and seniors. I felt that my good friends wanted to conform and be something they weren’t. In my personal view, Americans in general want to feel mature sophisticated but also want to have fun. Individuality is essential because it allows people to express who they are as an individual. When people express themselves differently and in their own way, they elucidate uniqueness and universal truth. Values in American culture can contradict with family, fashion, and the workplace.
... They could have a negative opinion of the information they are learning and be more resistant to it. Overall, if schools catered more to the individual needs and interests of each student, thereby promoting individuality, students would have more interest in their education and would benefit more from it. The repetitive structure of a school day, in a way, provides me with a sense of security, an awareness of what to expect, but it can be monotonous and lack excitement. When you consider how much time students spend in school, it is clear that the experience shapes their lives and can have a lasting effect.
In society, it is natural for humans to associate with groups that share the same beliefs and or political views. We as humans find comfort in conforming to the social norm of a group or society. But, following this trend of conformity consequently causes people to blindly follow others, even if those supporting the cause do not entirely understand the true nature of the group they have associated with.
The question of individualism vs. conformity comes to mind when dealing with the human psyche. Some people value being independent and self-sufficient, while some like to keep themselves in the confines of conformity. The American society tends to lean towards the conformist point of view and it is mostly due to the effects of media. Americans crave the idea of association and strive to become the individuals that the media deems worthy. Conformity is a quality that is present in the hierarchy of American society. It brings a psychological feeling of correlating with a group and creates the notion of liberation from solitude.
Conformity seems to be the new silent killer. More and more people are choosing to conform rather than be themselves. Conformity is spread across the world and in our generation it’s starting to spread like a wildfire in dead grass. In the article “The Sociology of Leopard Man” by Logan Fey, Logan argues that conformity is becoming one of the world’s most dangerous psychological disorders. I will share my position and provide my own experience in terms of how I classify non-conformist and conformists.
Conformity and Obedience in Society The desire to be accepted and belong to a group is an undeniable human need. But how does this need affect an individual? Social psychologists have conducted numerous experiments and concluded that, through various forms of social influence, groups can change their members’ thoughts, feelings, and behavior. In her essay “Group Minds,” Doris Lessing discusses our paradoxical ability to call ourselves individuals and our inability to realize that groups define and influence us.
Conformity, compliance and obedience are behavioural consequences of social influence (real or imagined social pressure) that occur in the presence of a group or other individuals (Elsenbroich & Xenitidou, 2012). Often these concepts are misinterpreted as being the same or even synonymous and while they do have similarities they are also very dissimilar. In social psychology conformity, compliance and obedience are distinct concepts that coincide due to their effect on behaviour in the presence of others. Pascual, Line Felonneau, Guéguen & Lafaille (2013) define conformity as an altering of behaviour and beliefs in an individual in order to reflect the behaviour and beliefs of the group that holds influence, though Myers (2014) emphasises that
On a daily basis, people are being influenced by the people around them, whether it is directly or indirectly. A person’s thoughts, feelings and actions can influence and be influenced by society. These social interactions provide enough opportunity for the presence of people to influence and change behavior, views, and attitudes of an individual. There are several forms of social influences, such as conformity, which I will be discussing. Why we conform has been a topic of considerable interest to social psychologists in particular such as he classic and well-known studies of Muzafer Sherif and Solomon Asch. In addition to researching why we conform, there’s also the question of whether conformity is good or bad.