Socialization and Mask Project
Project Description
The Socialization and Mask Project started off by us learning the concepts of socialization and the cycle of oppression. We dug into each identity category individually and learned about how people are socialized by their age, ability/disability, race, sexual orientation, gender, religion, and class. Throughout this project we also ready Mexican White boy and after finishing it we had a Socratic seminar discussing the book and how the character's where affected by socialization. We then used the knowledge we had gained to write a essay about how we have been socialized and to create our masks that demonstrated what we hide in the inside and show on the outside, or really anything we wanted to show. To finish off the project, we created an exhibition that showed people what we learned, but we did it in a way that engaged them and hopefully had an effect on them to want to learn about it.
The Socialization and Mask Project started off by us learning the concepts of socialization and the cycle of oppression. We dug into each identity category individually and learned about how people are socialized by their age, ability/disability, race, sexual orientation, gender, religion, and class. Throughout this project we also ready Mexican White boy and after finishing it we had a Socratic seminar discussing the book and how the character's where affected by socialization. We then used the knowledge we had gained to write a essay about how we have been socialized and to create our masks that demonstrated what we hide in the inside and show on the outside, or really anything we wanted to show. To finish off the project, we created an exhibition that showed people what we learned, but we did it in a way that engaged them and hopefully had an effect on them to want to learn about it.
My Mask
My Essay
Project Reflection
During this project I grew as a writer in many ways, one being, challenging myself to be able to write less but more in depth and strait to the point. For example, in my second paragraph I wrote about looking up to my sisters and how it had both negative and positive effects on me. “When I was little, I wanted to be just like my sisters. They had fallen into the standard for girls, they wanted to wear makeup, needed certain clothes, etc. They thought that they needed to be fake and made-up because the media has been trying to get us to believe that that’s the only type of beauty. I looked up to my sisters, but I don’t understand why someone as beautiful and pure as them feel like they are imperfect. And because of that, I automatically learned to think that there had to be something wrong with me, because we will always have faults, we have learned to focus on all the “wrong” things about us, all the things that we don’t have, all the things that the fake, perfect models in commercials and magazines have that we don’t.” When I first wrote this, I added a lot of details and extra words that made my writing less powerful, I thought that since I was writing less than other people, that I needed to make it longer and add more to it. Sara and Ally both helped my realized that I can get my point out without going on and on about the same thing. When I first got critiques, I was kind of frustrated about having to delete some of my writing, I only saw that writing less paragraphs meant that they had to be longer and have more detail. After meeting with Ally and getting edits from Sara, I definitely realized that I wrote to much, but I didn’t know how to boil down my paragraphs but still make them have all m y key points and how to make it sound good. All of Sara’s edits and suggestions helped me see what I needed to change, but being able to have some time with Ally during PA made me feel able to refine my essay and be happy and proud with my work.
For me this whole project was full of things that were important takeaways. One of my realizations during this project was looking back and seeing how greatly socialization has affected me. In 6th grade, I was one of those girls who didn’t wear cute dresses and tight jeans in order to look good. Or if I did, it wasn’t to fit in or impress anyone. I usually wore sweats or comfy jeans with soccer jerseys or regular plain T-shirts. Back then I didn’t realize how I didn’t really care about fitting in, I wasn’t pressuring myself to wear popular clothes, makeup or bras that made a chest look bigger. But a lot has changed in me and all the messages I choose pick up, and not all of them are good. This project has definitely shown me that. Also it not only transformed the way I see the world, but the way I see myself. At the end of middle school and the first part of 9th grade, I wanted so desperately to fit into the standards for girls, I wanted to have a nice fit body, pretty face, cute clothes. But what I didn’t realize was I didn’t want all that stuff for myself and making myself happy, I wanted it to be apart of me so I could fit in with others. I still struggle with that, but this project has really helped me start to be ok with who I am and what I look like.
I feel like having lots of experience with exhibition’s and hands on learning/projects has definitely helped me through this project. I had room to improve as a project worker, and I still have lots of room. I have never put on an exhibition this big before, so I still had trouble with time management and improving our ideas. I feel like my group had a less stressful part of the project so we definitely had an easier time putting it together, but because it was easier than others, I feel like we could have made some aspects of it better. For example, we has our quotes and essays just hung up on the wall, and all people did was stand there and read them. I feel like we could have made it more engaging and interactive so they wanted to read them. Also some people just walked right through the essay room and into the mask’s, and I feel like our essays and quotes led up to the creation of our masks so I think we could have used our time more wisely and we could have improved it.
I notice that I usually tend to be a leader in projects and sometimes even dominate or take over work. For example, when we were creating the chair prototypes, I automatically started to plan out an idea and I realize that I didn’t really include all of my group members because I was set on my plan. But in this project, I feel like I stepped down a little and gave the leading position to Julia. It helped me be a little less stressed throughout the project, while at the same time I feel like I was doing an equal amount of work as the rest of my group members. I feel like since it worked out this way, we were all able to be proud of our work and how good it looked at exhibition. If I were to do this project over again one big aspect I would change is, making the essay room more engaging and able to pull the audience in so that they would want to read our essays and quotes.
For me this whole project was full of things that were important takeaways. One of my realizations during this project was looking back and seeing how greatly socialization has affected me. In 6th grade, I was one of those girls who didn’t wear cute dresses and tight jeans in order to look good. Or if I did, it wasn’t to fit in or impress anyone. I usually wore sweats or comfy jeans with soccer jerseys or regular plain T-shirts. Back then I didn’t realize how I didn’t really care about fitting in, I wasn’t pressuring myself to wear popular clothes, makeup or bras that made a chest look bigger. But a lot has changed in me and all the messages I choose pick up, and not all of them are good. This project has definitely shown me that. Also it not only transformed the way I see the world, but the way I see myself. At the end of middle school and the first part of 9th grade, I wanted so desperately to fit into the standards for girls, I wanted to have a nice fit body, pretty face, cute clothes. But what I didn’t realize was I didn’t want all that stuff for myself and making myself happy, I wanted it to be apart of me so I could fit in with others. I still struggle with that, but this project has really helped me start to be ok with who I am and what I look like.
I feel like having lots of experience with exhibition’s and hands on learning/projects has definitely helped me through this project. I had room to improve as a project worker, and I still have lots of room. I have never put on an exhibition this big before, so I still had trouble with time management and improving our ideas. I feel like my group had a less stressful part of the project so we definitely had an easier time putting it together, but because it was easier than others, I feel like we could have made some aspects of it better. For example, we has our quotes and essays just hung up on the wall, and all people did was stand there and read them. I feel like we could have made it more engaging and interactive so they wanted to read them. Also some people just walked right through the essay room and into the mask’s, and I feel like our essays and quotes led up to the creation of our masks so I think we could have used our time more wisely and we could have improved it.
I notice that I usually tend to be a leader in projects and sometimes even dominate or take over work. For example, when we were creating the chair prototypes, I automatically started to plan out an idea and I realize that I didn’t really include all of my group members because I was set on my plan. But in this project, I feel like I stepped down a little and gave the leading position to Julia. It helped me be a little less stressed throughout the project, while at the same time I feel like I was doing an equal amount of work as the rest of my group members. I feel like since it worked out this way, we were all able to be proud of our work and how good it looked at exhibition. If I were to do this project over again one big aspect I would change is, making the essay room more engaging and able to pull the audience in so that they would want to read our essays and quotes.
