Remembering a film

Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 at 01:48 by suzshaff

The VT comments reminded me of the film that all new teachers in my school district had to watch during orientation. It was about a little boy who died after being neglected at home. He was quiet and unassuming. He didn't bother anyone at school, so no one noticed him especially. One day he got off the bus, and as the school bus pulled away, he collapsed in the snow of hunger and died during the night in the winter cold. The film retraces his steps during the day and all the people who came into contact with him, but no one noticed him particularly.
Of course, the moral of the story was for teachers to keep their eyes open for those people who quietly go about their business, but may be struggling. I never forgot that film. When I went home that evening, I retold the story to my Mom (who also was a teacher fro 35 years) She remembered seeing something similar when she started teaching.

Have we gotten any better at identifying those most at risk in our world?

Why alienation?

Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 at 06:32 by Anonymous

I always recall Robert K. Merton and his classic "Social structure and anomie" in this context.

People are pigeonholed in 4-5 categories depending on whether they accept societal goals (2 categories in total, accept or reject) and whether they accept the means to attain them (2 categories in total, accept or reject; grand total of categories 2x2 or 4). People who accept both the goals and the means are conformists. Are most people conformists most of the time? For example, form part of the media frenzie and repeat, like a parrot, what the media says.

When on the average, people feel that their efforts to change a system do not go their way, they have several coping options in this typology.

Innovation - while accepting the goals, within the system, come up with new solutions that are acceptable for those in power (e.g. think about the recent events in novel ways)

Ritualism - these are the people that just repeat the accepted behaviors although they do not believe in the goals ("just give me the rececipe", "just tell me what are the questions in the exam" or "give me the study guide with printed answers", or "just put out a flag half mast even if people give a damn about the recent events").

Why people "snap"? Maybe the problem is the person that snaps but theer are people who disagree with the societal goals and the means to attain them. In this case, people can retreat (go into themselves, not vote, like many people in the USA who are not even registered to vote or form part of other cultures within the geographical area of the culture in power) or act out (rationally or irrationally).

I think we should all ponder whether societal goals and the means to attain them are OK, instead of asking those who disagree with them to leave or oppresing them more.

I wonder if people have some of each category, depending on the situation. Where is the greatest pull?