Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, chapter 4
Thoughts and Ideas: Did the text give you any ideas or cause you to think about anything in particular? Explain briefly what thoughts it led you to.
Chapter four caused me to think about the social hierarchy of Bernard and Helmholtz's world, which made me reflect on today's social hierarchy especially for young adolescents. Due to Bernard's deformity, he is outcasted by others and not as regarded from the classes underneath him. He knows that he is different, not just physically, but mentally. He doesn't think like the others and his contemplation of them and himself was very fascinating to me. "The mockery made him feel an outsider; and feeling an outsider he behaved like one, which increased the prejudice against him and intensified the contempt and hostility aroused by high physical defects. Which in turn increased his sense of being alien and alone"(65). This made me think about how some people are casted as a certain type of person such as the "troubled" or "bad" kid in school and therefore they continue to act like they are suppose to. We are taught to redefine those roles for those students, which can be hard because yes they may act out at times and be disruptive, but we must make sure that we are not perpetuating or casting the same projection upon those students because they do follow our lead. I realize that Huxley did not intend for the reader to think about adolescents and teaching, but I think Bernard's self-consciousness and role within that society reflects the power dynamics or psyche of the individual with regards to how other's treat or see them.
I can see you making connections to the classroom world through this response--you are becoming a teacher as you now view literature through the eyes and experiences of a teen--this happens to all good teachers--I rarely listen to a song, read a book, watch a movie, or read an article without wondering how a students might read it as well--
ReplyDeleteThat is such an excellent point!
ReplyDeleteI'm seeing this every day in my internship... students are labeled "troublesome," typically because they are quite social and jovial in class, and that label begins to haunt them throughout their educational career. More than once, I've witnessed teachers gathering in the lounge to gossip about how "unmanageable" certain students are.
I got the chance to grade some of theses students' work this week, and found nearly the same pattern for every one: they will only answer one or two questions in a homework assignment, but those answers are quite astute and well-written. However, the network of discipline and labeling that has barraged them since youth causes them to assume they will fail, and they lose the motivation to keep working.