Skorzewski 1

Tre Skorzewski
English 111
Stephan Britt
07 April 2015
Feelings Towards Different Societies
People tend to feel that their own way of particular lifestyle is the dominant form of
living. One individual might find one society to be alright with the way they live while the other
side finds them to be what they might say the devils society. How they were raised and also
the society itself tends to weigh heavily on how much they perceive one others gender,
sexuality, race and other social views. The way people think and learn tends to infect our minds
with assumptions that find ourselves distant from the rest of the world. Whats insinuating about
this is that not everything is what it claims to be. There is more than one side to everything, not
only in a story but also in a person, and in an equation.
The life that we are being taught doesnt just happen through an audial learning style, we
also find ourselves just expecting certain qualities through visual aspects as well. The essay
Transformative Learning: Theory to Practice by Mezirow explains how we understand
ourselves, how we see others, and how we feel about them. Mezirow is an emeritus professor of
adult education at Teachers College at Columbia University. Mezirow talks about the idea of
frames of reference, which are the structures of assumptions through which we understand
our experiences. (268) What we are familiar and what we grew up on is how we apprehend
people and life itself. Once we start beginning to have a feel towards the world the expectation is
for us to interrelate with whom and what we are familiar with. Societies are like food: the way a
certain food looks like tends to convey our minds into thinking if we will like it or dislike it. The

Skorzewski 2

same instance sort of tends to societies; e.g. looking at an suburb that looks like its beat up finds
ourselves adjudicating the people that might live there as maybe scruffy or mean. Mezirow
explains that the two sides counter-act with one another to make up a frame of reference which
are habits of mind and a point of view: An example of a habit of mind is ethnocentrism, the
predisposition to regard others outside ones own group as inferior. A resulting point of view is
the complex of feelings, beliefs, judgments, and attitudes we have regarding specific individuals
or groups such as homosexuals, welfare recipients, people of color, or women (269) What
people finds themselves doing is creating a so-called bubble around their society and others.
Once an individual locks on to another individual and sizes them up, our minds like to predetermine what to expect out of them that may include the way they act, the way they talk, or
maybe even just their name.
Looking at the all the different types of societies, a lot, if not all have some type of
typical way of looking at others. They like to judge people with certain qualities without even
getting to know one another on a personal stand point. The movie Crash, likes to give people an
idea of how the world is at a certain level. Throughout the movie are a wide variety of people of
different race and ethnic background including African American, Caucasian, Chinese American,
Arabian, and Mexican American. The way the movie plays out is that each ethnic background
would "collide" with one another and at any given point would like to fire chauvinist bullets at
each other. While Officer Ryan is speaking on the phone to the clinics administrative offices,
over time he is getting really annoyed on the service he is getting. Over the phone is an African
American woman with a slight "hood" accent. When Officer Ryan asks for her name, she
answers "Shaniqua" and Officer Ryan responds "What a surprise that is!" At this point, Shaniqua
hangs up the phone in disgust. This is just one of many examples in the movie on how societies

Skorzewski 3

just look at others and just want to judge them at face value for the way they think every other
person in that community is.
Judging a person is sort of a figurative idea of a teacher wanting the right answer to a
specific question. A teacher's job is to get the best out of a student. Certain professors only want
one way of getting to the correct solution. The Barometer Story written by Alexander Calandra
explains this to a certain point. Alexander Calandra is a professor emeritus of physics at
Washington University in St. Louis. The Barometer Story is about a college student getting a
zero on a physics assignment when he thinks he should deserve full credit. The examination
question was to "Show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of
a barometer". (Calandra)The student's first answer was to simply "Take the barometer to the top
of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower the barometer to the street and then bring it up,
measuring the length of the rope. He had to retake because it didnt show physics explanation. In
a retake he gave more than one answer, all logical, including "measuring the height of the
barometer and its shadow and the length of the shadow of the building" and the most blunt
answer you could think of is to "Speak to the superintendent of the building and agree to him that
if you tell the height of the building he will receive the barometer" In the end the student was
kind of annoyed by school and telling him how to think. Certain teachers feel that they want to
push students towards only one way to a certain problem. Personally, solutions should be the
only thing that have one answer unless its an opinion. How we get to it shouldnt be forced. Our
minds may think differently and therefore the path to the answer may different however the
solution will be the same. The way you think all tends to just tie back on what we assume and
expect. Our inner feelings on what ourselves want to hear consumes our brain with only one side
to a situation without looking at other aspects.

Skorzewski 4

Who we grow up with, where we grow up, and even what time era we are born in all will
have an impact on how we look at different characteristics in life. All the different people,
communities; they wont look the same and will have a different impression from one person to
another. No matter how much you try to change a persons opinion how they look at one thing,
its going to be really difficult to nearly impossible to alter their outlook on that said thing. Right
or wrong to you wont be the same to some to someone else. Societies all have their own ideas
on how they look at others. Whether good or bad, to them its the correct way.
Works Cited
Calandra, Alexander. "The Barometer Story Angels on a Pin". Composing Knowledge: Readings
for College Writers. Ed. Rolf Norgaard. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007. 158-160.
Print.
Mezirow, Jack. Transformative Learning: Theory to Practice. Exploring Relationships:
Globalization and Learning in the 21st Century. Ed. Mid-Michigan Community College. Boston:
Pearson, 2013. 268-274. Print