Hello Class!
For this blog post, please write about either the information you talked about concerning your identity wheel or the Global Survey article. Feel free to connect these two concepts. The link to the article is below but please let us know if you have any questions!
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130225131541.htm
I don't think it's really possible to talk about the Global Survey article without talking about identity wheels. As I said in class, who we are and how we see ourselves directly effects the issues we are likely to think about. I, for example, thought “crime” should be ranked much higher, simply because I'm a Pre-Law student planning on becoming a Criminal Prosecutor, so crime is something I think about a lot.
ReplyDeleteBesides what's on your identity wheel, the slice of the wheel that it represents also affects the way one views different issues. For example, I had "straight" on my wheel but it took up a very small slice. I don't think about the fact that I'm straight very often, because heterosexuals are the majority and are not persecuted legally or socially for their sexual orientation. Because KU is a much more liberal environment than the one-horse-town I grew up in, I have considered gay rights issues more since being here, but I still don't think about issues like hate crimes as much because I'm not directly affected by them.
This brings up another contributing factor as to what social issues you consider more important. For example, because I live in Kansas, I don’t have much experience with immigrants or their effects on our society compared to someone who lives in southern Arizona. Immigration isn't something I rank highly because I don’t see it as something that affects me. The way we identify, the way others identify us, and our geographic location all affect how we view the world and the social issues that it encompasses.
Creating my own identity wheel gave me an excellent opportunity to dissect my own privilege and learn about my other group members. More than any exercise we have done yet, I feel that it gave us a change to delve into some deeper issues. Not only did I have to truly think about how I identify, but I had to decide what size the representative chunks would be. I was challenged, to be sure.
ReplyDeleteIn my day-to-day life, I identify as a student, but I don’t think that is one of the defining marks of me. I focus most of my efforts on being a woman who is a feminist. I uphold what I learn, try to teach others and set a positive example.
Additionally, I believe that being non-christian is a trait that alienates me often. Even when my group was discussing what non-christian means, it was defined as “freedom of religion.” Certainly a fabulous element of being non-christian, but often people don’t talk about a lack of religion. The freedom to be non-spiritual. In many situations, I feel left out from group discussions because of this. And not for a lack of education either – I attended church from the time I was five, I have simply chosen a different route. And that choice defines me.
Another one of my chunks, daughter, is often combative with the non-christian aspect of my identity. I want to be a good to my family, but I often find it difficult when religion is so heavily thrust upon me. If my family were to create an identity wheel for me, the non-christian chunk would comprise the entirety of the circle. But still, that’s me.
One of my favorite parts of this exercise, as demonstrated by my examples above, is the emphasis on intersectionality. All of these unique segments of my identity coexist – however difficult that may be. Each part is shaped by the others, and in turn, sometimes shapes the identity of the people I interact with.
-Natalie Parker
After reading the Global Surveys article, I wasn’t at all surprised to learn that the economy was ranked the highest priority among citizens of the United States. With difficulty finding a job and high unemployment rates, the issue became the forefront of the media and of the people’s concerns. However, that’s not at all my biggest concern. Maybe it’s because I haven’t yet graduated and I’m not faced with the realities of the dreaded job search. But it’s something I hardly spend any time thinking about, and would be on the bottom of my list of concerns, along with immigration.
ReplyDeleteI actually chose the environment as my number one concern at this time. My family has always been very aware of environmental issues and being a vegetarian furthered my interest in the topic. After studying abroad on a ship, I learned a lot about the problems global warming is currently causing and will cause in the future. It made me realize that water will someday be scarce, animals we grew up with extinct and pollution worse than it’s ever been. Our environment is essential to our survival and should be protected; therefore, I’ve ranked it as the most important.
It does surprise me that climate change was identified as a national problem rather than a personal concern. The government isn’t going to be able to just wave a magic wand and fix the problems with the environment. It is going to take continued action and preventative measures from each individual person to slow down the process. It should definitely be a personal concern because climate change will affect us, our children or our grandchildren at some point unless we can make it a priority and take measures to ensure the protection of our environment.
During the identity wheel exercise, I learnt more and knew more information about my group members. It helped me to know them better than I used to. In my identity wheel, the biggest part is international student. I am an international student who has lived in the US for almost five years now. Moreover, I come from Xi’an, China and my native language is Chinese. The most famous scenic spots in my hometown are Terra-Cotta Warriors. Also, I wrote “ family member” in my identity wheel. I really enjoy the time that I spent with my family while I was in China and I really love them. I haven’t seen them in two years and I do miss them a lot. In addition, I wrote “food lover”. I love food from all over the world and I always like to try new food that I have never eaten before. Recently, I found out that Mexican food is great especially fajitas and enchiladas. I think this exercise was a great experience for me because I found out more about myself and my group members. Also, this exercise can help me found out the commons among my group members and me.
ReplyDeleteI thought the identity wheel exercise was interesting and a great idea. By doing one, I learned a little more about myself and I learned a lot about my group members. On my wheel, I put woman and American really small because I do not really ever think about those two characteristics. Yes, I know I am a girl and yes I know I am American, but I do not really think those are my main ones. It was interesting to see what my members included in their wheels and their reasons behind them. Some agreed with me and put both woman and American pretty tiny, however a couple members put it pretty big. This shows that everyone is different and this activity was a great way to learn about others. By doing this activity, I was able to get a better understanding and/or learn about what my privilege is. A couple of the big chunks on my wheel were “passion for kids,” “friend,” “family,” and “student.” All of those are huge aspects of my life. Student is huge because that is what takes up the most of my time. Being a student is also a privilege because not everyone has the opportunity to go college. I made family really big because I am really close to my family and I would not be where I am today if it wasn’t for them. Friend was big on my wheel too because I love my friends and do n ot know what I would do without them. Also, I would say I am a good friend. Also, I made passion for kids big because I love kids and always have loved them. I am applying to the school of education and want to be a kindergarten teacher when I graduate. Overall, I thought the identity wheel was both interesting and fun.
ReplyDeleteThe article in itself was interesting because I feel as though climate change is an issue that is often discussed. Global warming and climate concerns seems to be a subject that most Americans have heard about, whether they believe it is an issue or not, that is a different story.
ReplyDeleteThe way that countries rank public concerns says a lot about the people of that country. According to the article “in the United States, the economy ranked as the highest concern, while concern for the environment ranked sixth”. America is known to be a very materialistic country, and the fact that the economy is the greatest concern of the American people, is proof of that.
According to the article, “in the surveys, respondents were asked the relative importance of eight issues: health care, education, crime, the environment, immigration, the economy, terrorism and poverty”. Personally, I feel as though the environment would be my first or second top concern, which is why this article is so interesting, that climate change is generally, an afterthought.
Why is it that climate change seems to be a topic that most people know about, but aren’t concerned about? I believe that (as mentioned earlier), it depends on the people of a particular nation, but also how those people may have been affected by certain instances. For example, in general most Americans have not had their lives drastically affected by climate change. However, most Americans did have their lives drastically affected by the economy, such as the recession of 2008.
Therefore, although most countries have environmental concerns at the bottom of their list, as unfortunate as this is, is not necessarily because people don’t care, but more so because their lives have not been drastically affected in a negative way enough for them to care.
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ReplyDeleteI found the identity wheel to be very interesting; to see the different ways in which people view themselves. I also think that it was beneficial for me to sit down and think of how I view myself. My two biggest pieces of my wheel were son/brother and student. I put the first one because family is very important to me. I always have so much fun, and now that I have moved away from my home town, it makes me really appreciate the time I have with my parents and my siblings. I made the student piece big as well, probably like most everyone, because I am very motivated with my studies. I am a pre-med student, so it is important that I do well in my undergraduate.
ReplyDeleteTo me, the identity wheel was a good opportunity to look inward to see where you are in your journey. I think that several of the activities that we have done in alternative break class have provided looks in the mirror, like the "To Hell with Good Intentions" article. I think opportunities like this just make us better people.
I thought that the article we read was to be expected. I think that people worry most about conditions that are currently affecting them. For example, the economy is a very real situation that is giving us cause for concern right now. While the environment is troubling, I think that many people do not rate it that high on their list of concerns, because it is in the future that repercussions could come about because of our actions. I think that all of these issues are cause for concern, however, and it is hard to rank them.
Cody Neuburger
I absolutely loved the identity wheel activity. It was a way for me to really think about not just who I am but how certain ways of describing myself are more obvious than others. As soon as the activity was introduced a few things came to my mind right away but after I thought about it a little while longer I thought about the things that still make up who I am but are not talked about every day.
ReplyDeleteFor example, I automatically thought of student and proctor. These are two roles I play that make up large portions of my identity. They are visible to many people and are things I think about constantly. Daughter and girlfriend were also pretty big slices of my wheel. Being a friend was a good chunk of my wheel but honestly I feel like I could do a better job of living up to the size of that friendship slice. Being a friend is a lot of work and sometimes putting forth the effort in friendship gets overshadowed by school and work. My Christian slice of the wheel was also a big chunk. Growing up as a Christian, it was something I thought about right away. I try my best to act the way I think Jesus wants me to but I still feel like there is more I can do. The rest of my sections of my wheel were all similar in size and consisted of able-bodied, American, female, white, moderate (in politics), a Jayhawk (this section was a little bigger), roommate, sister, and aunt. I explained in class that aunt was a smaller slice because my nephew is only two months old at this point. But I feel like as he grows, so will be slice of the wheel because we will hopefully be more involved in each other’s lives. I feel like a person’s identity wheel can change quite often depending on the stage of life one is currently in. But I also feel like there are certain personality traits and roles that will remain similar in size throughout one’s life. My group had some good discussion and I feel like my doing the wheel activity we got to know ourselves and each other a lot better.
In terms of the Global Survey article, my group had a really good discussion about how people rank the issues currently prevalent in the world. I would be curious to see how those problems would be sized if put into a wheel of their own. My group discussed that education would be a pretty big chunk and if this was improved, then many of the other problems might diminish in size.
The global survey article that we read in our groups was very interesting and we came up with a very interesting analysis about it.
ReplyDeleteOne of the main points of the article was that the environment is not a top 3 concern when ranked among other topics, even though there is a lot of evidence showing the impact of global warming on the depletion of the polar bear population for example. We came up with two reasons for why the environment was not a top issue. The first one was that environmental awareness is not getting the press coverage that it used to, and issues are deemed important when they are relevant in the media. For example, the economy was a high concern because of the economic crisis of the last few years and gun control has become a bigger issue becasue of the Aurora and sandy hook shootings. We thought that the environment would have been a higher concern around the time when Al Gore's Awful Truth came out. We also thought that environment was not a key issue because we cant see the direct effect of our actions but we always can see the direct effect of our economic decisions.
We also thought that education should be a number one concern because all of these issues can be solved, if the future generations are better educated on the problem and how to solve them.
The identity wheel was a good way to learn about my group members and myself. It challenged me to reflect on who I am and what is most important to me. I formed the pieces of the wheel by judging how I see myself and what actually takes up the majority of my time and thoughts.
ReplyDeleteWhat I found most challenging was creating the correct proportions for the segments of the wheel. I felt like I needed a protractor and a little more time for reflection to create an honest identity wheel, but perhaps I was over-thinking it. What I also found interesting when I was creating the identity wheel was that I felt a sort of pressure coming from myself to make certain segments on the wheel more prominent. For example, should I really have made being a Jayhawk as big a segment as being a sister? Perhaps not, family is the most important thing in life after all but I felt that was a more accurate description of what my life is like right now. I attend school out of state and don’t often get the chance to see my family. I have probably spent more time in Allen Fieldhouse in the past four years than with my sisters (that’s probably an exaggeration but you get the point). The identity wheel activity brought up this sense of being accountable for myself and the things I value.
It was also enlightening to see how my group members described themselves. I found that a lot of us identified in the same ways. We pretty much all saw our main roles as being students and we all identified different kinds of relationships that define us like daughter, sister, girlfriend, etc. We listed off a lot of the same things but it was interesting to see how we differed. For example, I didn’t include my race because I don’t often think about it but for someone who is mixed race it might be a more important part of their identity. For me, where I come from is a big part of my identity because living in St. Louis shaped the way I grew up, my interests, and how I see the world. For others their hometown wasn’t as significant.
Overall, I thought it was a fun activity and it made me excited to find out more about my fellow group members.
Even though I was not surprised that the economy was at the top of the list for the United States’ concerns, I was surprised that the environment was not higher. There has been so much information in the media about global warming and climate change. I have also heard of many examples of people not believing that it is an actual threat. The article got it right when it stated that people view the environment as a problem for the country and not an individual issue. Personally, I believe individuals need to do their part, otherwise, there will be no change. I also feel as though the environment should be ranked higher on our list of concerns. Perhaps this is because I am part of a younger generation.
ReplyDeleteThis leads to my initial thoughts on the article, how do younger generations feel? Younger generations have been taught about global warming and climate change throughout all of their schooling, so I feel as though they would rank it as a higher concern. At the end of the article, I received my answer. Even though the environment is currently at the bottom of people’s concerns, a shift is expected to occur because younger people have it as a larger concern.
The identity circle exercise really seemed to stump me. I am not sure why I had such a hard time putting myself on paper but I did. My finished circle ended up having the basics. I know I am a daughter, a sister, a student, a friend and a woman so they took up two thirds and the rest of it was simply entitled “to be determined”. I have seen myself grow and change so much with in the past 5 years that I have reached a point where I don’t know who I am or more accurately I cant put a label on who I am. I know in the next 5 years that circle would look entirely different if I had put down my momentary traits. Thus, I stuck with the fundamentals of who I am.
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting that everyone’s circles were similar and yet entirely different at the same time. These differences in personal identity showed up again when we were discussing the Global Survey article. For the most part our group had the same priorities of education and economics. This is also where our circles overlapped. We all will have the tendency to prioritize the issues that we have personal contact with. This made me wonder how these discussions would have gone if you had asked a group of people with more diverse backgrounds and different demographics. I believe that the answers would have indeed reflected their differences. This is why we call these categories “social” issues because they are problems faced by everyone in a society. It is only when we can look at society as a whole instead of through our own limited lenses that we will see growth and development. That is why it is so important for me to take an open approach to this break so that I might be able to take a look through another lens and learn from their point of view.
I enjoyed the identity wheel activity because it made me get to know my group members better and it made me think about myself in a more critical way. The hardest part I had was trying to think of the parts of myself that I do not tend to notice. For example, I am white, which is something I would not have thought as part of my identity except that the group leader pointed out some of the privileges that that I may not even notice. Unfortunately, in America there are stereotypes and many people can be judged or even hurt due to these stereotypes. This made me think of the Treyvon Martin shooting. Martin was only seventeen but due to his race and gender he was seen as a threat. As a white female, people tend to ask if I need help rather than viewing me with suspicion.
ReplyDeleteThis activity flowed into the “Global Surveys Shows Environment Ranks Low Among Public Concerns” article. In my mind, the environment is very important but I feel that there are other pressing matters that need to be taken into account first. The environment is something that requires cooperation between countries because everyone has to work together to stop pollution. Crime, healthcare, and education are issues that I see affecting my friends and family as well as myself. If someone is sick or needs a job that must be a priority over saving an endangered animal. It is unfortunate that we must prioritize but the immediate issues must be addressed first.
-Rebecca Howard
I wasn't at class last week due to sickness, but I found the global survey article to be very interesting, because it seems to me as if I see at least one article if not more on the internet or when I catch the news on tv about global warming. I find it very interesting, but in a sense not surprising that the environment is not a top 3 concern. Americans are very concerned about what is happening to them right now and since the deterioration of the environment is something that effects us but we will not see the results of it until later. That explains why the economy is a constant concern for Americans though it was surprising to me that Education was not the first concern, because the economy is in my mind a little more fixable than our education system right now. The environment and education are two of my top concerns, because I want to leave my children (when I have them) some sort of legacy where they will be able to do whatever they want and inhabit an earth where they won't have to deal with any health or environmental concerns that we have to deal with today. America as a whole is very materialistic, which makes environmental concerns and education not as big of a priority because we focus on the here and not so much on the future that doesn't affect us.
ReplyDeleteThe identity wheel activity was fun. I got to know my group members better. I got to do some soul searching and I think I learned something about myself from it too. I considered myself a part of many different groups. Many of the groups are minority groups I don't think I would have chosen to be a part of, but it's been an important part of my development as a person and how I identify myself. However, I'm also privileged that these minority groups could be rather small on my wheel as well. I'm not forced to confront racism every day (although I still do), and it generally doesn't cause problems around most people I am with often.
ReplyDeleteCandyman was the category most people asked me about after they saw my identify wheel. But, you know the candyman from the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory movie? The way he gave out candy, sang about it, and brought general joy to the world is a group I consider myself to be a part of. I know, this is nonsense. But how else do you describe the group of happy people who make other people happy? I'd like to suggest the nomenclature "Candymen" for this group.
I found the identity wheel helpful because it allowed me to see how the members of my group perceive themselves as well as making me look at how I perceive myself. I realized that I perceive myself in terms of how others view me. I had never thought about myself in such an objective way, and I realized that I need to worry less about how I am perceived by others and focus on what is important to me personally. The exercise allowed my group to connect over similar slices on our wheels and to recognize our differences. We all realized that what might be a very important aspect in someone’s life may not apply so someone else’s. The identity wheel exercise was a good way for us to bond as a group as well as to look at how we perceive ourselves and how we might be perceived by others.
ReplyDeleteThe Global Survey article was somewhat surprising to my group. We found that our list of priorities was much different than the one found in global statistics. My group discussed that this was probably due to the fact that large scale issues, such as economy and crime, do not generally affect college students from the Midwest. When we made our own list, education and health care were at the top of our concerns. We suggested that increased focus on education might help to alleviate some of the other problems as well.