January 3,
2013
I’m already sick and the new year just
started – usually I try to wait until I need a few days off from work and then get sick. I think it’s
a classic example of mind-body connection but it could be a coincidence or it could just be a simple virus -- I have a tendency to always go the more complicated route.
I love theory and, lately, identity theory has consumed my thinking. I have spent most of my professional life (lives) in departments of literacy, teacher education and communication. In places like this, academics like to say things like: people are “socially constructed”. We also like to use cool phrases like "ecologically valid" and "internalization of dialogue", two of my favorites, _________ and, believe it or not, they are both meaningful and useful. One interesting thing about the way our specialized disciplinary language shapes up is that it often comes into being in reaction to an opposite idea. The "social construction" idea, though, is the one I want to stay with because it is so foundational to I-Quest and personal change.
The concept of becoming a particular kind of person through a process of "social construction" basically means we can't become anyone by ourselves (individual as the opposite of social). Imagine on the day you were born, your misguided parents put you in a room by yourself and had no contact with you until you were, say, ten years old. With all good intentions, your weird parents did not want to interfere with your "unique development", they wanted you to become "who you were meant to be" and "fulfill your God-given talents" and other unexamined colloquialisms that people say every day. But, of course, you guessed the problem -- you turn out to be even more weird than your parents. Basically, this means that people don’t just automatically become who they are, they are pulled, folded, tucked and hammered into a certain shape through their interactions with others – during conversations, the way people act toward them (or ignore them), labels they are given, attributes others use to describe them, until we start to become well, a real human being. We are used to thinking of more or less mainstream (middle class, White) parenting in which we guide, direct, listen, interact, share values, rituals, specific family practices, etc. as allowing our children to "become who they want to be" or even "allowing them to follow their interests". While, all the time, they are immersed every second of every waking moment in a hubbub of social activity filled with social interactions of every imaginable kind -- other children, relatives of every age, babysitters, siblings, TV, videos, games, etc. There is nothing individual about growing up. And not only do we, as parents, have great influence over who our children become, we intend to have as much influence as possible -- we really DO want our kids to be certain kinds of people (loving, industrious, good moral/ethical values, polite, clean, etc.) and so we pay very close attention to how we engineer their environments hoping to have a monstrous impact on who they become. Obviously, social and cultural environments are not the entire story but I'm trying to make the case that they are crucial overriding components and they are the components over which we have some control.
Focusing on the idea of other people and their interactions with us as a huge idea in identity and self-change, if you are still working on those resolutions, consider the people you are surrounding yourself with -- who are you interacting with around your goals? Do they have similar goals? Who can you talk to on a regular basis about what you are trying to achieve? Who will celebrate with you those small, daily and weekly accomplishments that will add up to a BIG WIN? Social/cultural variables count; if you are interested in change, consider the social circumstances (including people) in which you are attempting it. A new identity or reshaping of an old one depends on as Gordon Wells, sociolinguistic, likes to say -- the company you keep.
The concept of becoming a particular kind of person through a process of "social construction" basically means we can't become anyone by ourselves (individual as the opposite of social). Imagine on the day you were born, your misguided parents put you in a room by yourself and had no contact with you until you were, say, ten years old. With all good intentions, your weird parents did not want to interfere with your "unique development", they wanted you to become "who you were meant to be" and "fulfill your God-given talents" and other unexamined colloquialisms that people say every day. But, of course, you guessed the problem -- you turn out to be even more weird than your parents. Basically, this means that people don’t just automatically become who they are, they are pulled, folded, tucked and hammered into a certain shape through their interactions with others – during conversations, the way people act toward them (or ignore them), labels they are given, attributes others use to describe them, until we start to become well, a real human being. We are used to thinking of more or less mainstream (middle class, White) parenting in which we guide, direct, listen, interact, share values, rituals, specific family practices, etc. as allowing our children to "become who they want to be" or even "allowing them to follow their interests". While, all the time, they are immersed every second of every waking moment in a hubbub of social activity filled with social interactions of every imaginable kind -- other children, relatives of every age, babysitters, siblings, TV, videos, games, etc. There is nothing individual about growing up. And not only do we, as parents, have great influence over who our children become, we intend to have as much influence as possible -- we really DO want our kids to be certain kinds of people (loving, industrious, good moral/ethical values, polite, clean, etc.) and so we pay very close attention to how we engineer their environments hoping to have a monstrous impact on who they become. Obviously, social and cultural environments are not the entire story but I'm trying to make the case that they are crucial overriding components and they are the components over which we have some control.
Focusing on the idea of other people and their interactions with us as a huge idea in identity and self-change, if you are still working on those resolutions, consider the people you are surrounding yourself with -- who are you interacting with around your goals? Do they have similar goals? Who can you talk to on a regular basis about what you are trying to achieve? Who will celebrate with you those small, daily and weekly accomplishments that will add up to a BIG WIN? Social/cultural variables count; if you are interested in change, consider the social circumstances (including people) in which you are attempting it. A new identity or reshaping of an old one depends on as Gordon Wells, sociolinguistic, likes to say -- the company you keep.
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