Goffman was an interesting read because he had ideas about people’s own truth and reality but at the same time, people knew the drill when confronting a situation. Goffman said in one of his articles, “Information about the individual helps to define the situation, enabling others to know in advance what he will except of them and what they may except of him.” Almost everyone does the same thing, “Hey how are you?, I’m fine and you?” or always stand in line in stores when you want to check out, wearing clothes, speak the same language as everyone else, getting married, go to school, get a job, etc. When I saw this, I came to the conclusion that you can’t run away from social norms. Society, media and even people you knew personally help formed you into the person you are today. If someone were to slowly break a social norm that people believe in, with time, any type uncommon action might one day be done everywhere. William I. Thomas said a quote that summarized how I felt, he said, “it is also highly important for us to realize that we do not as a matter of fact lead our lives, make our decisions, and reach our goals in everyday life either statistically or scientifically. We live by inference. I am, let us say, your guest. You do not know, you cannot determine scientifically, that I will not steal your money or your spoons. But inferentially I will not, and inferentially you have me as a guest.”
So, I came up with idea of breaking the norm of trying to equalize myself with the teacher. I wanted to test his status of authority and see what if it would one day be possible to have teacher and student be equal in status. The idea does sound crazy, illogical and be impossible but what if it is possible? I purposely dress professionally like him to demonstrate that I was worthy of being in front of the class as much as he was. I was not a teacher like him but I was representing student power with teacher authority. Yet, it came to my surprise; he didn’t dress up but rather dressed very casual. You can even say he was dressed like a student. In class, I noticed little things I could do to get him out of his comfort zone. Those things were, calling him by his name, taking his spot in the podium, invaded his personal space, take his notes, marker and easer. Those were the things that I knew if I messed with it, he would feel uncomfortable. Some students knew what I was doing right away and it might have changed my results based on your knowledge on my experiment of breaking the norm but that wasn’t the point. The point was, I wanted to know how did it make you feel having another person, who is actually a student, bother a person who is seen to have more authority than you? What do you think it made Mr. Zopf feel? Based on Goffman’s idea, I feel as though I was an individual that appear before the classroom that influenced the definition of the situation that I had with (you) the students and the teacher based on my actions.
I have seen some of your faces during my research and some of you looked uncomfortable. I’m assuming it was because it wasn’t something you saw every day or would ever see. I spoke with Mr. Zopf after class and asked, what went through your mind when I was up there with you? He said that it was hard for him because even though he was okay with what I was doing, taking his spot and notes made me feel uncomfortable. There was a moment when I took his notes and he had to break away from being a teacher and ask me for the notes back. He wasn’t sure what to do without his notes and he knew he was ineffective without them. It was as if we were both equal in positions. Mr. Zopf related very well with Goffman’s ideas because Goffman came up with the common-sense phrase which means “creating a scene is apt because a new scene is created by such disruptions.” I gave such disruptions aka incidents in my experiment which made him come up with a plan to keep the ball roll. Goffman said that “When an incident occurs, the reality sponsored by the performers is threatened [The performer, in my example meaning Mr. Zopf] The persons present are likely to react by becoming flustered, ill at ease, embarrassed, nervous and the like.” Which is what happened with Mr. Zopf when I did everything I can to disrupt him. Based on what happened in class, do you think it is possible that maybe one day teachers in college professor would be equal with students? It is possible? Maybe. Yet even though I felt comfortable standing in front of the class feeling equal towards him and all I saw was a male who had more knowledge than most students in our class who taught us that knowledge, I don’t think teachers would function if teachers and students were in equal in status.
So, I came up with idea of breaking the norm of trying to equalize myself with the teacher. I wanted to test his status of authority and see what if it would one day be possible to have teacher and student be equal in status. The idea does sound crazy, illogical and be impossible but what if it is possible? I purposely dress professionally like him to demonstrate that I was worthy of being in front of the class as much as he was. I was not a teacher like him but I was representing student power with teacher authority. Yet, it came to my surprise; he didn’t dress up but rather dressed very casual. You can even say he was dressed like a student. In class, I noticed little things I could do to get him out of his comfort zone. Those things were, calling him by his name, taking his spot in the podium, invaded his personal space, take his notes, marker and easer. Those were the things that I knew if I messed with it, he would feel uncomfortable. Some students knew what I was doing right away and it might have changed my results based on your knowledge on my experiment of breaking the norm but that wasn’t the point. The point was, I wanted to know how did it make you feel having another person, who is actually a student, bother a person who is seen to have more authority than you? What do you think it made Mr. Zopf feel? Based on Goffman’s idea, I feel as though I was an individual that appear before the classroom that influenced the definition of the situation that I had with (you) the students and the teacher based on my actions.
I have seen some of your faces during my research and some of you looked uncomfortable. I’m assuming it was because it wasn’t something you saw every day or would ever see. I spoke with Mr. Zopf after class and asked, what went through your mind when I was up there with you? He said that it was hard for him because even though he was okay with what I was doing, taking his spot and notes made me feel uncomfortable. There was a moment when I took his notes and he had to break away from being a teacher and ask me for the notes back. He wasn’t sure what to do without his notes and he knew he was ineffective without them. It was as if we were both equal in positions. Mr. Zopf related very well with Goffman’s ideas because Goffman came up with the common-sense phrase which means “creating a scene is apt because a new scene is created by such disruptions.” I gave such disruptions aka incidents in my experiment which made him come up with a plan to keep the ball roll. Goffman said that “When an incident occurs, the reality sponsored by the performers is threatened [The performer, in my example meaning Mr. Zopf] The persons present are likely to react by becoming flustered, ill at ease, embarrassed, nervous and the like.” Which is what happened with Mr. Zopf when I did everything I can to disrupt him. Based on what happened in class, do you think it is possible that maybe one day teachers in college professor would be equal with students? It is possible? Maybe. Yet even though I felt comfortable standing in front of the class feeling equal towards him and all I saw was a male who had more knowledge than most students in our class who taught us that knowledge, I don’t think teachers would function if teachers and students were in equal in status.