Eight (And Community Service)

Deviance is when one departs from the norms and customs set by society. The idea of breaking away from social construction, with a stretch, can be viewed as an illusion because the social construction never explicitly existed in the first place. It exists, however, as an implicit force. Deviance is relative to the social class that one has been placed in, and once in that social class, there is more relativity within that social class. At my high school, social class is played out, but not nearly to the extend portrayed in the Saints and Roughnecks reading. At Stevenson, we are conditioned to behave like Saints, to better prepare ourselves for the real world. There are occasional Roughnecks that are indeed being deviant from society, but their numbers are so low it is hard to consider them a major group of similar caliber to Saints. I am blessed to be part of such a wealthy community, where I have the privilege to be able to examine social classes from very high up on the scale. My parents consider us "middle class", but after this unit I see that we aren't really the "middle" of any scale.

For my first community service project, I worked as a freshman mentor in the FMP here at my high school. I will use part of my 35 second semester senior hours for sociology, and part for NHS, to prevent double-dipping. 10 hours of service were recorded via NHS, and 25 were recorded here via sociology. My experience was here at Anonymous High School in Town, IL. I participated in this service for half a class period every Monday through Thursday. My faculty advisor was Ms. King, my counselor Ms. Kulla. (e-mail probably just jking@dxxx.org) I will answer all of the questions via bullet points as follows:

• Before my experience as an FM, I viewed the service as just helping freshmen not have a mental breakdown as they enter this gigantic and complicated (and anonymous) high school. My expectations were more handling a lot of problem students and less of handling students who had average levels of conformity into high school. I was nervous about not being able to make them all perfect kids.
• Let's just say hypothetically it took place in a random room number in this anonymous high school, let's say... 2900? My freshmen were all unique people and all had their own thing going for them. I came to realize my job was not to turn them all into the same, perfect student heading down the same, perfect path, but to help each and every one of them recognize themselves and guide them to their own paths throughout anonymous high school.
• It surprised me how much of an influence I could make on these kids, despite them all being so different from myself. Age is a social construction, and as an 18-year-old, I assumed my role as Advisory Leader efficiently because they were only 14-year-olds.
• After advisory each day, as long as at least just one freshman said they enjoyed advisory or they felt like it really helped their lives every so often, that means something to me. It tells me that what I'm doing is worthwhile, and that there's a reason that I do what I do.

I apologize for the tardiness of me posting the community service hours, Sal. You're a good teacher and I feel as if I let you down by turning these all in late. I continue to strive for a better work ethic every day, which is both tedious and painfully simple for me.

King's 6B Advisory, enjoying precious 72 degree weather in Chicago.