There was a lot of hype going into this class session because we were going to cover a hot topic: stereotypes and generalizations.
My group is a good balance of outgoing and shy, but during this meeting, the most outgoing of us was absent, and it was up to all of us to start the conversation in the right direction. Usually, we have really "juicy" discussions and tend to get pretty deep into certain topics, but that didn't happen as much this round. None of us were conversationally brave enough to get to that magic point of debate and discussion. While many great topics were covered, the how and why wasn't dissected as much as I think any of us would have liked. Our group mainly noted and commented on what we noticed and didn't dig too far into the "why's." It didn't seem like we were the only group though. I think a lot of students felt too awkward/shy to really say what they thought out of fear, keeping certain things to themselves. That was probably a good thing.
I think this exercise was a great idea; it was interesting conversation material with useful goals, but it also showed (I assume) everyone the personal discrepancy that arises between wanting to appear accepting and non-biased while each and everyone of us has their own ingrained beliefs. Not too many people would go up to someone and start saying that they are a terrorist, or a sinner in the eyes of their religion, etc or even blatantly show it intentionally ("well, you're Asian so you should tutor me in math"). In my group, we kept it on the lighter side, more on observations of stereotypes and generalizations and differences between those and the truth than deeply ingrained religious/political/other "no-no" topics. Some things just need to be left alone in such settings, but I think that this activity helped a lot of people feel the problem that arises between the social pressure to appear "tolerant" while still being told to believe certain stereotypes and generalizations. Very interesting indeed.
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