Writing task 1
What have we learned about ourselves and each other from discussing "The Island Story"?
I learnt today that my views are influenced by my outlook to life, cultural and possibly past experiences. It would seem that if one has made "seemingly" silly choices at some point in their lives, they would be more flexible and sympathetic towards the girl in the Island story. Also, Mark's recount of the Japanese's student point of view and Darina's ranking of the characters in the story solidifies this point for me.
I also learnt that gender plays a role in our perception of events. We would naturally relate more/sympathise with someone of same gender as us. It creates a certain bias without us knowing and we could even become blind to the view points of others. It could not have been a coincidence that Mark and Semone chose to sympathise more with the boy in the story than with the girl.
To be continued...
Wonderful reflection here. I know that being female influenced my analysis of the story, making the girl earn the most of my sympathy.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right that our sympathies may revel somethiong about our unconscious bias - perhaps in a more useful way than the kind of tests I've completed during unconcious bias training (compulsory for univeristy staff) because when you take those tests, you're consciously looking for the unconscious bias, so I suspect that they don't actually capture the unconscious.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for posting, whoever you are! Very effective, concise writing. :)
Thank you Mark. The "whoever you are" is Vuoke.
ReplyDelete