They say high school is supposed to be the best year of your life. People try new things, make new friends, and change - some for the worst, and some for the better. But in most high schools, there are various cliques - the populars, the jocks, goths/scene, and nerds. As shown on the picture to the left, "Mean Girls" is one of the movies I think displays in-groups and out-groups the best. In this movie, the main character, Cady, is a new student who tries going to a public high school for the first time after being home schooled almost all her life. She makes friends with both the "freaks" and "the plastics" (aka the populars). Everything is kept on the down low until a "burn book" is released to the entire school. This book had secrets about everyone and things that others never knew - probably even found shocking. After a talk with the whole junior girl class, each girl is required to apologize by playing "trust fall". If a girl's apology seemed sincere enough, you would be caught. If it didn't, you would be left on the ground. Eventually every girl was forgiven and the plastics were no more. Other groups got the chance to learn about each other and accepted each girl for who they were. All the drama that happened in the past was no more. "In class today, we got to learn about in-groups and out - groups, which instantly made me think of this movie because of how each group of girls is seperated. Mr. Sal made everyone in class go into different sides of the room - black shirts on one side and colored shirts on the other. Each person in the groups judged one another by what they were wearing. People who were wearing black were told, "It was the first thing that they could find", or "It makes you look slimmer." and people on the colored side were told "They were trying to follow the style." Whne people are seperated into groups, they don't really pay attention to any other group except for their own. Each one only pays attention to what they see on the outside. They only see what everyone in that particular group is wearing or how they act, but they don't get the chance to get to know the people. From my personal experience, I know many groups I've wanted to become a part of, but never got the chance to because I was either too scared or didn't want to make a fool of myself. Truth is, though, everyone is the same in their own way. They just have different groups of friends or like things that others may find weird. If we all got the chance to know each other or sit down, then maybe things would be different.
They say high school is supposed to be the best year of your life. People try new things, make new friends, and change - some for the worst, and some for the better. But in most high schools, there are various cliques - the populars, the jocks, goths/scene, and nerds. As shown on the picture to the left, "Mean Girls" is one of the movies I think displays in-groups and out-groups the best. In this movie, the main character, Cady, is a new student who tries going to a public high school for the first time after being home schooled almost all her life. She makes friends with both the "freaks" and "the plastics" (aka the populars). Everything is kept on the down low until a "burn book" is released to the entire school. This book had secrets about everyone and things that others never knew - probably even found shocking. After a talk with the whole junior girl class, each girl is required to apologize by playing "trust fall". If a girl's apology seemed sincere enough, you would be caught. If it didn't, you would be left on the ground. Eventually every girl was forgiven and the plastics were no more. Other groups got the chance to learn about each other and accepted each girl for who they were. All the drama that happened in the past was no more. "In class today, we got to learn about in-groups and out - groups, which instantly made me think of this movie because of how each group of girls is seperated. Mr. Sal made everyone in class go into different sides of the room - black shirts on one side and colored shirts on the other. Each person in the groups judged one another by what they were wearing. People who were wearing black were told, "It was the first thing that they could find", or "It makes you look slimmer." and people on the colored side were told "They were trying to follow the style." Whne people are seperated into groups, they don't really pay attention to any other group except for their own. Each one only pays attention to what they see on the outside. They only see what everyone in that particular group is wearing or how they act, but they don't get the chance to get to know the people. From my personal experience, I know many groups I've wanted to become a part of, but never got the chance to because I was either too scared or didn't want to make a fool of myself. Truth is, though, everyone is the same in their own way. They just have different groups of friends or like things that others may find weird. If we all got the chance to know each other or sit down, then maybe things would be different. 
I LOVE how you related the lesson to Mean Girls. It is a fantastic movie, and even though i don't think our school is as bad as mean girls I totally see the cliques.
ReplyDeleteI also totally agree with you that if people just sat down and took a second to get to know someone else there wouldn't be as many mean comments and judgements made around the high school halls. I really believe people today need to ask other people questions about their life and we need to get one another to just simply...talk!
I love how you used Mean Girls to relate to. Its now such a popular movie that people can easily understand and get your views on how different groups have different ways of doing things.
ReplyDeleteI think that everyone can relate this to themselves because everyone is guilty of being judge mental, even myself. I think the perfect quote or saying for this lesson is "Never judge a book buy its cover", but everyone does. I think we need to change or our country and world will be split forever.
ReplyDeleteYeah mean girls is probably the easiest way to explain ingroups and outgroups. Good example :)
ReplyDeleteI've heard a lot about Mean girls and how it relates to soc but I've never seen it. Thanks for sharing the example. I think High School is not necessarily the best times of your life, but it is a unique time of your life. I think the best time is whatever you make it out to be.
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