My Photo II students are working on self-portraits.  The intention behind this is to see what they think of themselves, what they value, the things they note as most important, or characteristics they think most represent them.  They do not need to include the face, but there must be a part of the body in the images.  This assignment has led to some interesting insights.  I already know quite a bit about my kids, as is evidenced by the individualized assignments last marking period.  However, this opens up another window that I might not have been able to get to before.

Some of the disappointments include wanting to focus on one's hair.  Depending on the person, that could be a great idea - one girl is African-American and the topic of black hair is a big deal.  Some of the feminist journals I read talk a bit about the idea of fetishizing the "other" that comes into play when white people talk about or encounter black women's hair.  But that is not what I am talking about being disappointing to me.  I have a few boys who wrote their proposals and it involved photographing their hair.  Sigh.....  Really?  That's as deep as you can get?  And that is the feedback I gave.  One of them did indeed change his mind.  The thing is, the students are growing up in a world of multi-second sound bites and quickie snapshots.  Go to any art museum and people glide right on by the work.  A glance, and that is enough.  They do not know how to linger, contemplate, take it all in, analyze what they observe.  And the proposals for the self-portraits show that they cannot even look inward and analyze themselves.  And so I push - gently - for more.

The ladies in my class had better proposals on the whole.  One girl said some stuff that hit home.  She was talking about how people make judgments of her based on what she does in her spare time regardless of knowing the facts.  I asked if she meant going to the dance clubs.  Yup, I hit the nail on the head.  Oh honey, boy do I know.  She goes to dance clubs that play Latin music.  We have had class discussions about the importance of dance, the role of the man and woman in the dance, the lack of erotic aspects, the love of the music and the give and take of the dance.  Yet, when a person hears a girl is going to a dance club, one visual, and only one visual, comes to mind.   And that is certainly not what is going on.

Here is what is most interesting about this student.  She is the model of maturity.  She has an amazing amount of responsibilities at home.  As a student, she has never let me down.  The fact that anyone can assume her intentions and actions based on the fact that she goes to a dance club is absurd.  People make assumptions based on what they think they know, and what they know is extremely limited because they have no interest in getting to know about other ways of doing things.  And so they make assumptions about a person and go on to repeat those assumptions as fact.  I let this student know I fully understood and I like the idea behind her goals for the shoot.  How to do it?  That is up to her.  But you see, I go out alone to go dancing on the weekends.  I meet friends there - male and female - and we have a good time.  A sober, music and dance filled blast.  I want this girl to correct the misconceptions of her peers.  That vindication will make her feel good.  I could see it in how she talked about it.

I like the idea of using projects like these to get my students to shatter their misconceptions of each other.  I like the idea of having students get to know about ways of doing things that are foreign to them.  I believe it builds more empathy and appreciation for those who are not like them.  It also might make them think twice about repeating gossip about others when they hear it.  I have learned that the many of my co-workers have the maturity of five-year-olds.  They repeat gossip readily and willingly, regardless of the damage it might do.  They are cruel and vindictive if they feel they have been crossed by a colleague.  All some of them care about is "winning" and kissing ass to get to the top.  I can do nothing to change that, despite my best efforts.  However, I can do something to keep my students from growing up to be like them.  For next year, I plan on much more socially conscious angles to my projects.  This year has taught me that people are cruel and there is no reason the next generation has to follow in those footsteps.