Blog 1: Chapters 1-6:
→ Why do people make fun of those who are different? Why is this tendency stronger in children than in adults? What are ways we can combat these tendencies?
This tendency is stronger in children than in adults because children are greatly influenced by their friends at school. Additionally, children have a more immature mind and jump to conclusions even when they don’t know the full story. Children normally follow the crowd and just copy what everybody does. If someone has a different opinion, they will most likely get made fun of, since they don’t share the same perspectives. Because the children all copy each other and don’t want to stand out, they usually only learn one perspective. And that is that person is different, they don’t realize the reason they are, the way they are. They immediately just assume that they’re weird, and don’t want to befriend them. Concluding these explanations, children are more judgmental than adults.
On the other half, adults have a more mature mind and have experienced more. Therefore, the adults tend to be able to look at a situation in various of points of views. Since adults have experienced more, they understand what people are like when it comes to jumping to conclusions. For example, in To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout thought it was weird and different that Walter Cunningham drowned his food in syrup, but Atticus and Calpurnia tried to prevent Scout from further contradicting Walter. Calpurnia lectured Scout how disgracing it was to say that he was different, because Walter’s folks were lower in social class. Calpurnia and Atticus both accepted and did not judge Walter, since they acknowledged the hardships he had to face. But all Scout could think of was that Walter was different from the way everybody else ate.
Ways we can combat these tendencies is imagine what it would feel like in their shoes. Since people will never understand someone unless they personally experience it in their skin. They will never understand the pain and hardships people are going through. A wise men once said “Walk a mile in my shoes, see what I see, hear what I hear, feel what I feel, THEN maybe you’ll understand why I do what I do, ‘till then, don’t judge me. Just because you don’t agree, doesn't mean you’re right.”
I made my blog post as this same topic, and some of our points were kind of getting to the same thing, but you had some other ideas that I wouldn't have thought of, but were really smart ideas. When you brought up that people make fun of others because it is the "norm" I said something similar to this, as to how they do not fit in with how society thinks they should be. I really liked how you included the quote, especially since Atticus tells Scout that to understand someone, you need to walk around in their skin.
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