Thanks to the COM352 students for contributing a bunch of new pages! I'll be moving these pages into the main area of the wiki soon.

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[edit] Identity Narrative

Michael Martel 10/9/06

Identity is dynamic. Everyone spends their life changing, growing, learning, evolving – even procreation, which might arguably be titled the purpose of life, changes the identity of the parents and creates a new identity of the child. As a person who participates in life as an observer, I have seen many of my friends and family go through changes. Some are radical; for example, one friend of mine went from being heavily into marijuana and alcohol to being straight-edge (a subculture based on abstinence from drugs and sex). Radical changes aren’t the only important ones though, as any kind of change affects a person and their environment. Now, what I am about to state is very general and applies to any living thing, but at the same time it is the most specific and thorough definition of my identity that I can come up with. Any thing that is alive has this instinctual or natural or default goal of survival, accomplished through both the present issue of food and shelter, and the future issue of procreation. My identity is that of a living being.

Until approximately the middle of high school, I had trouble with society in general. I did not adapt overnight, rather followed a gradual learning curve. Toward the end of elementary school I had slowly become what may be referred to as an ‘outcast.’ Basically I was really nerdy and weird. During this period, which lasted until seventh grade, I generally only had one friend at a time. We would hang out every day we could, and that was often, just because we were such losers. There were points where I hung out with a group of kids but I was almost always felt a bit misplaced. However the friendship with the one person was still a friendship, perhaps enhanced by the fact that we could share our distance from the “in” crowd. With the coming of middle school, things began to change. Although I still didn’t hang out with many people, I started at least talking to them more in school. Along side this came the fact that I was made fun of more often, but I was never awfully depressed about my social situation (and likewise beforehand). I also paid attention to how other people behaved, possibly because I was curious about things I wasn’t involved with (meaning mainstream society). Unfortunately, while I wasn’t depressed and did share some great memories with choice friends, I still felt like I was missing out on a large portion of the collective of the school.

Seventh grade brought about a significant change when I met my longtime friend Justin. He and I had very similar personalities, but he was part of a group of friends and also had more involvement in extracurricular activities, adding to his acquaintances. This was the first time I belonged to a group since before the third grade. Along with the fact that I was going through puberty at the time, my identity was forming in new ways. Now I was often hanging out with at least two other people. Because Justin lived in a very self-contained neighborhood, I started to meet other kids in the same area and soon my friends were beyond the range of ‘nerd.’ We related on the common ground of Squire’s Glenn (that’s the neighborhood). It was a place that you could just show up to and find people to hang out with, and everyone’s gravity caused large groups to form on the street where Justin and a few other friends lived. These groups were rather varied, with a mix of nerds and skaters (and girls). You could say we all liked to chill outside, we all liked to horse around, we all liked to set things on fire, and so on, but we were somewhat diverse.

Because of the experience of Squire’s Glenn, as I went through high school I began making new friends on my own. This is when I began to ‘specialize’ – I would associate with people of similar interests, such as playing music or acting to name a couple. In the very early years, everyone was friends with everyone else, but then in the second half of elementary school I became disconnected. After that I went from associating with one or possibly two people for long periods of time, to associating with the kids in and around Squire’s Glenn, and finally to associating with smaller groups of my own finding. I can’t say I was totally dissatisfied to be anything short of Mr. Popular, and each stage had beneficial qualities to it and I spent a lot of time watching other people and finding out how they operate. In the recent weeks of college, I have not met a great deal of people and spend a good deal of time alone. You could say I am a kind of outcast right now – but my social skills are still all there. It’s just that I can adapt to whatever situation I find myself in.

During the course of my childhood I did not have a great deal of parental involvement. We communicated but I feel like I had space to develop my own way of thinking. My way of thinking basically came about by seeing what people do and how people react, as well as seeing how I operate and emote. To this day I benefit from thinking on my feet and being aware of my cognitive self. I feel very at home with my mind, and this has also enabled me to help many of my friends in their own psychological turmoil; I would not be surprised to become a counselor. I also look forward to having children, and from my parents I have learned the importance of giving children the ability to grow into their own person.

The current career that I plan to pursue is that of a high school teacher (primarily in math). I’ve grown quite a passion for teaching during high school, and I think my ideals regarding the conduction of a class says a lot about my personality. I would like to do two fundamental things; First, to know the material and refrain as much as possible from using pre-made assignments and exercises out of the textbook, and second, to treat my students like I would treat my fellow staff and encourage them to challenge me. The first goal comes out of my contempt for math classes which involve a whole bunch of repetitions of the same action. By taking the work into my own hands, I could not only cut down on unnecessary amounts of shallow problems, I could go further to connect the property or theorem to other applications and skills, challenging the students to think more deeply about the material. The students, however, would also have a large role in my ideal classroom as I would encourage them to be open about their opinions, confusions, and doubts. Thus it is that a teacher may learn from their students. I feel that I have a natural affinity to teaching because I play so well the part of the observer. Being good at finding the problem, specifically finding the reason a student is confused, helps toward the solution. On top of that I can observe their reactions to my teaching, showing me what works best for different people to get a clear picture of things.

As a living being, what I want to do is survive. Surviving, on a basic level, means having food and protection, and procreating. Humans have a long list of experiences under their belts, both from their lifetimes and from their ancestors, so we have a great deal of advanced stuff going on such as relationships, education, careers, and politics, but these things all boil down to survival. I want to be a math teacher because it is a stable career that I already feel like I have some amount of skill in, and that equates to good survival tactics (i.e. money). I’ve experienced all manner of social situations, and being dynamic like everyone else allowed me to adapt to each one. This equates to good survival tactics (i.e. having friends). I want to have children. This equates to good survival tactics. All people learn over the course of their life, changing all the time depending on the situation, because it helps you to survive. Change can involve a long term belief or goal, or it can involve standing up to a predator. As one who watches, I learn about things around me by seeing them interact. I am also dynamic like any living thing (or non-living thing, but that debate doesn’t belong here), so what I learn goes toward shaping my future self. Watching, learning, and changing are what I do to survive.