So, a peer is riled up over certain coworkers celebrating a holiday during the workweek. I've been there--especially in an elementary school setting, everyone doubles up on their work load and it can get pretty chaotic. He's asking why can't they celebrate during the weekend. Well, if only all holidays were like that. I mean, we have 'Winter break" where people mislabel it Christmas break, and no one complains about that. I don't know. It's been so long where I've felt anger or identified character traits with an ethnic group, that instead of feeling offended, I'm trying to understand the reasons for why a person could get that upset at a group of people, not just certain individuals. I know it's about generalizing past experiences to similar stimuli (lol people are stimuli), but since I'm not at that stage of life where the anger lingers outwards to others instead of the internal questioning to understand and eliminate the maladaptive behaviors, I would like to be reminded of how the thought process works and 'evolves'.
Why and how could a person be so emotionally damaged that they develop and believe these stereotypes? There are numerous paths to being: there's the genetic factor that is activated by environment, there is the cultural path where certain cultures have such inherent beliefs that stereotypes can be taught as normal ways of seeing the world (and it can go unquestioned an entire life), illusory causation--there's the conditioned views where someone of a certain group mistreats you and over time you believe this to be true, so when it happens again it confirms your belief even though 99.9% of people in that same group have been kind to you in this lifetime. 99.9% yes, I exaggerate. I mean, it can develop in a bajillion methods. Who really knows? I'd like to post a child's and Early Child Development's definition of fair, though.
For children, fair means: Everyone gets the same.
For Human Development and ECE: Everyone gets what he or she needs.
I've truly come to understand this only through working with children with special needs. Some kids will need more time to develop their motor skills if they live in a neighborhood where parks aren't safe to play in, or if parents are in low SES where they need to work constantly so their children have no time to go outside. Other kids will be fine because they have access to more. I think this can be applied to adults with understanding that we're not equal in terms of what is fair. If a religious group has a holiday during the work week, good for them! An extra day off, but sometimes it would be nice to respond instead of reacting to others getting something you wish you had. I understand the calendar year is too short to acknowledge all holidays, but I don't know if most people want to have a day of repent instead of work if it weren't a tradition.
I acknowledge that it's a burden for others to work 150% when coworkers are off, but I would also like to see a movement towards understanding as well.
Why and how could a person be so emotionally damaged that they develop and believe these stereotypes? There are numerous paths to being: there's the genetic factor that is activated by environment, there is the cultural path where certain cultures have such inherent beliefs that stereotypes can be taught as normal ways of seeing the world (and it can go unquestioned an entire life), illusory causation--there's the conditioned views where someone of a certain group mistreats you and over time you believe this to be true, so when it happens again it confirms your belief even though 99.9% of people in that same group have been kind to you in this lifetime. 99.9% yes, I exaggerate. I mean, it can develop in a bajillion methods. Who really knows? I'd like to post a child's and Early Child Development's definition of fair, though.
For children, fair means: Everyone gets the same.
For Human Development and ECE: Everyone gets what he or she needs.
I've truly come to understand this only through working with children with special needs. Some kids will need more time to develop their motor skills if they live in a neighborhood where parks aren't safe to play in, or if parents are in low SES where they need to work constantly so their children have no time to go outside. Other kids will be fine because they have access to more. I think this can be applied to adults with understanding that we're not equal in terms of what is fair. If a religious group has a holiday during the work week, good for them! An extra day off, but sometimes it would be nice to respond instead of reacting to others getting something you wish you had. I understand the calendar year is too short to acknowledge all holidays, but I don't know if most people want to have a day of repent instead of work if it weren't a tradition.
I acknowledge that it's a burden for others to work 150% when coworkers are off, but I would also like to see a movement towards understanding as well.
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