Stereotypes are a social malevolence affecting our lives on day-to-day basis.
Whether directly or indirectly, we all have faced stereotypes at least once in our lives. Unfortunately for some, facing stereotypes is a routine encounter.
"Webster's Dictionary" defines a stereotype as "a conventional formulaic and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image."
From a young age, we have learned to accept stereotypes about groups of people or individuals. It is probably the influence of the environment that forces us to abide by a common social standard.
"Stereotypes are social groups that you are placed into by others," says Mary Davis, an 18-year-old senior at Eisenhower High School. She says she feels that labeling people makes them feel like they have to change in order to belong in a certain group.
Rose Davis, Mary's sister, calls stereotypes "classifications of groups of people that affect students' social lives.
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Rose is also an 18-year-old senior. She attends Selah High School. Due to stereotypes, she says, "people feel like they can't be individuals.
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To help fight stereotypes, Rose says her high school should hold more "mixers," in which students sit with different people at lunch and "mix it up."
She says she feels the ASB at her school has helped by trying to include everyone in school assemblies. During assemblies, many different people are called on stage, not only the "popular" crowd, she says.
Stereotypes affect the way we think and feel toward others. They give us a general statement about different groups, so when we see someone who has been given a particular label, we know what to expect and how to act toward them. We don't allow ourselves to make fair judgments.
In other words, we take shortcuts to knowing people.
As Mary Davis sees it, stereotypes "affect the self-esteem of many students, and create the feeling of having to fit in an unrealistic group."
Recently, I administered a survey to a West Valley High School classroom of sophomores and juniors.
In this survey, 92 percent of the 30 students who participated replied they think stereotypes shouldn't be kept in the school atmosphere.
Labeling people or judging them is a natural human inclination. But the worst part is when people make assumptions about people they don't know.
"Many people don't know that I am willing to help anyone in need because they don't take the time to know me better," Mary Davis says. "People are placed in these groups by the first impression that they make toward others."
Dilpreet Randhawa, a 13-year-old eighth-grader at East Valley Central, says some of her friends are given stereotypes such as "nerds" or "populars.
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"People don't really know how I feel when others are stereotyped," she says. "I get really mad."
These undesired labels can be changed if we, as a community, come into the habit of familiarizing ourselves with different groups.
Reina Almon, a 15-year-old freshman at West Valley Junior High, says to overcome stereotypes, "we must set personal goals in order to change our outlook on people."
Reina says stereotyping is a big problem, and many people get labeled based upon their looks. Sometimes Reina says she feels people judge her based solely on her looks, without getting to know her personality.
We all know that famous saying: "Don't judge a book by its cover." It mainly says before you judge people, you need to get more information about them. Appearance doesn't always state the truth about someone or something as we can't always know a person from what we see on the surface.
At West Valley High School at least once a year, the tables in the cafeteria are labeled with the 12 months of the year and students are told to sit at the table with the month in which they were born. This great method allows students to sit with a new group of people and, for at least one day, get to know what it is like in their shoes. It is a wonderful attempt to discourage stereotypes in schools.
At Wilson Middle School, students in some classes do questionnaires about their personalities and attitudes toward various topics. The questions mainly focus on favorite hobbies and food in order to find common interests among classmates. The students then share their questionnaires with the rest of the class so other people can learn a little bit about them.
This process allows students to get to know their classmates a little better and look past their physical appearance.
In general, we should not victimize people with our stereotypical thinking. We should realize unwanted, undesirable terms evoke fear and discomfort, which result in continuous "stereotypicalism.
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* Asra Mazhar attends West Valley High School.
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