Conformity and How It Influences Our Education Sytem.

The Passion Project by Skye Ontiverous makes an emphasis on the concept of people conforming to societies expectations instead of fulfilling their true passion. The Narrator of The Passion Project states, “And how gladly we succumb to the hatchet of conformity splitting passion from heart “(Ontiverous, 4). This act of conformation is seen everywhere in our education systems. Our education system is exerting a push towards the expectations of our society. For example many schools are getting rid of their art programs because it is looked down upon for students to strive to be singers, actors, dancers, and directors instead of lawyers and doctors. This extreme push in behaviors is rational conformity. According to Guandong Song, Qinhai Ma, FangFei Wu, and Lin Li’s The Psychological Explanation of Conformity, “Rational conformity is behavior guided by thinking, judgment, or reasoning. It occurs as a result of the influences exerted by the object’s behavior or attitude and includes abidance, compliance, and obedience”. Our education is the subject being influenced by the object; in this case the higher power is society. The actions and decisions made in the education system may seem reasonable because they are thinking and reasoning but the heavy influence of societies behavior forces them to abide, comply, and obey to make more doctors and lawyers. The education system abides to society “to understand and take action” (Song, Ma, Wu and Li, 6). Educators need to understand the reality in society in order to be followed and respected as an authority figure. The education system complies with society in order to “meet expectations” (Song, Ma, Wu and Li, 6). Because society is the higher power the education system will comply simply to follow the norm. If the education system enforced following ones passion even if it is a dead end job with bad pay then they would be rebelled against by our current society. For example majority of the people familiar with the San Lorenzo school district would rather send their kids to Arroyo High School (where the education surrounds medicine, technology, engineering, and leadership) instead of East Bay Arts (where the education emphasizes on performing arts). The education system obeys “to seek rewards and avoid punishment”. The ultimate goal of the education system is to gain money and power. In order to do this you need societies support. This combination of abidance, compliance and obedience can be detrimental to society, because it is destroying the definition of independence and freedom. It will be the end of independent thinkers like Galileo Galilei, the man who went against societies beliefs and proved that the sun was the center of the universe, and it will be the start to a blind society full of followers.