U.S. HistoryMy second semester of Junior year I had U.S. history. We focused on progressivism and its origins and evolution throughout history. At the end of the semester we culminated what we learned and channeled it into a project to solve or improve a social issue we were passionate about. This project was affectionately named The Progressive Challenge!
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The Progressive Challenge
Our progressive challenge focused on the issue of cyber bullying. Our campaign was to help combat the issue by providing support for victims. We created an Instagram account named dont.be.a.bystander and created support posts and also planned t-shirts and a full campaign to work alongside our social media account.
What Does it Mean to be Progressive?
Being progressive to me is advocating for social change. The name itself is based on progress and moving forward. More freedoms and the ability for everyone to be happy with who/where they are. I want to put forth advancements to improve conditions for everyone.
Why did I Choose This Issue?
I selected this issue on the premise of bullying. I've been bullied in the past and the means bullies can use to inflict harm has evolved. I wanted to make an effort to combat the issue and this was the best opportunity yet!
Being progressive to me is advocating for social change. The name itself is based on progress and moving forward. More freedoms and the ability for everyone to be happy with who/where they are. I want to put forth advancements to improve conditions for everyone.
Why did I Choose This Issue?
I selected this issue on the premise of bullying. I've been bullied in the past and the means bullies can use to inflict harm has evolved. I wanted to make an effort to combat the issue and this was the best opportunity yet!
Project Process: Stanford Design Thinking
During the project we used a design process developed by Stanford to aid in brainstorming, prototyping, and ultimately testing a solution for a problem. This began with understanding the problem
Empathize and Define
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Human Centered Problem
We noticed that the most prominent issues turned out to be the parent/student relationship, unrestricted internet access, and lack of adult supervision. These are the primary factors that contribute to cyber bullying.
"the relationship with parents for both the bully and the victim has a great impact on the insecurities and psychological issues that they develop based on these experiences."
Immersion Experience
To better understand the issue, we ran a simulation of cyber bullying and tried to avoid hateful text messages. It proved rather difficult considering the notifications are designed to be noticeable. We also watched the movie Cyberbully to help understand the issue.
We noticed that the most prominent issues turned out to be the parent/student relationship, unrestricted internet access, and lack of adult supervision. These are the primary factors that contribute to cyber bullying.
"the relationship with parents for both the bully and the victim has a great impact on the insecurities and psychological issues that they develop based on these experiences."
Immersion Experience
To better understand the issue, we ran a simulation of cyber bullying and tried to avoid hateful text messages. It proved rather difficult considering the notifications are designed to be noticeable. We also watched the movie Cyberbully to help understand the issue.
Presentation Slides:
Ideate
During this phase we were primarily throwing around all kinds of ideas and seeing what stuck. No tangible prototypes or concrete ideas were made until the next phase which was prototyping.
Prototyping
This is where we finally created our Instagram page. During this stage our ideas really began to take shape and became what would later be our final product.
Testing
Finally towards the end of the project we went out and tested our prototype. This included promoting our Instagram page and running social experiments to see how normal people responded to cyberbullying scenarios..
Reflections on Progressive Day:
I think the day went well, overall we gained a lot of followers but also garnered some responses during the social experiment portion of the day. When we played out the scenario of us acting like cyberbullies we got looks from people and after asking them why they didn’t confront us we learned that there is still a lot of hesitance when getting involved in stopping cyberbullying. I’m glad that we gained more publicity as a page but also learned both in the form of feedback and through our experiments.
Feedback and Improvements:
I think the day went well, overall we gained a lot of followers but also garnered some responses during the social experiment portion of the day. When we played out the scenario of us acting like cyberbullies we got looks from people and after asking them why they didn’t confront us we learned that there is still a lot of hesitance when getting involved in stopping cyberbullying. I’m glad that we gained more publicity as a page but also learned both in the form of feedback and through our experiments.
Feedback and Improvements:
Exhibition
Looking Back
Looking back at the project only now do I realize the impact we left on the community. It may not be the biggest or the most popular but we did leave an impact on at least one persons life. The fact that our page actually brought in traffic and ended up helping a person cope with their bullying story was incredibly powerful. We faced challenges, thinking of ways to market something existing only online and how to reach people through nothing but an Instagram page wasn’t necessarily easy. We overcame our challenges with clever thinking and collaboration. We knew that there was more to a support page than just posting inspirational quotes. So we began creating outreach posts that would encourage people to contact us. That is what I appreciated most about the project. Creating thoughtful posts knowing that it could help someone is what kept me going. Initially it was difficult to see that reality but once we had actually gotten a response from someone that actually needed the support it became a driving factor in our project. This project contributed to our understanding of progressivism but even from an academic standpoint the movement dates back generations. Fighting for things as simple as quality food or better living and working conditions. Without this class I would have never known the strides we took in improving the human condition. I think our project overall left a mark in the community. There aren't a lot of support pages around and I’m proud to say that we created one. If I had to change anything it would be making a consistent style or posting more frequently. That way we can reach more people.