Student 32

Homemade Covid mask:

When the COVID-19 pandemic first set in, I was 14 years old, and knew next to nothing about viruses or pandemics. The image above shows one of the cloth masks I made with my mom out of a bedsheet in the first few weeks of quarantine. For me, this represents the desire for action in the face of the pandemic that was common in those early days, as well as a sense of community that emerged as people taught each other new skills online and showed their support for the vulnerable population by leaving quality store bought masks for them.

As a product of the pandemic, I gained a massive amount of knowledge in a relatively short period of time. In addition to the biomedical knowledge we all learned in those days, for the first time in my life I learned how fragile human life is. In this way, the item answers the IA prompt by showing how new knowledge can rewrite our understanding of and interaction with the world around us. By making the mask, I not only applied my newfound knowledge about viruses, but was spurred into action by a shift in my values to be more community oriented and aware of those around me.

However, the mask also represents the controversy around mask wearing that arose as a result of the political climate where I live. Whereas some people used their knowledge pertaining to the pandemic in order to support a community oriented worldview, others used the same knowledge to support conspiracy theories and political rhetoric. This challenged many peoples’ established beliefs by generating discussion around personal freedom versus net societal good, and forced many people to choose one side or the other as the topic became a nationwide hot topic. This demonstrates how new knowledge can be a catalyst for intense polarization of beliefs.

ASD diagnosis:

The above image is a screenshot of the diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder, which I received at the age of 16. This diagnosis led my family and I to reconsider my life through the lens of ASD, and drastically changed my perception of myself, which both challenged my own established beliefs and values and represents the broader changes in the beliefs and values of psychologists despite years of contrary ideas.

The knowledge that I’m autistic changed my values in that I now consider myself part of the disabled community, and as a result I’ve become more aware of broader disability issues. I’m more likely to consider a politician’s actions and policies towards disabled people, for example, especially on a local level, because the knowledge that this legislation impacts the daily lives of myself and my community. Thus, new knowledge can change our values by changing our personal interpretations of real life situations, regardless of how long we had perceived the world in a different way. This diagnosis also challenged my acceptance of society as being inaccessible to disabled people. The knowledge that I am autistic has led me to the belief that society should and can be changed to accommodate autistic people, whereas before it wasn’t something I had given much thought to.

The image also represents the rapidly changing perception of autism, both in the public and in the medical field. Until recently, many professionals had only conducted studies of how autism presents in white men, who typically have higher support needs and fit into a more stereotypical presentation of the disorder. The diagnosis above demonstrates how new research and perspectives can change long established beliefs and culminate in real change. That a well performing, socially active young woman was able to receive that diagnosis proves how new knowledge can rewrite norms, even when they are based on ideas as deeply rooted in society as misogyny and stereotypes of autistic people.

Dairy queen hat:

Finally, the hat in the image above was part of my uniform for my first ever job as a crew member at Dairy Queen. The hat represents the knowledge I gained through this experience, both in the form of job specific skills and a broader understanding of a key element of life in today’s society, which significantly changed my beliefs and values around work and the food service industry.

The hat shows how new experiences can change our beliefs and values by adding a new lens through which to view the world. When I experienced what it was like to work for hourly pay, I began to value my time and money in a way that I never had before. The ten dollars that would previously have been birthday money or for some odd chore now had the specific value of one hour of my time. In this way, the object addresses the prompt by showing how new knowledge can change our perception of everyday elements of our lives. It also led me to value the workers at places where I am a customer much more, because I now know what it’s like to work those kinds of jobs.

Additionally, my time at Dairy Queen challenged my beliefs about food service. I had held an image of working at a restaurant as being efficient, performing the same task repeatedly, and being very clean and well organized in order to maintain safety standards. However, this job drastically challenged this notion. It was messy, poorly managed, and chaotic. The hat is synecdochal for a job that completely contradicted my preexisting beliefs about the food I had been eating my whole life. Despite having trusted food without thinking much about it when I was younger, I no longer believe that food is safe without questioning its origins.