“It’s easy to stand in the crowd but it takes courage to stand alone.” Mahatma Gandhi – Peer Pressure

Transcript

Introduction: 0:00 

Hello, Steve and Dan Fouts here. We’re veteran educators from Illinois, who’ve created the Teach Different podcasts to model how to have unforgettable  conversations using a super simple three step protocol, and quotes from some of the world’s great thinkers. This protocol works with students of all ages and all types of classrooms, and can be used in online or face-to-face environments. So, if  you’re a teacher, administrator, social emotional learning specialist, or anybody who loves the art of conversations, you’ve come to the right place. Welcome! 

Dan Fouts: 0:37

Welcome everybody to the Teach Different Podcast this week. We have a  great quote from Mahatma Gandhi that we’re going to get into. He’s been a permanent fixture in a lot of our conversations with quotes on moral issues and forgiveness. The quote today is on peer pressure, which is going to  be really excellent. We have three guests today, all of whom, believe it or not, were students at the same high school. We didn’t plan on that, but it’s a pretty interesting coincidence. Our guests will introduce themselves when they start talking to weigh in on the quotation. 

The way this will work is that we’ll start with a quote, we’ll work on the claim of the quote, what Mahatma Gandhi is saying, make some curriculum connections, push against the claim, and then talk about a counterclaim.  A counterclaim is another way of looking at the quote that goes against the understood meaning. This is where these conversations come alive, when you have two different ideas that are equally reasonable meeting up against each other. We’ll end up with an essential question. 

Alright, here we go. The quote, “It’s easy to stand in the crowd but it takes courage to stand alone.” Who’d like to just jump in? What is Mahatma Gandhi saying here? 

Jim Plaza: 2:23 – Claim

My name is Jim Plaza. I’m a social studies teacher at Grayslake Central High School in my 12th year in the department. I’m currently teaching world history, sociology and current issues. But I have a variety of experience in other subject areas, too. When I read this quote, it immediately made me think of my sociology classes, the whole idea of groupthink and how individuals behave within a group setting. The way I interpreted the quote is that it’s very easy for us to go along with what the rest of the group is doing because there’s very little fear of retribution, since the group is telling you what you should do. But, it takes courage to be the one that says despite what everyone else is doing, I’m going to stand out on my own, and try something different. You’re kind of setting yourself up for ridicule and judgment, and maybe even persecution. The courage comes from standing up for what you believe in, despite what the crowd says and possible threats.

Paul Solarz: 3:22 

I’m Paul Solarz. I’m a retired fourth and fifth grade teacher from Arlington Heights and Mt. Prospect, Illinois. The way I took it was similar to Jim. But, I think about my fourth and fifth graders and how I really wanted them to become leaders in the classroom. I wanted them to think for themselves.  A lot of kids are raised where they pretty much do what they’re told to do, and they don’t always think for themselves. They sometimes rely on adults to do that for them. So I feel like the more we can teach kids to think for themselves, and not just do what everybody else is doing or what others expect them to do, is a valuable skill. For me, I’m taking it towards the leadership side, and the freewill independent thought perspective. 

Jason Janczak: 4:16 

Hi, I’m Jason Janczak. I’m the Social Studies department chair at Grayslake Central High School. This is year 20 for me up at Grayslake. I teach two sections of economics, which is part of the reason I love being a chair. I looked at the quote from a personal finance perspective. Our students are the most over-marketed to generation. Everybody wants them to spend money, spend money, spend money. It’s really easy to go along with that and spend as much money as you have, probably more money than you make, and get into this dangerous cycle of debt. It’s  really tough when you’re in your 20s and 30s, or even in your teens, to tell your friends that you don’t want to go out because you don’t have the money. Not having the money is kind of uncool. I’m gonna elaborate on that a little bit later. But that’s where I took it. The decisions and long term implications of your financial life from this quote and the impact these decisions could or could not have on your life moving forward. 

Steve Fouts: 5:17 

This is Steve. I appreciate everybody’s take on the quote. I think that it is making the community versus individual distinction. I’m imagining that in a classroom I would circle the word “stand” and really go deep on that.  What does it mean to stand for something?  When you stand alone, or you stand in a crowd, how is that different?  Taking that word courage, and deciding which way do you really want to go, and what is Gandhi saying here? It does seem straightforward. It’s easy to be with the group, but it’s hard to be alone, for whatever reasons. 

Paul Solarz: 6:22

It really connects with one of the things we’ve talked a lot about in our classroom, being a bystander versus being an upstander. I thought this would be a good time to just mention it. Most of us know what bystanders do, they sit and they watch what’s happening, and they’re basically an inactive participant in the process, maybe an observer. Whereas, an upstander might see something going wrong, and take on the leadership role to fix the problem. 

In our classroom, we talk about the ways that you can be an upstander, that’s still socially appropriate, when you see something bad happening to someone or something. Doing something that’s not going to get you into trouble, but making sure you defend the defenseless or help others. We talk about it in terms of bullying, or defacing property. 

There are two videos that I show my kids that I highly recommend. If you search YouTube for “Burger King bullying,” you’ll see a PSA that’s about three minutes long showing how certain kids are bullying this one boy in the Burger King restaurant, but nobody’s doing anything about it. They’re actors that are bullying this kid, but the people in the restaurant are real. Then in the back, where the people order burgers, the workers in Burger King beat up the burgers before they give them to the people. All the people report that their burger has been destroyed, but nobody tries to do anything about helping the kid who’s being bullied until near the end. You might want to watch that with your kids. It’s pretty awesome. And then the first follower dancing guy, I think a lot of the adults have seen that one. The idea here is being the second follower. Noticing that somebody took the upstander position, and now I need to support the upstander instead of continuing to be a bystander. I’ll let other people chime in, but those are the first thoughts I had with stand. 

Jason Janczak: 8:36

I want to take that one step further, Paul. I love the idea of looking at it from a personal finance, economics perspective. You may be standing alone now by not going out, by investing in yourself, by going against that over marketed mindset that this generation has, but later you’re going to be somebody that others look up to because you’ve invested in yourself,  you’ll be out of debt, and you’ll have a good financial mindset. You can change other people’s minds through your actions, to follow up with the video. You may be standing alone now, but what are the long term implications of standing alone? Then you kind of flesh out the discussion from there. 

Dan Fouts: 9:24 

It must be a challenge, Jason, to get kids to see the future, to believe that the future has something in store for them, that there are rewards that  they don’t see today.  That’s a challenge. 

Jason Janczak: 9:38 

Yeah, absolutely. You can run as many calculators as you want and say, if you start saving now, you’re going to have X number of millions of dollars  when you retire. That’s great when I’m 65, but when the girl thinks I’m cute  because I’m wearing this pair of shoes, or my friends are making fun of me because my clothes aren’t top of the line, that matters more to the kid now than that three or four million dollars they may have when they retire. It’s a tough  paradigm shift for sure. 

Steve Fouts: 10:07 

I don’t know if anyone read this into the quote, and I’m wondering how students might react to the phrase, “it’s easy to stand in the crowd.” When I first read it, I was picturing a crowd and someone standing with everyone looking at them. Then it says it takes courage to stand alone where there’s no one around? Did anyone read that into the phrase, stand in the crowd? This idea that you’re actually being looked up to by the crowd. 

Jim Plaza: 10:50 

I actually brought that up when I was thinking about the counterclaim. It also takes courage to stand up within the crowd, to be that person other people look up to and follow the example of. It’s not easy for a lot of students to stand up within a crowd if to stand means taking an active role within the group. I think part of it, too, is having the courage to see the good things that groups of people are doing and to have the courage to stand with them as they continue to try to improve things or make lasting positive impacts. 

Steve Fouts: 11:29 

Exactly. It takes courage to be part of a group, to follow it, and be with others who believe in the same thing. Paul, that sounds a little bit like  what you were saying about being an upstander. When the first person puts themselves out there, to choose to follow that person is something that’s important as well. Standing alone after someone has tried to stop a  bully might not be the most courageous thing. You might need some courage to join what you know is something good, if that makes sense. 

Paul Solarz: 12:16 

Yeah, that’s definitely true for my fourth and fifth graders. They may have had bad experiences in the past trying to be the kid that says, hey, stop it. It’s about teaching them socially appropriate ways of doing it. It doesn’t always have to be public, it can be private. For fourth and fifth graders, it’s just a different experience. I think most of you have high school kids, and they have a different mindset. Younger kids have been taught to mind their own business, to quit worrying about other people. That’s the opposite of what I do. I say, mind your own business plus the business of others, but not to judge them. You’re doing it to help and to be an important member of their friendship group. 

Jim Plaza: 13:06 

Piggybacking off that and sociology, we’ve been focused the last several  years on service learning opportunities, and having students use their unique ideas and talents to learn about major social issues, to  act upon them, and then do something about them. I think the goal of those types of things is that while you may be standing alone at first, like many of you were saying earlier, the goal is to get other people to join you and to stand up with you as a group. As a group, in those situations, you are more powerful than you are as an individual. Having the courage to be the first person to stand alone, but also having the courage to stand with others with the same goals is certainly part of that. Even kids with service learning opportunities have different ideas, but they’re all standing together with the goal of improving something and making life better for some people. I think that’s certainly part of it, too. 

Dan Fouts: 14:05 

So you’re saying, Jim, that it takes a different kind of courage to do something as a group towards a collective effort? It’s a different kind of courage?

Jim Plaza: 14:14

Absolutely. I believe, and I tell the students this all the time, even the girls that I coach in sports, there’s a time to lead and a time to follow. It’s a skill to know when that’s necessary. If everyone is in a group, and everyone’s trying to be a leader, and everyone’s trying to lead the group in their own way, that’s not productive either. It takes courage to say, I’m going to give of myself as an individual to the group’s goals. 

Paul Solarz: 14:43 

Jim, can I build on that? You mentioned followers and leaders. We work hard during our school year to have a silent day. A silent day is where the teacher doesn’t talk for the entire school day. The lessons are on the board and the books and materials that the students need are out. The students basically act as substitute teachers. It’s towards the end of the year, and I’m trying to build leadership qualities in them for the most of the year. But, the week or two prior to the silent day is mostly based on not building up their leadership skills, but building up their following skills. 

I tell them, now here’s what’s going to happen if we’re not careful. All of you have learned how to become leaders, and now you’re going to look at the next lesson and decide what to do and when to do it. It’s going to become a battle of people thinking how novel this day is, how fun it is, and you all want to be the leader, but that’s not what needs to happen. You need to figure out how you can have a small leadership role throughout the day, but also be a really good follower. If somebody comes up with an idea that’s different from yours, and you think that yours is better, you can ask yourself, is my idea better than theirs? Is their idea good enough for us to go with rather than challenging it constantly? That’s a hard thing for kids to do. They all want to say, well, instead of that, let’s do this. But the reality is that the other person’s idea might be just as good or even better, or it could be worse. But is it so much worse that it needs to be done your way? That whole conversation is actually quite enjoyable with the kids, because, in my mind, teaching them to be a good follower is just as critical as being a good leader. 

Steve Fouts: 16:29 

Paul, that is so interesting. I’m going to condense a story here of a student that I had back in the late 90s. This was when I was  teaching at a high school on the west side of Chicago, underserved neighborhoods with housing projects right by the school. The school had a bad reputation for having gang problems and the kind of problems that come with underserved neighborhoods. There was a student who was a leader of one of the major gangs at the school, and he’s a story in and of himself. He is now a principal of a high school in Mississippi!  He completely transformed his entire life. I remember asking him once, what does it take to be a leader? I wanted him to just share his perspective, because he was very smart and I always respected him. And Paul, he said, you have  to be a good follower. Isn’t that true? That was it, so anyway, you made me think of that, and I never really thought of this quote. You know, we picked peer pressure, but I think leadership is also a theme here that I didn’t even think about until this conversation. I agree with what you say a counterclaim is, which we’ve kind of addressed a little bit already. Is there  a different perspective on this quote that you can articulate in some way? Does it take more courage to be with a group? Is it easy to stand alone sometimes, because you don’t want to work with other people? You don’t want to talk to people you disagree with. You don’t want to put yourself  out there and compromise. I’m trying to think of what a counterclaim to this would be. I’d love to know everyone’s thoughts. 

Jason Janczak: 18:55 – Counterclaim

I had a hard time coming up with a counterclaim. The question I came up with was, what would be the subject for you to stand alone when the crowd is doing something else? I get into that idea of a character question. Where is your line in the sand where you decide that it’s easier to stand alone in this situation, or in another situation? That’s what I kept coming back to, because I couldn’t really come up with a counterclaim, or a precisely worded counterclaim. I wanted to turn it back to the kids and say, where do you draw the line in the sand? 

Jim Plaza: 19:34 

I think peer pressure is often presented to young people as a negative influence where you want to avoid it or watch out for it. But, I truly believe peer pressure can be a positive force. I took my counterclaim as more cutting edge, going against the assumption that peer pressure is a negative thing, and that being part of a group and working with a group can lead to good health. It can build self confidence if people are picking you up and helping you out with your goals. I took the counterclaim as almost needing a certain level of peer pressure in order to develop and be a teammate. To be a good leader you have to be pushed and influenced by other people around you. My counterclaim took more of a positive view on peer pressure. 

Dan Fouts: 20:25 

Jim, I think I took it the same way, that peer pressure can be a really good thing. In a conversation in class, I would ask the students if there is any positive peer pressure in a well functioning classroom? Hopefully, they’ve come to the realization that these students are listening, and they’ve developed this respect with the teacher, and therefore, I kind of want to buy into that. I’m not going to stand alone and expect different things from the teacher. I’m going to play along with the rules, respect the teacher and other students, and reap the same rewards. Peer pressure is a good thing. That’s kind of how I took it as well. 

Paul Solarz: 21:17

My perspective was as a teacher working on a team. I was always the teacher that wanted to try new things. I always wanted to be progressive, and at least see if the new things could work, rather than just doing it the old way because we’ve always done it that way forever. In team meetings, I always felt like I needed to stand alone, at first, to make sure I could get my thoughts and ideas across to everybody. Of course, I wanted to hear their ideas as well. My belief was that as long as I’ve been heard, I don’t mind being outvoted. I don’t mind being a team player. For me, it was a timing thing. You might stand alone at certain times, but know when to back down. You don’t want to be the contrarian, or the negative one. Throughout my time as a teacher I was hoping to try to get us to do some things differently. If we all have to do the same thing, then I’d like to be able to do some new things, but I also knew that it was important to back down and either do it by myself, or do what the team thought we needed to do. I took it as a timing thing. There are times when you stand and there are times when you need to back down. 

Steve Fouts: 22:40 

Paul, that makes me think of a wonderful question. I know, Dan, we have an essential question we came up with for this, but what’s coming to my mind after this conversation is a question that you could pose to the kids, how do you know when you should lead or follow? That’s what comes to mind for me. 

Dan Fouts: 23:03 

Yeah, if you take the leadership angle to this. 

Paul Solarz: 23:09 

That truly is the essential question for our classroom. It’s not about academics first, it’s about the whole child first. When do you do something freely on your own without permission versus when do you just have to sit back and go with the flow. In our classroom, it’s all about when you lead. Well, it’s two minutes before we’re supposed to be at music, and nobody’s noticed. It’s time to lead. Hey, it’s time to clean up, let’s get ready for music. There are other triggers that determine when it’s time to lead and time to follow. That’s hard for a nine or ten year old to figure out, but you’d be surprised, they do it. I think if we start to teach them when they’re young, just imagine what they’d be like in high school. They will have already gotten through all the learning and growing pains, and made their mistakes. They might be pretty confident leaders at that point, which a lot of them are, but you can imagine more of them. 

Dan Fouts: 24:13 

It would have been great to have your students, Paul. That’s a fantastic perspective. I was just having this funny moment alone here thinking about a teacher meeting. We need these skills. I mean, in a teacher meeting you have fifteen teachers who all want to stand alone. Nobody wants to conform. So, I think as a group, teachers struggle with this leadership thing, just as much as kids do. I don’t know. I hope you guys agree with me on that. 

Jim Plaza: 24:52 

100%. I think teachers can be the worst students sometimes, and that’s a great example. I was trying to make a  world history connection with this quote. I was taking this quote from a very sociological perspective, a deviance/conformity type of mindset, and thinking, when you ask, when is it time to lead, and when is it time to follow. I think starting units in world history with these larger questions and trying to get students to be in the same mindset as some of the leaders or some of the people they’re learning about in history. I think that brings them closer to the content. People look at World War II as a great example of world leaders watching another world leader and having to decide whether they’re going to let this Hitler guy do what he wants. Who has the courage to stand alone and say, no we’re not gonna stand for this? I think when you ask students these questions at the beginning of a unit, or when you’re introducing a topic in a history class, it puts them in the mindset of those historical people. I think a lot of times there’s a disconnect in history, that these are people who lived a long time ago, in totally different situations, who thought totally differently than I do. But, when you present the question that way, I think the students realize that the historical leaders were grappling with the same question then that the students are now. I think this is a great way to start off a discussion in a history class. 

Paul Solarz: 26:27 

I totally agree, Jim. That’s extremely vital. My connection was with politicians. I’m guessing with you guys too. I’m coming from a non-social studies background, but I do teach the constitution, and government in a fifth grade unit, and we learn a lot about the common good versus personal interests. In our classroom, we talk about being elected to fill a position doesn’t mean you get to do everything you want to do. You have  to think about your constituents, you have to think about the people you represent, and as a president, you have to think about the whole country. Just the idea that you might want to stand alone and get this one bill passed may be something that you want, but if it’s not what the majority of your constituents’ want, then it might not be the best thing to do. I took it that way, and I also thought  about how these days most politicians don’t stand out against  their party lines. I just feel like the party system is a whole other discussion. I’m not smart enough to know how to talk about that to the same degree as you guys, but I think it’s time for some people to stand out against party lines, both Democrats and Republicans. They should decide that they’re not going to vote the party line all the time just  because they always have. I know that there’s power in numbers, but at some point we need to stand up for what we think is right. Occasionally people have done it, and it’s gone poorly, and other times it’s gone well. I think it’s a good discussion to have about the idea of change, what matters, and what is best for others. 

Dan Fouts: 28:08 

Well said. As a government teacher, I think that those connections are spot on as being really important. This could be a conversation at the beginning of a unit on political parties, or at the beginning of a unit on the constitutional foundations, depending on where you’d want to go. 

Steve Fouts: 28:27 

The only thing I would add, depending on the age of the student, is to ask them when they’ve felt like they’ve had to stand alone, when they said something or believed in something that people didn’t agree with. I think that would be a rich conversation that would get some kids engaged. I don’t know how everybody else feels about that. 

Dan Fouts: 28:56 – Essential Question

Yeah, and then as Jim said, once you have them having their own visceral experiences, then world history makes sense all of a sudden, and government makes sense, and economics. They can place themselves in the curriculum as struggling with some of the same dilemmas. 

Okay, this was wonderful. Mahatma Gandhi’s quote, “it’s easy to stand  in the crowd, but it takes courage to stand alone.” We got some good mileage out of this one and really pursued it from a lot of different angles. I love the fact that we saw it from an economics, sociological, World History, and government perspective, and then from an elementary school perspective as well. That is what’s beautiful about this theme of peer pressure or leadership, it can be addressed at any age and in most every subject area. That’s fantastic. So here’s an essential question to wrap things up. Here’s another one you can put in your bag of tricks. When is going against the crowd the right thing to do. This takes a moral slant to the quote. Well, thank you so much, Jim, Jason and Paul. We really appreciate you coming on the show and best of luck in all your endeavors.  

Postscript: 30:28 

Thanks everybody. We hope you’re walking away feeling energized by some great ideas, and are confident that conversations like this are possible. It’s just a little bit of planning and a three step routine. Make sure you go to our Conversation Library to try out some conversations. Don’t forget to Teach Different with conversations and make a difference every day.