The Process of Knowing and Its Roots in "Remember the Titans"
The movie Remember the Titans is the story of a town that learns to overcome the racial stereotypes of the time through the friendship and courage of a local high school football team.
I believe that the character Coach Yoast in Remember the Titans goes through a process of knowing troughout the movie. He begins as a Southern white football coach in an all white high school and is disrespectful to the newly arrived black athletes. Towards the end of the movie he becomes a loving almost father figure to the team especially to the black athletes.
The story begins when Coach Yoast has his job of head coach to the T.C. Williams high school football team taken away from him so that Herman Boone can coach. Coach Yoast is upset that the only reason he is becoming an assisstant coach is because the school and faculty is becoming integrated.
Coach Yoast PERCEIVES black students and teachers arriving at the school. He sees the hatred of the white parents towards the black students when he sees the riots outside of the school and he hears what the other assisstant coaches have to say about Coach Boone.
Coach Yoast takes all of this data and CATEGORIZES it. He views what he sees either as stereotypes and prejudices against black people or he sorts it as something in which agrees with and that he will partake in. Coach Yoast then EVALUATES the categories over an extended period of time. He is conflicted in the beggining because he wants to become the head coach and wants his assisstants to stay on the team. However, after practicing with the team in the preseason Coach Yoast becomes friends with the players and he treats them as equals. Caoch Yoast chooses to ignore the herd need of stereotypes and prejudices around him.
Coach Yoast then SYMBOLIZES his thoughts and ideas with his assisstant coaches. He tells his partner that he should stay because every school is becoming integrated, the boys are great, and that the team needs him. Coach Yoast also tries to smbolize his ideas to the players by treating them as equals, giving everyone equal opportunity to gain playing time, and by respecting all of the players for who they are. Once arriving back at school after training, Coach Yoast is TESTED. Besides the team, the rest of the school is chaos and the team becaomes unfaithful to each other and they begin to doubt one another. Coach Yoast begins to doubt in Coach Boone and his plays. Once the team plays well and begins to win they regain their friendship and trust.
The Process of Knowing
1.) Perceiving: is the collection of data using our senses. The subjective truth is that which we add our bias to while the objective truth is the reality of the situation.
2.) Categorizing: is the organization of all the information that we have perceived. Categorizing too quickly though, is hazardous and can cause stereotypes and prejudices to form.
3.) Evaluating: is the way our minds sift through the categories. We often follow the herd need, meaning we let others think for us, instead of making our own decisions.
4.) Symbolizing: is the way that we convey our thoughts to others. This includes the connotations and denotations of our ideas.
5.) Testing: is that we need to be open to others ideas in case our belief is incorrect or to justify our beliefs.