This document discusses different perspectives and how gaining new perspectives can lead to personal and intellectual growth. It provides exercises to draw objects from different visual perspectives and considers how perspectives can become distorted or limited. The key ideas are that expanding one's perspectives through activities like radical thinking, creativity, introspection, and considering relationships and legacy can help influence others positively.
Can you identify the subject of this photo? What you are looking at is the Eiffel Tower.
If I was to ask everyone in this room, “Can you draw a perfect square?” How many of you think you could draw a perfect square? …none of you. So if I were to ask you to draw a perfect “cube,” which has 6 time as many squares, would it be at least 6 times as unlikely that you could draw a perfect cube? Well, I have the distinct pleasure of helping you do something “perfectly” today. Join me as I guide you in drawing a perfect perspective of a cube.
(Pass out handouts with perspective exercises 1 & 2. Recommend passing out business cards also—to be used as a straight edge. Participants may also use business cards or other cards from their wallets or purses.)
At best, others people’s perspectives may be simply different. At worst, they might be invalid or inaccurate. However, gaining these perspectives helps us expand our understanding of the subject and how other people view the same “thing” or ideas as us. Effective negotiators do their best to understand the perspectives of the opposition. Mediators help to facilitate this understanding by opposing parties left intellectually blind by conflict.
At any point in this exercise that my directions are unclear, please ask questions.
How many
Perspective makes us smarter…but not just smarter. Perspective gives us intellectual gravity—the weight to add knowledge and understanding that those with limited perspective just don’t possess. Perspective does not exclude focus. For example, rather than focusing on the bull's-eye of a target, perspective enables a rifleman to look at a target from many angles, determine from where, how and when to shoot, and to consider additional alternatives and consequences. In our personal and professional lives, gaining the perspective others makes us better informed and helps us understand more comprehensively the topics in our lives.
Creatively change perspective through relationships with people, objects, time and events. For example, identifying with your students through play helps them relax and feel connected. Using Play-doh, with its ever-evident, nostalgic aroma takes students back immediately to a time and place where life was simpler and more secure. If you have high anxiety with new students, tests or conflict in the classroom, use Play-doh as a remedy that will immediately bring down that anxiety. What else might be used in a similar manner? Crayola crayons!!!
Carl Jung said that dreams helps us correct imbalances in our psyches.
Consider everyday what kind of legacy you will leave behind for your family, friends, and professional associates. Does you life matter? Are you making the world a little better place each day? How will you remembered?