Session 8: Perspectives

Goals:

•  To demonstrate the need to listen to many different sides of a story

•  To engage the students in the process of critical thinking

 

 

Objectives:

•  Students will learn to analyze and reconstruct a situation

•  Students will piece together several different descriptions of a conflict, to arrive at a general idea of what happened

 

Materials Needed:

q       Optical Illusions Sheet from fun pack

q       Putting It Together: role cards

 

 

Methods:

 

I.                    Review of Last Session

II.                 Opening activity: Optical Illusions

III.               Putting it Together: What Happened in Room 619?

IV.              Discussion

 

 

Lesson Plan

 

I.                   Review of Last Session

 

II.        Opening Activity: Optical Illusions

Present the optical illusions distributed to the students over winter break.  Discuss the fact that there are many different ways of looking at these objects, and explain that different people see different things.  Introduce the notion that people perceive events differently, just as they perceive the optical illusions differently.  Explain that during today’s lesson, the students will work to combine different perceptions of a conflict into one general description, which they can use to determine how to respond to a conflict.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I.                   Putting It Together: What Happened in Room 619?

 

*Note to teachers:  it is very helpful to copy the entire page of “clues”/statements from the appendix section to give to your students so that the ones who aren’t reading them can read along.  It also helps to have the sheet in front of them when kids are reviewing what was said.

Instructions

 

A.     Read aloud (or have the students read aloud) the following scenario:

 

Room 619, a classroom of fifth graders, is learning about division.  Ms. Alcott writes a really hard problem up on the board.  Just as she starts to explain it, the school secretary, Mr. Twain, interrupts the lesson to tell Ms. Alcott that she has a very important phone call in the office.  He says that she has to take it right away, but that he also has to return to the office.  Ms. Alcott decides to leave Jason in charge of the class while she is gone.  She tells the class to keep working on the math problem until she comes back.

 

While Ms. Alcott is walking back to her classroom, she hears a lot of noise coming from Room 619.  When she opens the door to the classroom, the floor is covered with paper airplanes.  Most of the students are sitting down, except for Tom and Cassie. Tom is holding crumpled airplanes, and Cassie is standing at the back of the room.

 

Ms. Alcott has asked the principal, Mr. Faulkner, to help her figure out what happened while she was gone.  Mr. Faulkner is asking six people to come into his office to tell him what happened.

 

B.     Distribute the six character statements to six different students.  Write a list of the characters’ names on the board.

 

C.     Tell the rest of the class that they will be acting as Mr. Faulkner, and that they should listen carefully to what each of the six people tells them.

 

D.     Ask the six “characters” to read their statements aloud before the class.  You may want to stop after each statement to summarize what the character has or has not said, and to brainstorm questions that Mr. Faulkner should ask of each person.

 

 

IV.       Discussion of What Happened in Room 619

 

*Note to teachers:  All of the students and the teacher could be telling the truth.  There is no right answer to who started it and that is the point:  that everyone has a different perspective on the situation and all of them can be right, even though they are slightly different.

 

1.      Has anyone offered you a complete explanation of what happened in Room 619?

 

2.      Which of the six people are most able to describe what happened? (Students who were actually in the classroom)

 

3.      Which of the six people can only make guesses about what happened? (Ms. Alcott and Mr. Sweeney)

 

4.      Do you believe everyone’s story?  Is it possible that anyone is not telling the truth?  What might be their reasons for not telling the truth?  (i.e. Jason doesn’t like to rat on people, Cassie always gets in trouble in class)

 

5.      Based on what these six people told you, can you figure out what happened in Room 619?  How?

•  What are the facts that you have heard?

•  Which facts did you hear about from more than one person?

•  Did anyone say something that contradicted what someone else said?  If so, how can you

resolve this?

•  Who threw the first paper airplane?

•  Why were Cassie and Tom out of their seats?

•  What was Jason’s role in the situation?

 

6.      As the principal, do you think that you have a clear enough picture of what happened?  How should you respond?  (What kinds of actions should you take?)

 

7.      Pick one of the six stories.  If you had only heard this story, and not the others, how would you respond as the principal?  (i.e. if you had only heard Mr. Sweeney’s story, you would probably have given Cassie a detention.) 

 

8.      Think of a time when you heard many different stories about the same event.  How did you decide what had happened?  Did you end up picking one story over another?  How did your decision affect how you responded?

 

9.      Are there situations in which everyone might perceive an event in the same way?  Are there times when you don’t need to hear everyone’s story?

 

 

 

Optional, if you have time:

V.        Closing Activity:  Reflection

 

Ask students to take out a piece of paper.  Given then five to ten minutes (depending on the time remaining in the class period) to write about a time when they heard different versions of the same story like what happened in 619.  How did they decide which version was the right one?  Have students share what they have written.