This idea has really captured my imagination – our students build their own perspectives on school, classes, teachers, and themselves with a serious disadvantage. What disadvantage? They have to assemble that perspective from the assessments, judgements, and concepts of a child. We don’t help them see the bigger picture, we just expect it to come into focus on its own.

For example, if I pull a student in the hallway for a talk, what are they experiencing from their perspective? Some might see it as an attempt to embarrass them, others might consider it a punishment all by itself, and few might consider that I am trying to help and better our class with the conversation.

The book I am reading is highlighting how we use our perspectives to interpret whatever scenario we find ourselves within. If we can help students to see which perspectives they are using, we can also help them select perspectives that might be more helpful and better in the long run. Maybe we can create whole class perspectives and invent whole new ways of doing class and feedback in the process.

What this looks like is a little fuzzy still. I do know it’s going to be useful in the near future.