Thought Experiment: “Your Worldview Is Crooked.”

In my last post I used the example of one child saying to another, “Your sand castle is crooked.” I suggested that it’s essential to help a child understand the many possible reasons why a classmate might say that, because that understanding would help him or her imagine multiple ways of responding — a capacity that would serve both children well as adults. Was your friend criticized by his father that morning? Does he want to reassure himself that his castle is better? IS it better? It’s common to think he’s envious, but maybe that’s not the problem; maybe he has obsessive- compulsive anxiety and crooked things make him anxious. Maybe he’s a person who is better at understanding structures than emotions and he simply wants to play with you and be helpful; maybe he’s just being direct and doesn’t even realize that a statement like that might hurt your feelings. There are many, many possibilities and combinations of possibilities.

Picture the next day’s homework assignment: “Imagine that you and your friend each won the sandcastle competition in your respective homeroom, and your classmates paired you together in a district-wide contest. Compose two dialogues, in person or via email, between you and that classmate as you try to decide the architecture of the castle you intend to build together. Write them from different vantage points; for example, if you believe that your classmate has mild autism, if you believe that your classmate has a need to control and behaves in a bullying way, if you believe he’s better at one type of building and not another, if one of you is nervous and the other confident, etc. Be creative about the interpersonal dynamics, but you must write your dialogues in a way that illustrates how they might arise in real life.  Try to resolve the interpersonal conflicts as effectively and realistically as possible, but if you can’t imagine a realistic solution you can also present problems that would make the two of you unable to work together effectively.  We’ll share our dialogues tomorrow so we can see how many possibilities there are, and think of ways we might repair the hopeless examples.”

Picture our children doing these kinds of thought experiments, the way they do math problems, science experiments or writing assignments, for 12 or 16 or 20 years.

Now picture the United States Congress debating the debt ceiling.

6 Responses to “Thought Experiment: “Your Worldview Is Crooked.””

Comment from Goran Arsov
Time August 10, 2011 at 4:58 am

You should solve this problem online to show people what you want to achieve.

Comment from Alice L Maher
Time August 10, 2011 at 5:44 am

Hmm, maybe I’ll try that in my next post, Goran. Thanks for the idea. Do you have any suggestions as to what the personality and talent variables of the two students might be?

Comment from Goran Arsov
Time August 10, 2011 at 3:09 pm

I can’t understand… which two students?
Whose personality and talent?

Comment from Alice L Maher
Time August 10, 2011 at 9:54 pm

Goran, I guess I misunderstood your question when you suggested that I should “solve the problem online to show people what you want to achieve.” From my perspective, “the problem” has an infinite number of variables depending on the personalities of the individuals involved – the two students trying to built a winning sand castle together. Can you clarify what you were asking with your original question?

Comment from Goran Arsov
Time August 14, 2011 at 9:09 am

I am saying that you should take a real-life example, one of the millions that exist, and show what you want to do and show the results you want to achieve.

Comment from Alice L Maher
Time August 14, 2011 at 9:39 am

Ok, that’s fair. I’ll try to do that in one of my next posts. Thanks for asking, Goran.