Our Lens - WHAT WE SEE THROUGH IT

 

1.     

     Our backgrounds, culture, environment and prior learnings create our lens through which we perceive our world and make our decisions.  Our lens is the way we interpret the world.  There is a danger however that this lens limits our view by concentrating our vision on what we know and what we need to know rather than pulling back and seeing a larger picture.  Chimamanda Adichie calls this propensity in her TED talk “The Danger of a Single Story” (Adichie. 2009).  Her point is that it can lead to stereotyping.  She says of stereotypes “…the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.  They make one story become the only story.” Our learning could be restricted by only knowing one story and not pushing on to get many stories and learning more about others and their perspectives.

2        Our lens is also our attitude, our filter to learning and thinking.  Our lens to David Foster Wallace is our outlook and how we can restrict our thinking to what we know already rather than expanding our vista.  He advocates an expansive attitude in his “This is Water” Kenton College Commencement Address (Kohn, 2013) he proposes:

“Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise control over how and what you think.  It means being conscientious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.” Wallace

3        I closely identify with this sentiment.  Learning should be free from the preconceptions of culture and upbringing and anything else.  I think this reason in itself counters the factual but negative view of the US education system Kohn describes in his New York Times piece “Why Can’t We all Get A’s” (Kohn, 2019).  Here, seeing through his lens, he closely links his view of the US education system with prosperity.  He does not see however that as information density grows in our lives, we are all being exposed to more information earlier and therefore learn more earlier.  The bar needs to be constantly raised to reflect this and ever has it been thus.  For example, I knew gravity existed before I went to school.  Prior to Newton it was a view held by the vast majority of the world as an unexplained act of god.  It is a thoughtful and useful article however, as it does keep the fact of rising education levels and higher standards of our children’s learning in the public eye.

4        Our lens, unchecked and unexpanded, can limit us and deny us access to the life experience and scars of others in our global community.  To see through the lens of others is a leap into the world of others and allows us to empathise with them.  If learning is to aide healing and unity in our society we must expand our learning outlook beyond our own lens and understand the views and plights of others; those with a different perspective from our own.  How can we aspire to be better if we benchmark against what we and those of our background or culture know?  Learning becomes an echo. We need to be diverse to succeed in learning and in life. We need to see through a different lens.  The first step is to learn there is one.  Second, look through it – you may not like what you see.

 

S P RATTLEY

 

Cited:

1.       Adichie, Chimamanda. TED Global The Danger of One Story www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en. 2009.

2.       Wallace, David Foster. This is Water – Full Version – David Foster Wallace Commencement Speech. 19^th May 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CrOL-ydFMI&t=338s

3.       Kohn, Alfie. Why Can’t Everyone Get A’s. 15^th June 2019.  New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/15/opinion/sunday/schools-testing-ranking.htm