To "get" this post, read the first couple of paragraphs of my previous post first.I've been using Red Cards with my students for several months now. A few days ago, while teaching my Kindergarteners, I happened to pull out the stack of identical cards in other colors, to use in a game. When the kids saw them, their reaction was immediate: "Look, he has green red cards." "There's a blue red card!" "Cool, there's a black red card."
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This seems to me to illustrate something about human nature. Once we have a particular perspective, we look at other things with the same perspective, even if they are quite different. For example I find that I perceive peers I've known for years quite differently from peers I've met recently. The middle-aged friends I've known for 20 or 30 years almost all look younger to me than newer friends of the same age. I see the old friends through a mental filter of what they were like when we were young. And not just their physical appearance, but their personalities and characters, too.
I went to my 30th high school reunion a few years ago. While in town, I dropped by a local grocery store, and passed a number of older adults in the aisles as I shopped. Suddenly, I realized these weren't older adults, they were my peers. I might see any one of them at the reunion the next day. I'd never adjusted my perception of middle-aged people as "older" than I--as my parents' peers, not mine--to the reality that I was now middle-aged.
But some experiences show this tendency to perceive the new through an old filter, as sometimes a good thing, even as accurate. If I know someone well, and know him to be honest, kind, and trustworthy, I will perceive an isolated episode of rudeness or failure as an anomaly, not as an indication of a change in their character. It's like saying "Look, a rude good person." If, on the other hand, I know someone as a rude, crude jerk, I see even good behavior through that lens--perhaps doubting the reality or sincerity of the new behavior. "Look, there's a kind and thoughtful jerk." Of course, we all know examples of children who get blamed for something they didn't do because so often they have been the one at fault.
How many green red cards are in your life?
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