After a week of being far too busy and having my homework plans go out the window, I was finally able to ask a couple of people the following two questions:
- What was the best experience you had making a shift in someone’s perception?
- Why was it so great?
The first story revolved around my friend’s daughter coming home from grade school and announcing that she hated all boys. Through a gentle exchange, pointing out flaws in this assertion, my friend saw her daughter soften her stance, which was never again repeated. In essence, the exchange went something like this:
“I don’t think you hate all boys, because your father and your brother are boys, and you love them.”
“Well, I hate all of them except for Dad and Nate.”
“OK. And didn’t you mention there was that one boy in your class who was kind of nice?”
“Oh, yeah. Well, he’s different. I don’t hate him.”
“And aren’t there a few girls in your class you don’t care for?”
“That’s right!”
“Do you think it might work better to just consider people on a case-by-case basis, rather than deciding based on whether they’re a boy or a girl?”
“Hmm. Maybe.”
The second story revolved around a homophobic aunt who came to town for a visit with my friend’s mother. While the two sisters were visiting, my friend held a party that was also attended by a gay couple with whom she is very close. On the flight home, the aunt asked her sister whether she thought the two men were gay. The sister said that she knew for a fact that they were, and went on to explain that she didn’t even give it a second thought anymore, given that they are such good friends and practically a part of the family. As she talked, she saw the aunt’s face soften, and could practically watch the wheels turning in her head as she considered this attitude.
The thread that I perceived in both these stories was that in the case of prejudice, meeting and knowing people in the suspect category makes all the difference in perception. Once you realize that the nice gay couple is really just a nice couple, period – or that when you think it through, you do know some boys who don’t smell bad and act like jerks, you can begin shifting from a hard stance to a more nuanced perspective.
I like the fact that your plans to talk to colleagues went out the window, and you resorted to last-minute conversations with friends instead. This is an underutilized practice. I find that some of my best insights come from casually asking these weighty questions to friends instead of to colleagues. First, it requires that I explain my question clearly. Second, I am sometimes guilty of overthinking things. Talking to friends will often result in “obvious” insights, insights that are so “obvious,” I forget to actually apply them!
I’m reminded of Allison’s “aha” moment two weeks ago, when you were developing the framework together, and she said, “It’s funny how quickly we came up with this framework together, and yet how few learning programs actually conform to this framework.”
The notion that human contact builds empathy and helps shift mindsets may seem obvious, but so often, we leave that out of our designs. My question for you is: How might you incorporate human contact into your adult learning program in subtle, lightweight ways?