Perfect Vision: Getting Beyond the Superficial

The best moments of my career have been those moments when my students have said and done things that I might never have predicted. I had such a moment this week when one of my students kept confusing his homeroom teacher with another teacher on the same team. Please stay with me because this becomes one of those career making moments because this student, when looking at both teachers, called his homeroom teacher by his math teacher’s name.

It is very easy to see that the two teachers share very little in common physically. Sure, they are about the same height and are probably about the same age as well; however, this is where their similarities end. This becomes one of those rare career moment stories because one of the teachers is African-American and the other teacher is not. This very sweet, open-minded, happy, and unbiased little person kept mixing the two teachers up because (according to the child) “they both were wearing black sweaters, the same black shoes, and they both happen to wear reading glasses when they teach.” I love this story because this child embodies everything that I hope to teach and model for children: the gift of open and unbiased sight. This kind of vision allows one to get past what one sees on the outside so that one can embrace the qualities that make a good person a good person period. How I wish we could bottle this ability to see beyond the superficial — so that everyone has ‘perfect vision.’

It would be amazing to live in a world where folks used their eyes to see beyond the superficial to the essence of every human being. I believe it is vital that we help children maintain the ability to see beyond superficial attributes (hair texture, skin complexion, height, weight, or gender) to the commonalities of the human spirit (kindness, honesty, joyfulness, and compassion) regardless of the things that make us different. tlb

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