Your Viewing Angle Matters

Have you ever been in the passenger's seat of a car and looked over at the speedometer?  If so, you probably thought the driver was going a lot faster than they actually were.  This is because of something scientists call parallax error.  

You may have learned about this in your high school chemistry class because it influences how you take measurements in the lab.  Take note of the differences in the reading of this volume.  Depending on the location of your eye, you will read the measurement as higher or lower than it actually is, so students are instructed to get down at a level where their eyes will be perpendicular to the meniscus (for those who don't remember, that's the bottom of the curve).

Don't worry. I'm leading up to a point here, not just teaching you about parallax.  The point is that things look different depending on your point of view.  It's why we say things like, "The grass is always greener on the other side."  That is true both in the metaphorical way it is used (someone else's life looks easier than ours because we don't have their responsibilities) and in the literal sense (looking down at the grass under you means you can see the dirt between the blade, which you don't see when looking at your neighbor's grass).  We are rarely seeing reality exactly the way it is; we are seeing our interpretation of reality from our own perspective.

Acknowledging this in our lives would change a number of things.  I'm going to talk about a few of them here as they have come to my mind recently, but you might think of more.  

Do you have a massively different reaction to a news event than your co-worker?  It could be that the reason for your differences is the difference in your life.  Your black co-worker may have a different reaction to a story of an officer-involved shooting, having just had "the talk" with their son than you do if you have a brother on the force.  Your viewing angle matters.  When your teenage child massively overreacts (at least you think it is a massive overreaction) to your advice to study for his upcoming test, it could be that his view of how much he needs to study for this is different than yours.  In some ways, he has more information informing his view than you do because he is in class and knows how much review he has had and has heard advice from his teacher that you haven't heard.  From your point of view, however, teenagers usually underestimate their need for study, but he doesn't have the experience to know that.  Your neighbor who lost his job at the steel mill is likely to vote differently than the public school teacher across the street.  I am not saying that the truth is always somewhere in the middle; sometimes one person is actually right while the other is wrong.  What I am saying is that recognizing a difference in perspective might help you understand the other person better rather than thinking they are evil or crazy.

People have a tendency to judge the decisions made by others based only on how it affects us and using only the information available to us.  I've seen this a ton in education.  It is easy for me as a science teacher to think only from that perspective and not recognize the needs of the art department.  I have often said that my primary role in department chair meetings is to say, "It doesn't work that way in math and science."  There's a good reason that we have the input of someone from every department, or foreign language might not get what they need for their students.  The same thing applies to how we view decisions made by administrators.  It's so easy for teachers to criticize their admins (and I know that in some schools, there is good reason to), but I also know that I don't have all of the information they do.  If I did, perhaps I would make the same decision.  They have to live in the tension of parent complaints and teacher needs.  They have to deal with issues that affect the entire school while I can be hyperfocused on my own classroom.  We aren't at odds, but we do have different perspectives.  And, I will say this now and for the rest of my life.  I have zero desire to ever be in their position.  Knowing this doesn't mean I always agree with their decisions, but it does help me view the decision more kindly.

The ultimate difference in perspective is that of human beings, a limited and finite perspective, to that of God, Who is unlimited and infinite.  I saw this image on of embroidery on Twitter recently.  When people see needlework, they obviously focus on the front, the intended pattern.  In fact, if you look at embroidered clothing, the back is usually covered with a piece of backing fabric.  The purpose of that fabric is to keep the threads from unraveling, but they also prevent us from seeing the messy side of needlework.  The same is true of how God works events in our lives.  For us, they seem disjointed and messy because we are looking at it from this side of eternity, one stitch at a time.  We see the knots and the untied ends, but God knows the pattern He is weaving.  When Romans says that He "works all things together for good," it is because he can see the whole while we see individual parts.   Job didn't know what was going on when horrible events happened to him, but God knew what his life would mean.   This is why the Bible tells us "Do not lean on your own understanding."  I'm not saying this is easy; I've probably never battled a verse more than that one.  But I do often remind myself that the problem is with my perspective.

Educators, remember that your perspective is different from your students.  Don't trade in your professional judgment to twelve-year-olds, but allow yourself to understand them better.  Remember that your perspective is different from that of parents.  You have an educational goal, but that is only one of the goals in their home.  That doesn't mean you have to give up your goals; it means you understand that there is a difference of viewpoint.  Cut your administrators some slack, recognizing that you view the school from a different angle than they do, changing your interpretation of things.  Remember that changes in your life that seem bad now will become part of a larger pattern, which only God knows fully.  This will prevent you from falling victim to parallax error.