For our lesson on perspectives, students looked at an object from their perspective and we talked about how their perspective differed from their peers. After our perspective activity, we did a recap from the students in lesson 5 and how they were feeling. We also talked about the predictions that each student had made about what would happen between Kyle and Jenni after he spilled the milk on her. Many students predicted Kyle would help Jenni, continue laughing, or just walk away. After students took a moment to remember their predictions, I asked students to phrase their predictions in an If, Then format. For instance, If Kyle continues laughing, then Jenni may start crying.
Next, we watched the video to see what Kyle decided to do. Kyle ended up running away to grab paper towels and help Jenni. We talked about how Kyle's feelings changed once he saw the situation from Jenni's perspective. At first he had felt amused, but when he saw Jenni wasn't laughing he felt concerned, apologetic, and wanted to help. We also talked about how Jenni felt after Kyle decided to help her: many of us agreed she felt relieved about what had happened. We talked about why Jenni's feelings changed: because Kyle apologized, and she realized that it was an accident.
Another student in the video, Meg, had jumped to conclusions when Kyle ran away. She said, "Look! Kyle's running away. I can't believe he would do that!" We talked about how from Meg's perspective it appeared that Kyle had spilled milk on Jenni on purpose. We talked about how from Meg's perspective it first seemed like Kyle's spilling the milk was intentional, but once she got more information (she saw Kyle get the paper towels), she realized it was an accident and her feelings changed.
We ended the lesson by discussing how people can have different perspectives and feelings about the same situation. We also talked about how feelings can change, like Meg, Jenni, and Kyle showed us in the video. By noticing other peoples' feelings and thinking about others' perspectives we are more likely to have empathy for them, which helps us to be better friends.
