In a world where we are faced with an ever increasing volume of information, we can easily become overwhelmed, or quickly distracted, and miss the beauty in what we see, read or hear. The Beauty and Truth routine encourages us to to take time to reflect upon the true meaning revealed or concealed, in the information we encounter. At a conference at Bialik College (Melbourne) I was asked to watch the clip below and list three responses for the following questions:
- Can you find beauty in this story?
- Can you find truth in it?
After completing the task I had to sit with another person and share my thinking This task forced me to see an incident from different perspectives. It absolutely broadened my thinking.
Watch the video and write 3 things of beauty you see in the story and 3 truths it reveals for you.
How do your responses compare to mine?
Beauty:
- They had an opportunity to say I love you and an opportunity to hear I love you
- The father found peace
- The father was proud of his children
Truth
- We may suffer because of the misguided actions of others
- Service people risk their life everyday for us
- 2 sons lost
This routine would be a great way to invite your students into a deeper conversation on a given concept.
The clip is from a website called Story Corps (https://storycorps.org). On the website they state their purpose:
StoryCorps’ mission is to preserve and share humanity’s stories in order to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world. We do this to remind one another of our shared humanity, to strengthen and build the connections between people, to teach the value of listening, and to weave into the fabric of our culture the understanding that everyone’s story matters. At the same time, we are creating an invaluable archive for future generations.
You might also like to visit their You Tube channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCILamLkehRwaRRBjhNIw_1g