Hello families! The theme of today was ‘twisting our perceptions’. We started out discussing things we can empirically know with our senses, a la Aristotle, before jumping into an icebreaker called ‘Two Truths and a Lie.’ We then asked ourselves how to determine the truth from a lie, and what is disillusionment? We talked about it extensively in our circle discussion (just like in college) and then worked on a few projects to help us begin to understand better the differences between the subjective and objective, including observing and drawing our own optical illusions. Later, we learned about the ways people communicate and persuade others to see from their perspective using rhetoric and the rhetorical triangle of logos, ethos, and pathos – again, thank you, Aristotle!

Next, we went outside to take some notes and reflect on what we could see around us (or feel or hear) and what drew us to that particular thing. This would come up later in our closing activity.  We then investigated and studied the ways that perception can be manipulated to show different types of realities. We studied optical illusions (Is it an older woman or a younger? Is it a skull or a vanity mirror? How many legs does the elephant have? How many people are in the painting of the couple? Perhaps your experiences in life influence what you see first!)

Finally, we returned to our original notes on what we saw outside, but this time we viewed the world through prism glasses and then wrote creative stories from the perspective of the ‘Prism Person’. It definitely warped and refracted our perspective!

Tomorrow, we will begin to investigate how perspectives can be changed or used to convey messages, and also how our perceptions can limit us. We will discuss the philosophical concept of the truth through some ancient Platonic wisdom, and we will explore the power of persuasion on our emotions and sense of being in the world through a mock trial.

Trivia hint: There is a word in this blog that we discussed on day one. It means the use of language to persuade or persuasive language. Have this in mind for the bonus trivia question tomorrow.