Vanderbilt University Logo
Skip to main content

Summer SAVY, Session 4 Day 4, “Truth v Perception” (5th-6th)

Posted by on Thursday, July 10, 2025 in blog, SAVY.

Greetings, families and students! 

  

What an AWESOME class today! Today was all about Mock Trial and how people perceive the truth, share their perspectives and stories, and how to be persuasive and convince or sway others to your side. It was also about subjectivity and objectivity, learning to lean on the evidence and the strongest testimony, and evaluating the things people say and do, as well as how their motivations can change the way the outcome is interpreted. We ended up spending the whole day discussing, analyzing, and connecting these big ideas as we prepared for the epic civil and criminal court case of the Pied Piper and the town of Hamlin!  

  

Preparation for a mock trial can be difficult. There are many moving parts and roles, lots of steps, and it involves critical thinking, structuring solid arguments, using appropriate evidence, crafting well-thought-out questions, practicing public speaking, evaluating and analyzing, doing research, active listening, and much, much more. Whew! That would be a lot altogether for any student, but our class handled the challenge like champions. First, we divided into two courts – one to try the civil case in which the Pied Piper sues the town of Hamlin and the Mayor for damages, child neglect, and littering (Pied Piper v. Town of Hamlin/Mayor). And one in which the District Attorney of the town of Hamlin brings charges against the Pied Piper (Town of Hamlin v. Pied Piper).  

  

Next, we divided ourselves into prosecuting attorneys, defense attorneys, and witnesses. Each court would serve as the other court’s jury, so all our students got a chance to fulfill their civic responsibility on the jury panel! Ask your student about their role in the court case and the differences between civil and criminal courts. After a morning and afternoon of careful and intensive preparation writing opening and closing statements, constructing questions, gathering the evidence (students made actual physical evidence such as Alvin’s hat, fish bones and banana peels, contracts, treasury deposits, the piper’s flute, and even a still photo from some video camera footage), writing witness statements and collaborating with our teammates on courtroom strategy, we were finally ready!

The trials began, and the court was in session. The honorable Judge Rho presided with Bailiff Ms. Snader swearing in the witnesses. I cannot express enough how incredibly proud I am of this class! Everyone did an outstanding job, and the admin team and I were incredibly impressed. The statements were persuasive and strong; the witnesses were extremely convincing; the mountains of evidence on both sides were impressive, and everyone also had to think on their feet to answer some very tough cross-examinations by our esteemed lawyers. In the end, our criminal court jury delivered a verdict; however, our criminal court jury found themselves deadlocked 5-3 with no hope of conciliation, and the judge was forced to declare a mistrial! Gasp!

Talk to your student about how the trial went, what was particularly convincing, and what changed their original perspectives or viewpoints in the end. Finally, we asked ourselves: Is the truth subjective or objective, or does it all depend on our particular perspectives? GREAT job today, everyone! Y’all CRUSHED it. 

  

Tomorrow, we will have more fun with changing perspective as we learn a bit about M.C. Escher and how art represents or doesn’t represent different types of realities. See you then!

Ms. Rho