Equality and Diversity - Building a Culture of ... - Equality Authority

Notes on the Images and the
Learning from Them
These exercises help remind students that,
whenever they are absolutely sure that the
way they see things is right and people who
disagree with them are wrong, they should
stop and question whether there is another
perspective that they may be missing.
1. Once in a Lifetime
The triangle shapes lead most people to read
the phrases as ‘Once in a lifetime’, A bird in
the hand’ etc. If you look carefully you will see
they actually read ‘Once in a a lifetime’, Bird
in the the hand’ etc. The majority of people
misread these. This is because (a) the phrases
are familiar, (b) we tend to read in phrases or
sentences, rather than word by word (c) we
tend to skip over small joining words such as
a, the, if, of etc and only pay attention to the
bigger words.
Lessons to be learned from this exercise in
relation to perceptions of diversity include:
We see what we expect to see – how we have
been programmed to interpret the world
We don’t pay attention to small things, and so
miss their significance
2. The Old/Young woman
You will find that some of the students have
seen the old woman and some the young
woman. Ask a few students to describe what
they have seen and then ask for a show of
hands for those who agree with one view or
the other.
Ask the students to look carefully again
at the picture and tell them they are all
correct in what they see. Some students will
probably begin to see the other view, but it is
likely that some will be convinced that they
are right and the “other view” is wrong. Ask
two of the most convinced students with
opposing views to point out the woman’s
nose, neck, eye etc as they see them, until all
the students are able to see the two views.
3. Map of Mediterranean
When something is viewed in an unusual
way, we fail to recognise it for what it is. The
map is hard to decipher because the sea is
darker than the land – the opposite to usual
practice. Additionally, the names of the
countries are missing and the map includes
the currents, which we wouldn’t expect to
see in a common map.
4. Who’s Taller? Which is longer?
All of the figures and the two lines are the
same size. It is the context in which they are
shown which makes one look bigger than
another. (In artistic terms, the perspective
in the figures picture is missing – a good
metaphor for how we often perceive things.)
These remind us that before we jump to
conclusions about someone's behaviour or
appearance, we should try to understand the
context for that behaviour.
Note: There are very many perception
exercises available on the Web. You
may like to find and use some of them
with your students. You may also find
appropriate YouTube videos which
reinforce the learning for the students.
SECTION 2 EXPLORING PERCEPTIONS & STEREOTYPING 29