Through the Looking Glass

I have a poster hanging up in my classroom that depicts a Max Escher painting known as "The Metamorphosis of Narcissus". The left side is supposed to be Narcissus with his head on his knee; the right side is supposed to be a hand holding an egg (there's all sorts of symbolism involved there). The two sides look very similar, and numerous people have stated that they can't see a difference -- both sides look identical to them. Others, however, can instantly see fundamental differences.

Although this may seem strange, that painting and its interpretive dilemmas reminds me of something that I've been thinking a lot about lately: the various ways in which a classroom experience can be viewed. For example, I as the teacher have one perspective of the events that take place in my classroom. The girl sitting in the 2nd seat of the first row will obviously have a much difference perspective, and the boy who sits in the 4th seat of the far row will have a differing viewpoint as well. As I'm teaching, everyone in the class is perceiving the process through a different lens. My lens is that of the teacher; their collective lens is that of the student. I can't fully understand their perspective, nor can they fully understand mine.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to experience my own teaching through a student's lens, as I am constantly locked into the teacher's perspective. Although I utilize methods of obtaining student feedback, I am curious to know whether I would like having myself as a teacher -- as strange as that may sound. I think that I would, but I cannot say with certainty since it is an impossibility. During my 1st year, I had to watch a taped version of my teaching performance, but I've always thought that to be an inadequate substitute for the real thing.

I am also intrigued by the fact that I could teach a class and think that I was successful in creating a lesson that was interesting and enlightening, while a student in that class might consider it to have been mundane and unremarkable. Likewise, I might find what I'm teaching to be extremely intriguing and thought-provoking, while someone in the back row might find it immensely boring and want to fall asleep. It seems that, like the Escher painting, different people can look at the same thing and perceive it completely differently.