Ramblings

Bloviating: to you, from me. Chide me if you will. algot@runeman.org

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Fri, 14 Aug 2015

Seeing What's There

On our daily dog walk. it has concerned my wife that one house we pass has a front gutter which is half torn off. It has been that way since the heavy snows of winter, so that's about six months. This morning, the gutter was fixed. It looked like any normal gutter on the front of any normal house, unremarkable. In fact it was so unremarkable that she didn't notice that the fix had been done. To be honest, I don't know if it had just happened yesterday, or if it had been several days ago.

People tend to notice what is out of place. Something out of place draws attention to itself. The long-time bent gutter was a good example. Of course, maybe after six months we had become used to it broken.

When something is out of place, it jars the senses. We feel the need to deal with it. At least, we look at the bent gutters around us and comment on how long they have not been fixed.

Seeing something requires it to catch your attention, and a "normal" view isn't going to attract much attention. I think that is one difference between "observant" people and others. Observers, see things that don't necessarily attract attention. They don't stand out from their backgrounds enough.

What do you do to help your students develop the ability to be observant?