Memoirs of an Amnesiac

To a class of academic students who knew nothing about drafting because for some reason, it was not included in their lesson, teaching the concept of perspective is never a walk in the clouds. This was what came to my mind as I searched through previous concrete encounters on the word "perspective". How else does one teach such a very abstract concept?

I then remembered an example my great philosophy teacher used in summer class when I took my masters. He made use of the object table. True enough, his example has left a great mark on my hypothalamus. There are many sides to a table. There is that side which the students could very well see, no matter which angle they are. The side that of the teacher's. And then there is also that proverbial hidden side.

This my students had to process alongside the theme of the story which until now they still had not mustered to accept. There was this couple who lived a typical life. One day the wife feels ill while the husband was on his usual morning routine of going to the farm. The husband warns the wife to take care of herself while the wife asks for the husband's clothes that had to be mended. The husband then gives the key to the chest where his clothes were kept. Unknowingly, he drops his small key which the wife knew was the key to where the husband kept his ex-wife's clothes. To cut the story short, the wife, by getting hold of the key, decides to burn all of the ex-wife's clothes. The husband finds them all burned and could not decide whether to get mad or to just let it be. The wife's condition worsens (probably heightened by her guilt for burning the clothes). The question I left for the class was, "Was it right and appropriate for the wife to burn the clothes of the ex-wife, knowing full well that the husband treasured it?"

It was hilarious how the question elicited such reactions from my students that my whole period turned out to be a battle of wits, of trying to prove which side is more probable or which has more sense.

I then resolved the issue by telling them about the analogy of the table.

All issues will always have his side, her side and the real side.

I do hope people will take this into account whenever the need to decide takes place.