perception

…September 1964 I entered my sixth period English class. It was my first day of school in a brand new school. The Campbell Union School District had redrawn the boundaries for Blackford and Campbell high schools, pulling in their borders allowing for the new school, Westmont.  Mrs. Sally Pehlps was the instructor and she was middle-aged, dark-haired and pert. She introduced herself and established the general outline for this junior class in Journalism. I looked around the class and realized that I knew no one. There were several that exchanged smiles of recognition. She began to outline how to write a news story, the five W’s. Who, what, where, when and why.

Abruptly the classroom door slammed open and a stocky man entered and crossed the room to where Mrs. Phelps stood. An argument erupted. A gun was pulled. A shot fired. Mrs. Phelps turned to the class, “write a news story on what you just witnessed.”

More than fifty years have passed but the memory of that class remains. A lot of the details are lost. I was immediately in love with Mrs. Phelps for her courage in creating such an intense lesson in how to write what you witness. Of course, the object was that no matter how close we are to the scene, how we interpret it is an individual as each of us. Afterward we must have had an opportunity to go around the class and discuss the event. There were so many differing views, details caught by some, missed by more. A few students knew the name of the stocky man who was in fact Michael Slavik the speech instructor, many did not.

 

It was the fact that the thirty-odd students in that classroom had all first hand witnessed the same event yet written differing reports. Fast forward through the fifty years and how many times have I encountered the same misinterpretation. We interpret events passed on our own experience and bias. Reality is filtered through a prism.  Let alone the fact that two teachers a gun were used in this classroom demonstration. In retrospect, I doubt that the gun was real and maybe I don’t remember the details as well as I thought I did. Anybody want to weigh in on this memory?