Quick Judgment

Mr. Cavanaugh's ESL class has recently completed a project inspired by the classic, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. In the book, the main character, Scout's opinion of her father starkly changes due to his choice to defend an African American character in a mostly white and racist town. The project had a simple prompt: write about an experience that has changed your perception of another person. One student wrote about his experience in school in Ghana while another student wrote about her aunt who raised her growing up. One student wrote about her father. "He was a very busy man," said the student, "he would wake up in the morning and wouldn't come back until 9 -- one day I came home and told him that he was not a good father. But now he stays at home because he had a surgery and I work now. I understand what older people have to do to help us. My dad tried to give us as much money as he could." The project shows that our judgments of others can changed and a glimpse at another person's motivations can definitely help us put things into perspective. It shows that despite knowing someone, there's still so much more you can learn about them. "My point of view about people changed as I grew up. I never realized how much things were different until this project," a student reveals.