Points of View

Post Reply New Topic

I'm a high school teacher and I teach Culinary Arts ... hence my user name.

I'm also autistic.

On Wednesday morning we had a faculty meeting. The principal showed us this picture and told us to think about the meaning conveyed by these two pictures. If you'd like to try this yourself, take a moment to think about what these pictures mean to you prior to reading on. To help you, I'm going to put a few blank spaces after the picture.



No peeking at what I've written.

Did you look at the picture?

Did you find any meaning in this picture?

Scroll down ....

Further ....

A bit further ...

You're almost there ...

Just a little ways to go ...

After 5 minutes we were asked to share our thoughts. Most of the teachers observed that this was a lesson about how equality doesn't necessarily correlate with fairness. In the first picture, everyone had a box but the little kid couldn't see over the fence. In the 2nd picture, the little kid had two boxes and now everyone could watch the game.

The principal noticed me shaking my head and asked me if I had another thought.

I pointed out something that no one else had seen. It was obvious to me. I was surprised no one had said anything. What did I see? I saw three people who hadn't paid for a ticket because if they had, they'd all be sitting up in the stands. I wondered why we were enabling these people to cheat the stadium out of the cost of three tickets.

The faculty laughed. I don't understand why they laughed but after years of having had similar experiences, I've gotten used to it.

Did any of you notice that they hadn't paid for their tickets or where you focused on the boxes?

Just wondering.

Do you want to try this again?

Here's a picture of a home in Pennsylvania. What do you see?



So what did you see? Did you see a cozy house covered with snow?

Are you sure?

Do you want to take another look?

What did I see?

I saw a house in violation of the county code regarding the timely removal of snow from entry ways and public sidewalks.

The owners, tenants, occupiers and all others having charge, control or supervision of any vacant lots, lands, houses, stores, buildings, and all other premises fronting on any public street or highway in the City shall clean or remove, or cause to be cleaned or removed, from the sidewalk in front of or along the subject property and from a structure's primary point of egress to the public sidewalk in a continuous path not less than two feet six inches in width all the snow, ice, hail, or sleet thereon fallen or formed within 24 hours after the same shall have ceased to fall or to be formed.

If I had to live my life over, I wonder if in another life, I should have been some sort of code enforcer like a county health inspector or a Federal inspector for the USDA.

(sigh)

Being excessively concerned about rules, or about "right and wrong," is a typical autistic trait.

I didn't see the situation from your point of view, so maybe you are more autistic than me.

I tend to notice things like that, but my thought process doesn't stop there. I will also then think about whether the things I've noticed are relevant to what we are supposed to be considering. I might have had a quiet, amused thought to myself of "pfft who cares, they didn't even buy a ticket!", or I might have made that joke to my friend beside me for a quick laugh. But then I'd have moved on to focus on what we are being asked to focus on.

Granted, sometimes that's hard to do when the extra details seem to be affecting the main focus, but in the case of your example, it can be ignored or laughed off. If it was really bothering me then I could pretend the sporting match scene pasted into the background was really a forest scene or something.

One picture shows the taller person being able to see the ballgame better than the other two people, one of whom can't see the game at all. The taller person can see the game the best.

The other picture shows three people with the same view of the ballgame. The taller person gave one box to the shortest person, so he/she can see the game as well as the second tallest person. As a result of the taller person giving the box to the shortest person, the taller person has precisely the same view of the game as the two other shorter people.

These are things I would NOT have noticed until I was far into my adulthood.

Kinda the same reaction as Tamarin and Bea.

It did flit through my mind for a nanosecond that those boys are being naughty, but then my mind then went straight to the math. The first pic: three boxes, one person deprived of the game, the second pic: the same number of boxes allocated differently so that all three see the game. Ergo the lesson of the fable has something to do with allocation of resources, and special needs.

About the second pic. Sorry to burst your bubble but...look closely. There are snowflakes in the air. Ergo the snow storm is still happening. Ergo "timely" removal of snow is not yet an issue. Your interpretation is (sorry) just plain wrong. Lol!

In the first example the person on the left can see over the top of the fence without needing to stand on anything, so they are hardly cheating anyone of anything. They are just looking over a fence that is not high enough to interrupt their normal view.

In the second example, how do we know that the house is "fronting on any public street or highway" and is therefore subject to the county code? It just looks like a house in the middle of a forest.

I could only focus on the boxes moving around. The whole equality and fairness thing seems quite abstract to me.

If it’s still snowing, there is no violation of anything (pertaining to the wintry scene).

it's not possible, i think to determine with absolute certainty whether or not the three individuals in the top picture had tickets or not. the stadium may be hosting an event of some sorts that allowed that to happen (a rather silly and risky one if you ask me) or it may have been a setup for a photo.

the house might be literally anywhere on the planet and it's entirely possible that there are no such county codes or laws regarding removal of snow from entrances in the particular jurisdiction where that house is.
it's important to consider every single possibility.

i was more worried about snow getting in through the chimney flue and smothering the fireplace.

also it's kind of ridiculous to attempt to clear snow when it's STILL SNOWING. it's like my father trying to rake the yard of leaves on windy days, when they're just going to blanket the yard again in a few hours.


true story, that.

They probably didn’t have tickets...but leave them alone. They’re not harming anybody.

They’re doing what kids with no money used to do so they can see their favorite players.

I didn't see the pics from OP's POV at all.

In the first I see both that equality doesn't mean fair, but also that in order for all to be at the same point, not everyone can get equally much, which might also not be fair.


The 2nd shows a cozy house, your typical fairytale house in winter.

I could never see snow code regulation in a drawn pic, maybe if it was a real photo I might have thought of the danger of the roof caving in, (the danger, not the rules about it).

The first one, it was definitely the equality/fairness metaphor which I saw. I immediately sensed that it is an image obviously created with the intent to convey a PSA-type point, mostly conveyed by the difference between the two images rather than the content of either one of them.

The second one, my first thought was that I didn't like the way that the side-walls of the house are so obviously leaning outwards. My training as a draughtsman (and my childhood Lego obsession!) probably biased me quite a bit there.

I looked in the first photos and I saw three people watching a ball game. They were in the front and I noticed they were all on boxes and two people were cheering. The smallest couldn't see anything and I noticed in the next picture he was on two boxes and the first one was not. They were all cheering.

The snow photo, house in the woods and it's snow on the ground and on fence and trees and on the house and there is a medal thing on the chimney. It's also snowing.

I did notice that the kids were looking over the fence, but I didn't think it was a violation - they were as inconvenienced as the owners had paid for them to be.

The house looked like it could have been far from any sidewalk laws, but in any event, snow is still falling. The lack of smoke from the chimney could indicate seasonal occupancy or death. However, what I most noticed was the general structural instability, as the roof beams were put into extra bending from the ceiling being above the eaves, which has led to extreme spreading of the walls and a dangerous tilt to the chimney, which is of very odd construction. Looking again, I see the ends of roof beams running lengthwise, so the ceiling could be open, and the end walls stylized, but I'd rather just leave it as "fairy-tale style cabin caricature."

When I lived in Winnipeg, only one or two houses per block would have the snow removed from the sidewalk - just enough that you could use neither wagon nor sled.

I think it is quite charming that pictures of steam engines in children's books, depicting locomotives, get the relative proportions of boiler and cylinder more correct than the average amateur engineer does when he starts making plans.