In the movie Arrival, linguistics professor Louise Banks studies an alien race’s language. As a result, her understanding of time expands beyond the chronological as most of us perceive it to be. She is profoundly changed and no longer sees life as linear.
What if we could do the same for our perception of otherness? What if, as early learners, we learned not to begin with an investigation into how things are different, but instead how things are the same? What if the Sesame Street Song* didn’t proclaim, “One of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong,” and instead asks, “What do these things have in common? How do these things connect to each other?”
Yes, there’s a survival component to figuring out an edible berry from a poisonous berry, but what if we all learned both ways of thinking?
What if when Bob McGrath points to an apple, an ice cream cone, a hamburger, and a mitten, the answer could be, “All of these things are good for a body.”
If you’re still questioning if this should be a thing, check out foodie socks on Etsy.com. Bonus points if you can figure out how all of these things in the topic image belong together.
Image by pikisuperstar on Freepik