Thursday 16 April 2015

Unspoken Truths

By Marie-France Boissonneault (Dallas Road)
In the health class I have taught for the past two years, I incorporated an assignment from one of my previous classes that explores themes of embodiment through our five senses. 

In writing through animal characters, I have found this to be an ideal way to enable a deeper understanding of the world through the experience of another’s whom we cannot truly grasp due to our own limitations. I am always amazed at the imaginative ways that my students describe the experience. It can be a difficult task given the criteria, but some, like the first time I assigned it, really take to the challenge!

This past term, I came across a book in my middle school library that illustrated the exercise beautifully when writing about colour. This book proved to be a great tool to help some of the students that struggled with the assignment. It is hard to conceptualise the world of another, whether it is a being from our own species or a species with which our experience of the world is so far removed from our own.

We all live intricate lives that have a unique unspoken understanding to each that may cross our paths but they are only truly appreciated by ourselves. The reasons we do things, the choices we make, the way we survive, how we keep strong and smile into the next day… We can look upon another and try to assume that we understand their struggles or their pain, their joys or their sorrows, or even the reality that they mirror to the outside world, but no matter who we are there is always a hidden truth.

It is fascinating to travel through the realms of other beings by researching their experiences of the world and describing it to the best of my ability. As well, it is a great writing exercise to challenge oneself to describe an understanding outside the confines of the shared, and to inwardly conceptualise the journey forbidden from using descriptors related to our senses in question…

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