You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.– spoken by Atticus Finch, written by Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Simple, isn’t it. Don’t judge. You don’t know a person because you don’t have his/her perspective. By the way, Scout was just seven years old when Atticus gave her this advice. So if a seven year old can understand these words, why can’t we as a society?
We All Judge
We all judge. All the time. Don’t shake your head no. You do it and so do you and so do you. We all do it.
Judgment was a theme I touched upon when I taught To Kill a Mockingbird to my high school students. Here is how I proved that we all judge all the time.
It’s the first day of school. As you walk into each classroom for the first time, what’s the first thing you do? You look at the teacher. You look at your fellow classmates. You figure out where to sit. The whole time you are judging. And this is true any time you go somewhere the first time or a place that is out of your routine – public transportation, a store, etc.
Some students would disagree with me and maybe you do too. However, I stand by my statement. We are assessing the situation and location. Is it safe? Am I going to be comfortable here? Are there potential problems here? And what is the way to get the answer to these questions? We study the people around us, and we judge them.