Fun with Character: Mirrors vs. Windows
Give each student a square of foil. Heavy Duty is best. It can be glued to a piece of paper, or the students can do that as their first step. Explain that this represents a mirror. Ask them what they see when they look at a mirror. (Yourself) Next, have them make a rectangle with their hands by putting their hands in front of them, the top facing out and the bottom facing in with the fingers pointed to the sides. To form a rectangle, place the index finger of one hand to the thumb of the other hand. Liken this to a window. Have them hold up their window, move it around, and ask what they see. (Other students). If your students do not have the manual dexterity to make the rectangle, you can choose to use ‘director’s hands’. Hold both hands out in front of you, palms facing away, fingers together, thumbs extended, and touching the other thumb. Ask about the thoughts that are in their head if they are looking at themselves. (Yourself). Ask the same for the window. (Others).
Empathy is sensing the emotions of others. Which is better for empathy – mirrors or windows? To do this, we must convert mirrors to windows. We must look beyond ourselves and be sensitive to the others around us. Now, you will make the foil mirror into a window. You can have them use strips of paper to make a window frame around the mirror and panes in the middle of the mirror. If you feel particularly crafty, you may also give them construction paper, wallpaper samples, wrapping paper, or fabric scraps to make “curtains” for their windows. If time allows, they can draw or color a picture around the window as if it is in the middle of a wall in a room.
To process the activity, ask these or similar questions:
Have you ever thought of foil as a mirror?
Have you ever seen your reflection in the glass of a window?
Mirror-focused people are primarily thinking about who?
Window-thinking people are primarily thinking about who?
What’s it like to be around people who are mirror-focused? What types of things do they do or say?
What’s it like to be around people who are window-focused? What types of things do they do or say?
Who do you want to be around?
Who do you want to be?
Will foil remind you to be window-focused?
As a last step, you can have them write things they can do to be more other-centered on the window pane strips or somewhere on their picture.