Judge a book by it's cover

Take a look at this picture...How many deer can you see ?

I'm at first glance, you may notice only one. However, after some serious concentrations, you may find another which is partially hidden. Right ?

Well... the same goes to our daily lives. More often than not, we usually make judgements based on the initial outlook. We rarely look deeper into it but already decide on the results. Just like how we judge people.

As a teacher, I dealt with thousands of human beings in the course of my duty. I often judge my students based on first glance.

"Oh...he's terrible...he can't even identify the alphabets...."

"He likes to disturb his classmates and never does his homework nor pay attention in class...he's a real nuisance.!"

"He'll surely failed his UPSR.....cannot even read a simple text.."

A familiar conversation between teachers in the staff room during break. That was a scene within the school compound. This could also happened in our daily encounters with people around us.

No matter how open minded we may claim to be, everyone of us make presumptions about others based strictly on first impressions. Seeing someone for only a split second, we may start to make assumptions on that person's attitudes, personality, and character.

We may tend to notice things about some one's appearance, mannerisms and features that we feel are grounds to pass judgement upon that person. We choose our friends based on these judgements.

Is this the right thing to do ? Let's ponder about it.

I had just completed a chapter of my Module (exams around the corner) and it discussed about Gardner's Multiple Intelligences. Well...as a teacher, I often label my pupils based on their appearances. Judging a book by it's cover shouldn't be a criteria ! Well..

According to Gardner, human are born with 9 intelligences. A person's profile reflects a unique configuration of these intelligences....just a matter of degree how these intelligences plays a role in our lives. A child who excels academically is usually Linguistically or Mathematical inclined. That's what our education system is all about. Those who scored strings of As are considered as excellent students and role models to their peers.

How about those who don't...? Some may not be good academically but they do excel in other fields like music or sports. These people boost their bodily kinesthetic, visual spatial or musical intelligences as in Gardner's theory.

Teachers or to be more precise ...the Malaysian education system often overlooked this point.

What say you.?