November 6, 2012
What does it mean to “see” with your ears? To read with your fingers? What does it mean to depend on someone else for basic needs? Or to be depended on? Fourth graders learned this week from direct experience what it is like to be blind. The capacity to empathize, to be able to see the world through the eyes of someone else, is central to the development of character. This is true even if (perhaps especially if) those eyes see only darkness. That sense which we take for granted, which informs every waking hour for those of us who are sighted, is fundamental to our conception of the world around us. Fourth graders have been “seeing without eyes” with Connie David’s help for the last decade. As you watch this video, savor the gift of sight.
