Let's start with three figures, an emoticon image, an image of a grown woman, and an image of a sheep, and put them together in the same frame.
As you look at the three figures, what's the story?
Here is a slightly different frame with an adult, a different emoticon, and the sheep image rotated about 90 degrees:
Different story, right?
The fact is, there is no story except for what you've made up in your head. It's just a picture with three images each time.
Now look at two different ways to combine these two short videos:
First version:
And second version:
Your brain worked a little harder to come up with these stories, one with a happy ending and one with a sad one. Actually, there is no "ending"; it's just mixing the same two videos by reversing the sequence.
Okay, one final video:
Boy starts out happy with his teacher (or his mom, or his older sister, we really don't know that there's any relationship, that's just our brains looking for meaning) and his pet sheep. The sheep gets sick; in fact it looks like the sheep is going to die and the boy is very upset. The sheep is healed and the boy is happy again.
The human mind is a story making machine. We can't help but put together events, related or not, and create stories.
It's not a fact that there is a sad or happy boy and that he's sad or happy about his sheep while his teacher is watching. The facts are that there are three 3D object files that were placed together in two slightly different scenes and recorded (using the 3DBear augmented reality app) and then those two videos were mashed together using iMovie.
As adults, we need to be able to separate the stories that our mind constructs from the facts or data that exist. When the stories are helpful, we can use them. Even when they are helpful, we should question them to see what angles we are missing.
We should be teaching our children these skills as well. And we'll be exploring similar issues on two upcoming live Edchat Interactives: Diverse Tools for Diverse Readers on October 29 and Unleashing the Power of Storytelling Across the Curriculum on November 5.
