Title: Learning Others' Point of View: Teaching Students Perspective
Authors: Eric Groce, Margaret N. Gregor, Robin Groce
Journal Issue: Fall 2025 36(2)
Abstract: Middle school students are confronted with social media and news posts on socio-political issues that reflect multiple perspectives every day. They often lack the ability to analyze the points of view presented. Becoming informed, engaged, and compassionate citizens, the goal of many school districts across our nation, begins by learning to view the world through multiple lenses, working toward empathy, compromise and collective decision making, and placing problems in context. Researchers note that there are benefits to teaching students the skills used to recognize, analyze, and develop perspectives on the variety of information presented. This article presents multiple non-threatening and time conscious activities that teachers can use to help their students recognize different points of view, analyze them, recognize bias and propaganda, and develop critical information literacy skills. After engaging in these lessons students may see that there are many ways to interpret a situation and develop an appreciation for multiple points of view.