Life Skills & Leadership: Unit 1, Session 5: Understanding Mental Models | Page 59 of 93- Explain to participants that you would like them to have some practice with different mental models.
Say:
“We’ve been making comparisons between how you grow as an individual and building a house. If you
look out from your house at the street (or path, or field, etc.) from your front window, what you are
able to see will appear very different to someone who is looking from the window of his or her house
across the road. This next activity will give you a chance to imagine how a single situation might be
viewed differently depending on whose mental model we consider.”- Ask participants to help you make a list of situations they might encounter in which there could be a
disagreement. Encourage them to come up with five or six examples and write them on a flip chart.
(e.g., A friend asks to borrow your clothes; Parents want you to come home early; A teacher scolds you
at school; Someone on the street asks you for money.) - Post Flip chart 1: Different Points of View. Divide participants into groups of three to five and say:
“I’d like you to think about each of these situations and imagine how it would look from the point of
view of at least three different people. Have a conversation about what the mental model of each of
those three people might be. (For example, if the situation is a friend wanting to borrow clothes, there
is the friend, the person who has the nice clothes, and that person’s parents.) Try to answer the
questions on the flip chart for each person in the situation.”Note: If you wish, you can assign a different situation to each group. Then, after each group shares their situation, other
groups can offer an opinion.- Ask each group of participants to share their conversation about one of the situations so that every
group has a chance to talk at least once. After each group shares, invite other groups to comment
about the same situation. Follow up with discussion questions like these:
What surprises came up as you talked about the mental models that other people have?
What difficulties did you have as you tried to describe different mental models, other people’s
points of view, or others’ understanding?
What do you understand differently about these situations after considering more than one
mental model?
What might you say to each of the people in the situations?B. Summary
Conclude the exercise by saying:
“Each of us has our own ‘house’ with windows that determine which direction we look out and how
much we can see. Even though we might see a lot from inside our house where it’s comfortable, we can
never see everything. It’s important to ‘lean out of the window’ or ‘walk outside of our house’ and ask
ourselves what we might be missing.”Note: The discussion in Step 4 may require more time if it goes well. In this case, it may be appropriate to end the session after
the discussion and continue the next session with the Application that follows. If you decide to do this, you can begin the next