What Educators Can Learn From “The Dress”

If you haven’t seen this picture yet – kudos to you for avoiding the online world this weekend.

As I continue to hear and read arguments over what colour this dress is, I consider the questions I ask students. With such varying levels of interpretation, it becomes incredibly clear how accurate I must be in word choice, voice and sentence structure. I also consider standardized testing and wonder how much room for interpretation there is.

“What colour is this dress” is not a right or wrong question. But how would you assess it? If it were a multiple choice question, what happens if the colours I see are not an option?

Perhaps “What colour is this dress” is an open ended question allowing room for students to formulate opinions and justify answers.

I am going to reference Growing Success again. “The dress” offers perfect opportunity for us to consider the weight we put on student products. We are allowed to converse and observe as well. There are a lot of factors to consider when assessing student products.

Whatever the case, as educators we must consider seeing the world through the eyes of a child. Their interpretations are much different than our own. Their experiences are much different than out own. Their ideas are much different than our own.

When you are assessing a student, consider “the dress”.

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