Looking at One Text from Many Angles

Building learning skills by stepping outside the subject blocks

I love being inspired by the world and finding ways to bring those ideas back into my classroom.

Last week, I attended my eldest daughter’s law school orientation. Like every other parent in the room, I was brimming with joy. But alongside the pride, I was also enjoying the learning.

In one session, the faculty presented a legal case from the 1930s. Then something fascinating happened.

One by one, professors from different disciplines responded to the exact same case.

The torts professor explained where he saw the key issue.
The criminal law professor identified the breaches she would focus on.
The family law professor described what her class would distill from the case.

Same text.
Completely different lenses.

I was captivated.

What struck me wasn’t just the intellectual exercise. It was the reminder that deep thinking often emerges when we deliberately look at the same situation from multiple perspectives.

And immediately, my teacher brain started turning.

Perspective Taking Builds Thinking Skills

This experience reminded me of another powerful learning moment I witnessed during a Learning Forward learning day. Facilitator Brian Weishar shared an account of the War of 1812 and then asked participants to consider other perspectives on the same historical narrative.

Whose story was being told?
Whose voice was missing?
How might the same event be interpreted differently depending on who experienced it?

Again, the learning didn’t come from adding more content.

It came from adding more perspectives.

That realization made its way straight into my literacy classroom. Through drama and characterization exercises, students step into the shoes of different characters and respond to questions from their perspectives. Suddenly, the same scene can be interpreted in multiple ways, and students begin to understand how perspective shapes both story and meaning.

In doing so, they begin to see that interpretation isn’t just about understanding the text; it’s about understanding the lens through which we read it.

When students are invited to examine the same text, event, or problem from different lenses, something powerful happens:

They begin to see that thinking itself is a skill.

The Challenge of the Subject Schedule

One of my greatest challenges as a teacher has always been the way the school day is divided.

9:00 – Language
10:00 – Math
11:00 – Science

The schedule creates invisible walls between ideas.

Yet the very skills we are trying to cultivate—critical thinking, collaboration, communication, creativity—do not live inside subject boxes.

Students analyze data in science.
They interpret information in math.
They construct arguments in social studies.
They communicate ideas in literacy.

The compartmentalization of subjects can unintentionally compartmentalize thinking.

And thinking was never meant to stay inside the blocks.

Building Outside the Blocks

Building Outside the Blocks (BOB) is grounded in a simple principle: schools need structure, but learning doesn’t have to be confined by it. The fixed elements of education—schedules, subject blocks, routines—can become launchpads for deeper thinking and cross-disciplinary connections, rather than barriers to creativity and skill transfer.

At its core, BOB is about using these structural anchors as springboards, inviting students to step outside the blocks. It allows them to explore ideas in disciplinary and transdisciplinary ways and to co-construct their learning while building products that demonstrate engagement and skill.

When we think about learning this way, it doesn’t matter whether the subject is math, science, literacy, or social studies. The same skills—critical thinking, collaboration, communication, problem-solving—live in all of them. The trick is helping students and teachers notice and name those skills and see how they travel across subjects.

Making Learning Skills Visible

As teachers increasingly embed explicit instruction around learning skills—especially before evaluating them—I like to make those skills visible to students.

One activity I use is a learning skills scavenger hunt.

Before students begin a project, I ask them to search through the assignment outline and identify where different learning skills are called upon.

Where will you need collaboration?
Where will critical thinking matter?
Where will communication be important?

Students quickly realize something surprising.

These skills are everywhere.

They are not tied to one subject or one assignment.
They are embedded across the learning.

This realization helps students build schema around how skills function differently across disciplines.

Critical thinking in science might mean analyzing evidence.

Critical thinking in social studies might mean considering multiple perspectives.

Critical thinking in media literacy might mean questioning the creator’s intent.

The skill is the same.

The lens changes.

Three Simple Classroom Invitations

If you want to try this with students, you don’t need to redesign an entire unit. Sometimes all it takes is one text, one problem, or one image—and a few different lenses.

1. A Photograph
Show students a single image. Ask them to look at it through different lenses:

• As a scientist: What evidence do you see? What might be happening?

• As a mathematician: What patterns, shapes, or spatial relationships do you notice?

• As a writer: What story might be unfolding in this moment?

• As a media analyst: Why might the photographer have chosen this angle or frame?

2. A Historical Event
Take a short account of a historical moment. Then ask students to consider:

• How might different groups of people have experienced this event?

• What perspectives might be missing from the narrative?

• What questions would a historian ask that a scientist might not?

3. A Real-World Problem
Present a simple challenge, like designing a small bridge or improving a school space. Invite students to approach it from different lenses:

• scientific reasoning

• mathematical thinking

• community impact

• persuasive communication

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A Small BOB Experiment

This week, try one small shift:

Take one text, image, problem, or event and ask students to examine it through at least two different disciplinary lenses.

Then notice:

• What new questions emerge?

• What connections students make?

• How their thinking deepens.

Learning often grows in the spaces between the subjects, not just inside them.

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Stepping Outside the Blocks

The school day may be divided into subjects, but learning itself isn’t meant to live inside those blocks.

Students build understanding when they connect ideas across experiences—when a skill used in literacy shows up again in science, or when mathematical reasoning helps make sense of a real-world problem.

Helping students connect those dots doesn’t blur the disciplines. It strengthens them.

Because the more connections students make, the stronger their learning becomes.

When we invite students to look at one text, one event, or one problem from multiple perspectives, we are doing more than teaching content.

We are teaching them how to think.

And when we build bridges between subjects—when we step outside the blocks—we help students see that the most important skills in learning are also the most transferable ones.

If you try something like this in your classroom, I’d love to hear about it.

• What happened when students looked at the same idea through different lenses?

• How did it change their thinking?

• And perhaps even more interestingly—how did it change yours?