“Did you hear about the fight at the dining hall during lunch today?”
“No, what happened?”
And so begins the retelling of the story by those who witnessed it. Then soon by those who heard it secondhand. Who’s right? Whose version is reliable and trustworthy? Your job as Principal is to investigate. Of all the witnesses you interview, no one is just plain lying.
- Why would there be different stories of the event if no one is lying? List reasons.
- In your investigation, who would you interview?
- Why might people see things differently?
- Are some accounts more trustworthy than others? What might make one person’s version more plausible than another’s?
- Does time make the way someone remembers something more or less trustworthy?
- How is your job as Principal like that of a historian’s?