Description

Description

An object or a situation may be described by someone in a particular way and by someone else in a different way. There can be as many descriptions as there are points of view. Some descriptions may be more useful than others, some descriptions may be more complete than others. But there is no one description which is correct, leaving all the others to be wrong. That is why description is an easy way of showing how something can be looked at in different ways. It is also an easy way of practising the ability to generate alternative ways of looking at something. Furthermore when one learns to generate alternative points of view oneself one is ready to appreciate the validity of other people’s points of view.

Description is a way of making visible the way one understands something — the way one explains that thing to oneself. By having to describe something one has to commit oneself temporarily to a particular point of view. This means that one has to generate a definite point of view instead of being satisfied with a vague awareness.

The idea of this exercise is to train people to realize that there is more than one way of looking at a situation and to be able to generate alternative ways for themselves. For this reason the emphasis is not on the accuracy of the description but on the difference between descriptions and on the use of novel methods of description.

The raw material which is to be described may be picture material. This could take the form of photographs or ready made pictures or the students could be asked to draw pictures themselves for the others to describe. Simple geometric outline shapes are a good way to start. One can move on from visual material to written material. With written material one is really redescribing something that has already been described. It may be a story, an account from a book or a newspaper article. Real life situations can be identified by name without describing them just as real life objects can be identified and then the full description is left to the students. For instance students could be asked to describe a harvesting machine or the parliamentary system. Acting as in charades could also be the object of description. Obviously there is no limit to what can be described.

The descriptions may be verbal or written or even in picture form. Once they have been obtained the emphasis is on showing the different approaches. Students are encouraged to find still further approaches.

Although one is not interested in finding the best possible description one still needs to bear in mind what is a useful description and what is not. The material to be described is not being used as a stimulus to set off ideas. The task is not to generate ideas which have something to do with the material but to describe that material. The best criterion of adequate description is as follows:

‘Suppose you had to describe this scene to someone who could not see it, how would you describe it?’

One is not looking for the complete and pedantic description. A description which only conveys one aspect of the material may be very good if it does so vividly. Descriptions may be partial, complete or general.

For instance in describing a geometric square the following descriptions may be offered:

• A figure which has four equal sides.
• A figure which has only four angles and all of them are right angles.
• A rectangle with all the sides being equal.
• If you walk north for two miles then turn sharply east and continue for two miles, then sharply south and continue for two more miles, then sharply west and continue for two more miles, the path of your walk looked at from an aeroplane would be a square.
• If you take a rectangle which is twice as long as it is broad, and cut it in half straight down the middle you would have two squares.
• If you put together two right-angled isosceles triangles, base to base, you would have a square.

Some of the above descriptions are obviously very incomplete. Others are very roundabout.

Description is certainly the easiest setting in which to practise lateral thinking because there is always some result.