I was just walking my dog, Dax. It was dark and frigid. I walked briskly with him pulling me (Dax is not the well-behaved kind of dog that heels). When he’s cold and tired, he will just pull and pull until he gets home.
And so as we rounded the corner, by the path beside my house, he didn’t notice the ominous shadow coming our way.
Only I did.
I got a quick glimpse of a shaggy figure walking steadily towards the mouth of the path; a sliver of moonlight lighting the way.
My heart quickened. I felt panic and dread all at once. I allowed Dax to drag me home and we rushed into the safety of our home.
“I just saw a Coyote”, I proclaimed to my husband. It was terrifying. I am going to go back out to make sure. This is when my husband questioned my judgement: “Why would you do that? What if the coyote jumps at you? Do you even know how to protect yourself?”
Of course I didn’t. And yet, I needed to go back. To verify the truth of what I saw. To warn others.
And so, I swallowed my panic and ventured back out again before I could change my mind. As I emerged, I saw it coming from the path. It was a silver Husky, walking alongside his owner who was dressed in black and barely visible in the darkness.
I had NOT seen a coyote. I peered down the path anyway. I had not seen a coyote? How could I be so very certain of something and yet be so very wrong? How could I account for the fear and panic over a friendly Husky??
I honestly can’t stop thinking about it how absolutely sure I had been about what I had “seen”. I can’t help but think about the impact of my assertion had I not gone back out to check. Would I have told all my neighbours and instilled fear in the whole neighbourhood? Would I have stopped going out to walk Dax by myself after dark?
The book, Blind Spot: Hidden Biases of Good People, talks about “mind bugs”; that our brains tend to go to what it understands fairly quickly without doing the work of unpacking reality. To bring it to an educational context (I just can’t help myself), the coyote incident made me think about how important it is, whether you are a school leader, a coach, a classroom teacher, or a parent to ensure that we don’t make assumptions about that employee, child, or family without clear vision. We need to be aware that our brains jump to conclusions without being really sure, so we need to double check the authenticity of our assumptions. And most significantly, how important it is to work through the fear or the discomfort to get at the truth.
