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Growing up the youngest of three children in a very tight-knit, open, and opinionated family, I grew to love debate. My upbringing has been diverse and my background, convoluted to say the least. This doesn’t only provide me with frustration when having to answer where I am from, or where home is, but I believe a particularly unique perspective on life’ peculiarities. Being the youngest and the only boy in my family and bullied throughout my early years as a child shaped my perspectives and approaches to conflict and discussions. There are countless other explanations for how I became who I am today, however, one of the most unique and perhaps impactful experiences I have had, was due to my humanities teacher in Bali, Indonesia. He was German and well respected amongst students, disciplinary but he possessed a youthful fun in his teaching and attitude towards students that many other teachers lacked. The memory that I remember clearly is when in Grade 10 (sophomore year of high-school) we studied into depth the Nazi regime and World War 2. I vividly remember entering the classroom with my friends, shrugging off my backpack and excitedly seeing that the projector was hooked up. Eventually, as the cacophony of voices died down and the curtains had been closed, Mr.Wood began the fateful lesson. Over the course of the next hour and a half he presented multiple sources and a variety of evidence, from videos to articles and research papers which genuinely proposed that the holocaust was a conspiracy and 6 million jews were not killed in dreadful concentration camps. This, understandably, was a shocking lesson to many. By the end of the class most of us 15-16 year old sophomores were sitting in disbelief and confusion. Having been presented with a convincing case which contradicted all that we had been taught about the second world war, many students went home to discuss with their parents. I personally was adamant as always to see the other side of the arguments that he brought up. I knew that he was extremely biased with the evidence he provided, so I set out to present a case that countered what he had presented to us in class. Personally, in the car ride home, my mother’ reaction varied from incredulous to enraged as she heard about the class we had; this reaction was common amongst many of my classmates’ parents I would come to find out. The next lesson Mr.Wood dropped the pretense that he was an avid supporter of the holocaust conspiracy and had us write persuasive essays wherein we brought into question the validity of the original sources he provided for holocaust denial. We also had to provide valid sources and information which would prove the events of the holocaust. With access to the internet, our own discretion and a newfound urge for persuasive revenge, it was much easier to see how absurd some of the radical claims from the previous class were. The importance of this controversial lesson is that every year the impressionable sophomores aren’t aware of this immersive strategy that really emphasises the importance of doing good research and respecting that there will be sources on both sides of every argument. He later revealed that only me and one other girl in the class of 20 followed up with him after the first class about his unforgettable lesson. Many of my classmates were convinced by him in that isolated classroom and weren’t so intent to disprove what they had be provided with. This is a danger reflected in our world today. Regardless of the situation or beliefs at stake, it is easy to be happy where you are and never stop to question yourself. I challenge myself to be a respectful ‘devil’ advocate’ in many situations where I might otherwise be comfortable taking a side on a matter. By challenging myself to stand in the shoes of someone with a polar opposite perspective, convincing myself that my original values and reasons are correct is an interesting challenge. It is only too easy to separate yourself from people with different opinions and create an unbreachable rift of misunderstanding. With social media and every aspect of our lives becoming personalised, we too easily create tunnels that centre around us and echo what auditory and visual response we want back at us. Embracing new ideas and forging your way to strong beliefs through research and experience is immensely more valuable. Additionally, knowing how you changed your thoughts on a matter from point x to point y means that if you ever meet a person in a similar spot that you moved away from, you can discuss with them your change of heart and mind, more in depth and coherently. For true justice in communities, there needs to be understanding between the involved parties. Moving to America, I am meeting many people from different backgrounds with different reservations and attitudes. Politics is always a tender subject and coming from overseas, I suddenly feel like I’m walking on thin ice. The tense atmosphere provides me with interesting opportunities to learn of political views and perhaps offer outside perspectives. So I challenge you to open your mind and take a risk to discover more about an ideal that you don’t necessarily agree with and determine through thorough research on both sides, how strong and infallible your original perspectives were. Question your comforts and do not fall into the easy misunderstandings caused by confirmation bias. So I challenge you to ask yourself if you have ever been one of the 18 students blindly persuaded by a mentor, and if so, is it time to open your eyes?