Generally speaking, perspective is our standing point to view a situation. It is an angle of the self viewing the world. It defines the sight and the understanding of what we face, whether a situation, a story or an experience. It can be compared to a painting. You want to paint a landscape. Where are you going to stand? On the top of the mountain and look downwards? At the valley? By the river? How wide can your vision be? A painter cannot draw everything! He/she omits something and emphasizes something else.There is one crucial difference, though, that probably needs to be pointed out: a painter makes a conscious and strategic decision when choosing where to stand in order to paint a picture. The perspectives we assume in our everyday lives, on the other hand, are most of the time unconscious, unintentional and often imperceptible even to us. Furthermore, perspective can also be compared to holding a torch and whatever is within the area lit is what you can see and comprehend. Your viewpoint depends on the setting you find yourself in. 

More specifically, an egocentric perspective is subjective depending on one’s personal background, culture, family, education, experiences; it has the self as the centre and excludes and ignores the viewpoint of others. It results from a person's inability to understand or assume a different perspective from their own, i.e. to stand in someone else's shoes. Adopting an egocentric perspective during communication may lead to unresolved conflict and misunderstandings. What is worse, such an attitude can prevent someone from appreciating the limitations of their views; for instance, they can’t understand how unreasonable or destructive their thinking is because by operating from such a perspective, their rationale seems to them to be right, true and justifiable. It could also point to a lack of emotional intelligence and emotional intelligence skills as the ego prevails and blurs vision.

It has been suggested that we are naturally born to be egocentric; babies and toddlers have no empathy for others and they do not even suspect that other people (whether adults or toddlers) have feelings, too. In terms of communication, the speech of toddlers is highly egocentric, too; they do not use language as a means to actually communicate with others, but most of the time they use it for their own pleasure. Growing up inevitably changes us; we all become less egocentric out of necessity in the first place - we can't survive in the real world if we don't. The older we get the more social and interactive skills we acquire and hence.adopt a less egocentric approach. Similarly, other factors such as education, family, cultural and social background come into play. However, as Epley^[1] mentions, egocentrism is still present in adults, as it is not something "outgrown as much as overcome by more careful and reflective thinking".

Adopting an egocentric perspective during communication can lead to misunderstandings, misinterpretations and unresolved conflicts. When people are seen, represented or talked about solely from one perspective their reality can be misunderstood, challenged or even tacitly reduced to something inferior, even an aberration. According to the Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, in a TEDx talk about the dangers of a single story^[1], her reality as a child growing up in Nigeria was in conflict with the British-American reality presented in the literature she had access to. She spent a large part of her childhood assuming that the reality she experienced through these stories was the valid or right one and in her first writings she adopted that perspective even though it had nothing to do with her own reality. In the same speech, she mentions the perspective adopted by Americans about what Africa is, again a single story that covers only one part of African life and people.

We all have been "victims" of a single story or an egocentric perspective at times, and we often rely on single stories, since it is not always easy to have access to multiple stories. People tend to jump to sloppy conclusions because of the limitations in their knowledge and understanding of the world. (This is how stereotypes are formed!) Adichie finishes her talk by saying, "when we reject the single story, when we realize that there is never a single story about any place, we regain a kind of paradise."^[1] So, what could help us widen our perspective or see things from different perspectives? The answer is openness and dialogue, being open and prepared to refute established knowledge and listen actively to multiple stories.

An effort to shift away from one's perspective is the start of the  advanced social  skill of becoming able to understand another's personal perspective. Communication and social relationships are formed when we can break off from the boundaries of our personal perception and accept that our interlocutor, colleague or student, are in a different standing point and we each see the fact,experience or event differently.

Being able to remove the blindfold of a singe perspecive widens your horizon to more and various "realities" (or experiences). It is to step back and get a fuller view of the whole picture. Additionally, it is for someone to get away from his comfort zone of his/her single story and look and listen to multiple stories. According to Anderson's words it is to "tolerate uncertaintly"^[1]. Once you get out of the area of your perspective you can have access to multiple stories, and hence to multiple realities.

As our torch analogy has already been mentioned,we can conclude that shifting our perspective is like learining how to draw the light of the torch to other directions; it is something that can be taught. In other words, we can be educated to move away from our standing point and see the sight from a different standing point. Eventually,we can cross roads with others and communicate if the horizon of our vision shares some common ground.

An egocentric perspective depends on a person's viewpoint (the neck problem, according to Epley^[1], i.e. looking at different information), or to a person's set of beliefs, knowledge, emotions, etc. that make up his/her interpretative lens (the lens problem, as identified by Epley^[1], i.e. looking at the same information through a different lens of interpretation).

The concepts of perspective and openness to diversity relate to education.  In a school class the issue of perspective is a more complex one. In a class there are not two perspectives only, that of the teacher and that of the students; instead, there is a wide range of perspectives as obviously not all students share the same perspective. What should probably be pointed out is how challenging (or  impossible) it is for the teacher to “cater for every single student's actual needs” in the context of a school class. It is one thing to ask the teacher to be an active listener and create an environment of trust and another thing to expect that a teacher, often teaching 200-250 students a year, can attend to each student's specific educational, linguistic, emotional or social needs..  The teacher may focus on one particular aspect, e.g. grammar, because from his/her standpoint grammar is what will help students communicate correctly, whereas each student from his/her standpoint may focus on a different aspect, e.g. vocabulary, because he/she needs words to communicate. So, in this very simplistic example, the teacher and the student focus on different things and mutual understanding is llikely to fail.  The teacher will be disappointed in the student who doesn't care about using the correct grammatical structures to communicate and the student will be disappointed by the teacher who doesn't provide him/her with the vocabulary needed to express himself/herself. When it comes to teacher-student relationships, an egocentric perspective can prevent the teacher from understanding the students, because they either look at different information or interpret things differently

On the other hand, as far as the lens problem is concerned, the teacher's vision can often be blurred because of his/her lens of expertise. As Epley^[2] puts it, "the expert's problem is assuming that what's so clear in his or her own mind is more obvious to others than it actually is." A teacher can, thus, assume that what he/she is teaching is more obvious to students than it is, and he/she will be disappointed to find out that the students may not have actually understood what he/she tried to teach them. Similarly, a teacher with an egocentric perspective can assume that when he/she says something, his/her students automatically understand the same thing. They don't suspect that when they teach, try to convey an idea or impose discipline, the words and terms that they use may hold subtly different meanings for their students. 

The consequences of the teachers' egocentric perspective to their teaching practices and behaviour are that they may focus on aspects that do not cater for every single student's actual needs or that they may make false assumptions about what each student can understand. As a result, students may lose their motivation to learn, since they don't fulfill their needs, or they may be disappointed in the learning process since they don't seem to achieve enough. In addition, when the teacher fails to find a common ground with his/her students, there can be more serious repercussions as misunderstanding may ensue, giving rise to an atmosphere of hostility and aloofness. Then, students complain that their teachers do not understand them or are unfair, indifferent or distant; teachers complain that their students do not listen or care about the lesson; they often talk at cross purposes. As a result, performance suffers and students become restless. Teachers become tired with all the discipline problems and indifference in the class atmosphere. No time is given for all parties involved to pause, do some self-reflection and listen to each other. 

 Effective understanding of students means attending to each student's specific educational, linguistic, emotional or social needs. In order to achieve mutual understanding teachers should explain their expectations and try to get to know students by inviting them to reflect on and talk about their own expectations, needs, personal experiences and views. First of all, teachers need to broaden their own horizons, open up their eyes and step back so that they can have a fuller view of the whole picture. They should be able to reflect on their own perspective and understand their limitations so as to see things more objectively. They should be good observers of themselves and the students. However, observation, intuition and perspective taking are not enough. What is actually required to effectively understand others' minds is asking and listening.What is more realistic to set as an aim for teacher practice is that teachers become more aware of the existence of different perspectives and that such an open attitude could have an effect on the quality of communication between the teacher and his/her different students, helping cultivate to students a sense of being heard and understood. According to Epley^[3], it is "hard relational work", which involves creating an environment of trust where the students feel safe to speak their minds openly. Teachers should try to shape an honest and sincere relationship with their students so as to express themselves freely. In Anderson's^[4] words, "maintaining a not-knowing position and tolerating uncertainty are critical for the freedom of expression necessary". The teacher should be an active listener and help students feel that their contribution is of equal value to everyone else's, it is worth hearing and will be respected by everyone. Consequently, students will be able to communicate directly their needs and thoughts and the teacher will have a clearer view and will be in a position to facilitate learning for all students.