Thoughts on Gift, Dark Dot, Strengths

Have you ever heard of the “dark dot” story?

University students were given a test on their first day of the semester. Their professor was handing them a single piece of paper. These one-pagers were completely blank, except for one tiny black dot, in the top left corner.

No title, no question. Just a blank page with a black spot.

The professor then asked her students to write on a separate piece of paper what they were seeing. They would be graded based on how they describe the piece of paper.

Of course, many students were confused, and a few asked for more explanations, but the professor gave none.

Once the feeling of surprise dissipated, the students started writing. Finally, after half an hour, the professor stopped the test and collected the assignments.

She returned to the middle of the auditorium and began reading the students’ papers out loud. All of them were talking at length about the black dot. How big it was. Where it was placed on the paper. What it could represent, and so forth.

The professor stopped her reading and the room went silent.

After a pause, she told her students she would not grade these papers. In fact, the whole purpose of this “test” was to help them understand something…