Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Philosophy with 11 year olds

I do a bit of work as a supply teacher. Today I scored a year 6/7 class. It was purely coincidental if anyone learnt any maths or english, because I don't remember teaching any. A few kids were way out of their trees and keeping them safe and the other kids safe from them was my priority.

This afternoon I was instructed to run a 'philosophy' lesson on stealing. I had a set of questions like: Is stealing wrong? Are there any situations in which stealing might not be wrong? If you find something, is it stealing to keep it? etc. We had a class discussion. I wasn't meant to offer answers, but just get the kids thinking about the issues.

It was eye opening. These kids have known nothing except post modernism and all but 2 kids were not happy with the idea that stealing is 'wrong'. Even the two who thought it was wrong wanted the definition of stealing narrowed considerably. Apparently if you find a wallet, it's okay to take the money out of it. If you find $1000 you are under no obligation to hand it in because no-one would know that you found it. Hmm.

I broke the rules at the end of the lesson and explained to the kids that in whatever situation we find ourselves, we should try to do the very best thing. Not just what we think we can get away with. I didn't think anyone heard what I said, but after school a boy came and put 5c on my desk. I questioned him about it, and he said 'Miss, that's what you said we should do!' I had to pick my jaw up from the ground.

Amazing.

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