Valentine's Day and Ethics

Ethics was a new concept to my kids this year. I actually get a lot of flack for incorporating the concept into our activities-1st Graders can't handle that! Well, I beg to differ. I think it's very important in helping them see things from another angle. My favorite part of the movie Dead Poet's Society is when Robin Williams stands on the desk and asks his students to see the world differently, shake things up a bit.

My kids weren't used to that. I would play devil's advocate with their answers, but what if....And they would act like they said something wrong. Of course, I reassured them I was just trying to get them to view the idea from a different angle and I think they really do get it now. Often kids will tell you an answer, but not be able to justify the why. We've experimented many times this year with investigating the duality of situations-right and wrong, good and bad.

I asked them to do that with Valentine's Day. Was there any downside to the holiday? Are some kids left out when it comes to passing out Valentines? They talked a lot about celebrating with family-what if you didn't have a family? Then I asked them to write about the holiday-one good thing and one maybe not-so-good thing about it. Some of them came up with some extraordinary ideas that I actually hadn't even thought of. Don't you love it when your kids surprise you with how well they can apply something?

"The bad thing about Valentine's-grown-ups have to spend money. Grown-ups don't have money."

The good thing about Valentine's if you could pass chocolate and you could buy a sweater.