Friday, March 23, 2012

Moral Development

I recently read in an etiquette blog about how important it is to be nice to everyone, even the receptionist, office manager, or secretary, when on a job interview. After all, this certified etiquette trainer pointed out, you could lose the job if the secretary spoke poorly of your social skills. While the end result of this advice is positive – a concern for others’ feelings regardless of their station in life – the underlying message that being nice is simply a means to an end struck me as severely misguided.

            This raises the question of the real reason we should be kind to the secretary and how we can raise children who will know the answer to that question. In schools and as parents, we are concerned with our children’s moral development as well as their cognitive and athletic development. The earliest stage of moral development revolves around consequences:  will I be punished or rewarded for my behavior? If the former, the behavior must be bad, and if the latter, it must be good. Next comes a stage of utility – does the behavior serve others’ and my interests? This seems to be right on target for our etiquette specialist. As children develop morally, they move beyond what Lawrence Kohlberg calls pre-conventional moral thought, through stages that focus on interpersonal relationships, maintaining social order, respecting social contracts and individual rights, and internalized principles of justice. A child develops a moral and ethical conscience by building his or her own abstract understanding of the complexities of the world in which we live

            The development of moral character is individual work for each child, but it is accomplished within a social framework. If we want to help children make the move from caring only about themselves, we can do so by helping them think more about others’ feelings. Once children have developed the habit of thinking about social relationships, we can help them extend their thinking from individual interactions to broader societal and cultural issues. This happens in so many different ways throughout the school day. A young child who has had an altercation with another child is encouraged to think not about punishment, but about how the other child feels. Students at all ages work on interpersonal relationships during our Morning Meeting, and we often touch on social justice issues and cultural awareness in our social science classes. Throughout the history of our school, we have taken pride in how the adults in the school model thoughtfulness toward one another and toward students…and ask the Upper Primary students to practice and to do the same.

            It is our hope that our children would demonstrate their agreement with the etiquette specialist by being kind to the secretary when on a job interview. However, our goal is that the students would be kind not just because the secretary may have an impact on whether they would get the job, but because it is the right thing to do.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Anonymity

                Steamboat Springs is not the first small town in which I’ve lived, nor is it the most remote. However, it is the warmest (at least figuratively). I found myself ruminating about why that is as I listened to C. J. Box, Western mystery writer, last night at the first ever Spring Author’s Series at the Bud Werner Memorial Library. He shared details with a packed house about how he builds his books around the lack of anonymity that exists in small towns in the West. His writing tends to focus on the impact on social interactions that comes from knowing that the fellow citizen with whom you may disagree vehemently at the City Council meeting is the same neighbor who you will run into at the next social function you attend. Box’s books are, of course, based on how that small town closeness affects a murder investigation, while I’m much more interested in how our small town makes our community more civil. He discussed the lack of anonymity that small size engenders, while I think about the sense of belonging it promotes.

                A small school like Whiteman Primary can be seen as a microcosm of a small community like Steamboat Springs. In the same way that meeting other community members in a variety of contexts helps us to know them better, respect their opinions, and honor their differences, the increased opportunities to meet and interact with the other students in a variety of contexts allow our children to learn to appreciate one another. Of course, children are not going to be friends with every other child, just as not all members of the broader community will find pleasure in each other’s company, but the lesson that is learned in a small town or school environment is that being civil and respectful is key. The social habits that our town and our school develop in our children will stay with them and serve them well as they move out into the world as adults, regardless of the size of the setting in which they end up.

                My first experience in a small town in rural New Hampshire many, many years ago was jarring to my suburban world view. As I opened a bank account in my well-practiced business-honed Boston-bred aggressive manner, I noticed the shock and concern that the bank clerk seemed to be experiencing. Looking back at what was for me a life-changing interaction, I realize that it was exactly the anonymity Box referred to that had me viewing the bank clerk as a “function” rather than a “person.”  While some may bemoan the fact that they can’t escape the eyes of their neighbors in a small town like Steamboat Springs, or of their teachers and other students in a small school like Whiteman Primary, the net result of the smallness is a personal sense of warmth, comfort, and belonging. This is a tremendous gift that we all share here, and it’s one that we are fortunate to be able to give to our children and to the wider world they will someday lead.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Fate & Empathy

Reading the newspaper reminds us that fate can deal us wonderful things…and it can deal us disasters. In today’s world, where society honors the Horatio Alger, “pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps,” kind of success, it can be easy to believe that the guy next to us who seems so unlucky really just didn’t try hard enough. The news, the Internet, and just common lore love a story of triumphing over adversity. But just how much adversity is too much to overcome?

            Our Upper Primary students are engaged in a simulation of the colonization of America, and they are learning “firsthand” how fate can deal some insurmountable hurdles. As students work in teams to get their ships across the Atlantic and safely landed in the new world, they are learning many things beyond the history of colonization. Making decisions as a group is an important skill they practice as they plan their journey. What food and materials do they need to bring on their trip and what is the best way to pack it to reduce the risk of losing it? What if an illness breaks out in the confined quarters of the ship? How will they handle sanitation? If the weather becomes dangerous, what to do? What if they lose some of their provisions when a ship goes down? How can they save members of their group who were on that foundering ship?

            These may all seem like far-fetched problems for the students to deal with, but in fact they are closer to home than is obvious at first. These same students just returned from a winter skills trip into the cold, snowy backcountry. During that trip, they faced similar questions about how to remain safe both individually and as a group in treacherous conditions. Packing and planning were key skills they built, as was collaboration. Instead of figuring out how to help a drowning team member, the students learned how to help one who was caught in an avalanche. Rather than transporting their food on ships through the ocean, they worked to pull the food on sleds through the snow. But just as the pilgrims struggled with the exigencies of colonizing the new world, the students struggled with how to live “off the grid” in the backcountry of Colorado in unpredictable winter weather

            Fate dealt the colonists many tough cards, and though our students managed to avoid any tragedies on their winter skills trip, they did experience firsthand some of the struggles of being away from the everyday support of our modern society. As the student simulation continues, and fate cards arrive with news that may completely destroy the very best efforts of a team, an important lesson is that no matter how hard we try and with what good intentions we go forth into the world, problems can happen that don’t always end in a happy conclusion. The news reminds us that the homeless family sitting next to us may be approaching the problems they encounter as bravely as our own backcountry expeditionaries or even those rugged and determined colonists. Through opportunities like the winter skills trip and the colonial simulation, we help our children be as well prepared as possible for tough situations, but we also want them to learn to be empathetic toward those who have been dealt one disastrous fate card too many.