Hello – childhood socialism
Nov1
not too long ago my son’s kindergarten class won a pizza party. there was some kind of “pig race” with little plastic pigs and their teacher’s pig won. after the race they went back to their classroom and the teacher had them take a vote. there are two kindergarten classes in the school and she asked them if they wanted to split the pizza party with the other class. his teacher said it was unanimous and they wanted to share.
this story about 5 and 6 year olds bolsters my belief in the intrinsic goodness of humans. i am still shocked that there wasn’t a single dissenter in the group but i think they all knew it would be a bigger party and more fun if they shared. they would each get one slice of pizza instead of two but they wanted everyone to share in the fun.
i’m only shocked that the result wasn’t different because it seems that all too quickly this tendency to be kind to one another disappears. selfishness and greed are born of petty differences, jealousy and hate. in the end all people are hurt some time. some people push others down to get ahead. some people let their sadness out through anger. some people have been hurt so bad all they see in life is pain. some people simply let the pains rule their life and excuse their malice as something that was caused by others.
now don’t take this as anything political. it isn’t. i use socialism in the most general sense. think of it more as people centric. i would just ask you to be kind to one another and the child in all of us that deserves to be happy.
take care and have a great weekend. <(((O
9:17 am on November 6th, 2009
I see the best & worse of both worlds at my classroom. Kindness and gentleness to their classmate. Teasing and selfishness towards others they don’t like. I have hope though because my students are still a joy to be around, hopefully the world won’t drag it out of them.