The purpose of this blog is to serve as a discussion forum on general Montessori philosophy and practice for Montessori parents and teachers. It will not be used for announcements, messages, or schedules particular to my classroom. Nor will it be used as a parent conference tool regarding progress of individual students. Please refer to specific students by age and gender only (no names). Looking forward to a lively exchange of questions and ideas!
Friday, January 21, 2011
Parents and peacemakers?
I would also be interested in how parentsof 5-7 year olds feel about introducing them to rather touchy subjects related to peace such as war, racism, etc. How do you answer their questions when these issues come up?
I try to tackle the question as simply as I can without gorey details. I think we have the advantage at home, as we usually use religion/God as the foundation of the discussion and branch into using history and how we have learned to be good, helpful citizens.
We haven't really had war questions come up yet, but we have had questions about race and racism. We were living overseas until recently, and the expatriate community we were a part of was very multicultural and diverse. This has given us a way to respond to the kids' questions, by talking about all of our friends and how everyone was different and unique but yet so many things were the same. And while they are probably already forgetting about it, there were times that they experienced being excluded at the playground because of their looks or language; reminding them of how they felt at the time helps them to understand why doing the same to anyone else is not okay. They may not understand yet why prejudice exists, but hopefully they will at least know how to respond when it happens around them.
I try to tackle the question as simply as I can without gorey details. I think we have the advantage at home, as we usually use religion/God as the foundation of the discussion and branch into using history and how we have learned to be good, helpful citizens.
ReplyDeleteWe haven't really had war questions come up yet, but we have had questions about race and racism. We were living overseas until recently, and the expatriate community we were a part of was very multicultural and diverse. This has given us a way to respond to the kids' questions, by talking about all of our friends and how everyone was different and unique but yet so many things were the same. And while they are probably already forgetting about it, there were times that they experienced being excluded at the playground because of their looks or language; reminding them of how they felt at the time helps them to understand why doing the same to anyone else is not okay. They may not understand yet why prejudice exists, but hopefully they will at least know how to respond when it happens around them.
ReplyDelete