by Margot Locker
After finishing up their work on Engagement-Amy took her students through lessons on Ethics and Excellence, using narratives, books, and interactive activities to introduce her 6 and 7 year olds to these concepts. During the 40-minute lessons, the students were energetic and participatory. Amy’s vivid examples helped her class connect with the material.
To begin her Ethics lesson, Amy read her students a narrative, “Messy Maria.” In this short vignette, Maria’s best friend Belinda teases her about her messy habits, earning her a class nickname of “Messy Maria.” In the end, the students reflected about the importance of treating people kindly and fairly, and taking responsibility for your actions. Amy led the discussion about the story with her class by asking students, “If you are being a good friend are you also being a good, ethical class citizen?” This gave the class the opportunity to work on a definition of ethics and think about its implications in the classroom. Infusing the qualities of a good class citizen into the discussion of ethics helped Amy’s students understand the concept and further develop their definition.
Learning about excellence began with the story Country Bunny. As students listened to Amy read, they interjected and responded enthusiastically to her questions relating to the idea of excellence and who defines it. At the end of the story, Amy and her students spoke about excellence and then constructed a list of words describing “excellence.” Initially based on attributes of the animals in the story, they then moved on to their own ideas. Responses included “working as a team,” “never giving up,” “helping each other out,” and “trying your best all the time.” Amy connected the ideas to their lesson on Engagement, asking students to think back to their Expertise Charts and question what makes someone an “Expert?” The lesson finished with Amy posing a question to her students: “If you are having a hard time, how do you do excellent work?” Thinking about their expertise charts, students commented that asking for help, and looking to classmates who were “experts” may help to provide solutions.
After learning about the 3 E’s, students felt compelled to define them in their own terms, take ownership over the material and make it more relevant to their own school community. Students defined excellence as “being the best we can be,” Ethics as “being respectful and a good friend,” and Engagement as “liking what we are learning about.”
Amy will continue to include GoodWork lessons into her classroom, building on the foundation she and her students have built together. Stay tuned for more news from Amy Maturin’s classroom!