Urban six year olds are in a word: savvy.  Every year I am more and more in awe of how fast many of my young students have to grow up.  Many students at my school take public transit (by themselves) and go home and make their own dinner.  When I was in first grade, it was a big deal to go to my neighbors house (across the street) by myself.  Hell, I’m 34 and my mother insists I call her when I arrive home.  That said, it’s no surprise that many kids in my class don’t have family dinners together.  In fact, most of my students are asleep when their parent arrives home because of their parent’s night jobs.

Over my holiday vacation, I started thinking about my first graders—why do we have so much conflict at our school around this time of year?  As teachers, we do our best to create warm inviting class communities, yet the middle of the year seems to bring arguments, blaming, and tattling, not only in my class, but across grades.  While frantically holiday shopping, I came across E is for Ethics by Ian James Corlett.  It’s made a world of difference in our classroom.

The book is made up of 26 short stories each focusing on one core value such as – honesty, forgiveness, loyalty, and courage.  The book follows a brother and sister, Elliot and Lucy, and the situations they find themselves in. Ian James Corlett wrote this book loosely based on his own children.  At the end of each story, follow up questions are provided to open up a discussion.

I’ll be honest.  I didn’t think my students would be able to have a discussion, but, as it turns out, that is exactly what we have been doing. Students are able to reflect on the situation and discuss it with their classmates. It’s interesting to hear their point of view and they especially enjoy sharing their stories and opinions with their peers. I love that the stories are short (a page and a half) and not preachy.  I don’t expect this book to change my students’ lives, but it’s been refreshing to see a difference in their behavior and understanding consequences of their actions.  For many of my students, they are just happy to have someone listen to their experiences.

I’m actually looking forward to using this book with Emi in a couple of years.   It will be interesting to see if she shows any remorse for stealing a key chain from a store last week.

If this photo is any indication, it doesn’t look like it. Perhaps Lucia has been teaching her the ropes?  I guess you know what your getting for your birthday Francesca…