Moral Tales, session 4: In Another's Shoes (part 2)
So, about the seal hunt protest letter thing...
What ended up happening is I talked to the DRE and she suggested we make it a teachable moment thing -- modeling respectful disagreement and all, since my coteacher this week was okay with protesting the hunt altogether, while I was emphatically not. And that is what we did.
We did the opening as usual -- chalice lighting and passing a squeeze around the circle -- and then we had a little singalong, since the RE traveling musician was with our class today. She taught the kids to sing "Spirit of Life," which is as close to a denominational hymn as UUs have. (It's also just a beautiful song; if you find a version on YouTube or something, do listen!) Then we did our Gems of Goodness exercise, wherein the kids share a good/helpful/nice thing they did since the last time they were in class, followed by a couple empathy exercises.
The first was for everyone to take off one shoe and put them in a big basket. Then each person picked a shoe and had to return it to its rightful owner, who had to thank them. After that we practiced respectful listening; the kids split into groups of two and took turns telling a story about some incident that made them feel a strong emotion, after which the listeners asked clarifying questions and then repeated the gist of the story to prove they'd been paying attention. (In between those exercises we did some physical exercise, which I find useful to kind of bleed off the disruptive excess enthusiasm we often get.)
Then I introduced the existence of the seal hunt, in fairly general terms so as not to get too graphic for eight- and nine-year-old kids. I raised the comparison of slaughterhouses in order to talk about humane vs. inhumane killing methods, to show that seals should not get special treatment just because they're cute, and to point out that slaughterhouses, at least, are subject to rules and inspections, whereas it's harder to track what seal hunters are doing out on the ocean ice. I then said that people had a lot of different opinions about seal hunting -- some people think it should be stopped altogether (to which one kid said, "But then seals might take over the world!" which made it hard for me to keep a straight face for a couple seconds), some people think it should be more strictly regulated, and some people think it's fine as it is. And all of these opinions are valid.
(At this point my coteacher said that some of the difference in opinions comes from who and what people feel empathy for. Some people feel a lot of empathy for the seals, while other people feel empathy for the seal hunters. Also some people worry about an unchecked seal population eating too many fish, or they think that other environmental or animal rights issues are more immediately important -- like global warming or factory farm conditions.)
After explaining the issue, I said that we had a letter protesting the seal hunt, which we would take downstairs to coffee hour to see if any adults wanted to sign it. The kids, I said, could also sign the letter if they wanted to -- but if they didn't agree with it, or just didn't want to actively protest anything, that was fine too. Every person has to make his or her own decision, and UUs do our best to accept whatever any other person chooses to believe and do.
So we lined up and took the letter downstairs.
I did not sign it. I think my coteacher did, as did a few other people. However, the DRE had apparently forgotten to make a sign for us to advertise what the class was doing, so most of the congregation simply didn't notice that we were down there at all. I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, well, it was less personally awkward for me to stand around behind the table when hardly anybody came over to sign a letter I disagreed with. On the other hand, it was not the best conclusion to the lesson for the letter to essentially be ignored. :-/
Oh well. All in all, I think it went as well as could reasonably be expected.
What ended up happening is I talked to the DRE and she suggested we make it a teachable moment thing -- modeling respectful disagreement and all, since my coteacher this week was okay with protesting the hunt altogether, while I was emphatically not. And that is what we did.
We did the opening as usual -- chalice lighting and passing a squeeze around the circle -- and then we had a little singalong, since the RE traveling musician was with our class today. She taught the kids to sing "Spirit of Life," which is as close to a denominational hymn as UUs have. (It's also just a beautiful song; if you find a version on YouTube or something, do listen!) Then we did our Gems of Goodness exercise, wherein the kids share a good/helpful/nice thing they did since the last time they were in class, followed by a couple empathy exercises.
The first was for everyone to take off one shoe and put them in a big basket. Then each person picked a shoe and had to return it to its rightful owner, who had to thank them. After that we practiced respectful listening; the kids split into groups of two and took turns telling a story about some incident that made them feel a strong emotion, after which the listeners asked clarifying questions and then repeated the gist of the story to prove they'd been paying attention. (In between those exercises we did some physical exercise, which I find useful to kind of bleed off the disruptive excess enthusiasm we often get.)
Then I introduced the existence of the seal hunt, in fairly general terms so as not to get too graphic for eight- and nine-year-old kids. I raised the comparison of slaughterhouses in order to talk about humane vs. inhumane killing methods, to show that seals should not get special treatment just because they're cute, and to point out that slaughterhouses, at least, are subject to rules and inspections, whereas it's harder to track what seal hunters are doing out on the ocean ice. I then said that people had a lot of different opinions about seal hunting -- some people think it should be stopped altogether (to which one kid said, "But then seals might take over the world!" which made it hard for me to keep a straight face for a couple seconds), some people think it should be more strictly regulated, and some people think it's fine as it is. And all of these opinions are valid.
(At this point my coteacher said that some of the difference in opinions comes from who and what people feel empathy for. Some people feel a lot of empathy for the seals, while other people feel empathy for the seal hunters. Also some people worry about an unchecked seal population eating too many fish, or they think that other environmental or animal rights issues are more immediately important -- like global warming or factory farm conditions.)
After explaining the issue, I said that we had a letter protesting the seal hunt, which we would take downstairs to coffee hour to see if any adults wanted to sign it. The kids, I said, could also sign the letter if they wanted to -- but if they didn't agree with it, or just didn't want to actively protest anything, that was fine too. Every person has to make his or her own decision, and UUs do our best to accept whatever any other person chooses to believe and do.
So we lined up and took the letter downstairs.
I did not sign it. I think my coteacher did, as did a few other people. However, the DRE had apparently forgotten to make a sign for us to advertise what the class was doing, so most of the congregation simply didn't notice that we were down there at all. I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, well, it was less personally awkward for me to stand around behind the table when hardly anybody came over to sign a letter I disagreed with. On the other hand, it was not the best conclusion to the lesson for the letter to essentially be ignored. :-/
Oh well. All in all, I think it went as well as could reasonably be expected.