“They act with integrity and honesty, with a strong sense of fairness, justice and respect for the dignity of the individual, groups and communities. They take responsibility for their own actions and the consequences that accompany them.”
Good judgment and moral behaviour don’t come naturally – they have to be learned. Children need to learn discernment in all situations for developing the moral intelligence to know right from wrong. This takes practice and lots of interesting conversations about real, as well as hypothetical, ethical dilemmas.
At the assembly, PYP students listened a story “Farmer Duck” by Martin Waddell (https://vimeo.com/56772821). The story is: A poor duck is overworked by a lazy farmer--until the duck's farm friends mete out their own brand of barnyard justice.
After reading, we discussed what was wrong in this story. Some found a problem of being lazy. Some found the unfairness in the relationship. Some found the action of making change for better. The discussion went very interestingly - When we convey to children how much we respect their ethical choices and moral behaviour, we give them incentive to keep choosing what is right. When they make mistakes and feel badly about themselves, we can teach them that righting their course is the way to authentic self-esteem. Children want to do good and they want to be good. So this time, we practiced one phrase: “Is this the right thing to do?” This simple question can be self-help as well as stop other’s wrong behaviour.
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