School Bells – Current Affairs – Grade 1 – Week 14
I continue to look forward to meeting with this group of young scholars. Since I send the discussion assignment home with them with the suggestion that they and their family talk about the topic during the intervening week, I have become acutely aware that these children are all in families who are committed to functioning as a unit. They all have regular family time together in which they make decisions. Some of them have regular time set aside for family meetings. Some of them rely on sitting down together as a family for meals, especially dinner. The assignment this week was to talk about rules for meeting as a family. All the students were clear that there were rules for the family meetings although it was not clear that any of them had written down the rules.
Here come the students now.
Me: Good morning class.
Class: Good morning Mr. Jim. Cookies!
Me: Good try. As I recall we had cookies last week. No cookies this week.
Class: Ahhh…
Me: Okay. How was the discussion about family rules?
Sofia: We had never written them down, but we all knew the rules. It took us all week to remember all of them.
Me: That is great. What is the first rule on your list?
Sofia: Listen. We have to listen to each other and not interrupt.
Me: That is great rule. Do we practice that here also?
Sofia: Yes, we do.
Me: What happens if someone just keeps talking and talking and…
Sofia: That is the one minute rule. No one can talk for more than one minute.
Me: Great. I will write these on the white board:
Listen and do not interrupt.
Limit talk for one minute.
Me: How about some of the rest of you? What rules do your family have for family gatherings/meetings?
Steve: No blaming. Focus on problem solving. It used to be that my brothers, sisters and I would start off blaming each other. Our parents said the goal was to solve a problem or try to prevent the same problem again.
Me: That is a great rule. It sounds as if the family knows that we all make mistakes or have accidents.
Steve: That is what my dad says.
Me: What about the rest of you?
Sue: In our family name calling is not allowed. My brother used to get frustrated and call me crippled which hurt my feelings. Then I called him retard. It just kept going.
Me: Yes, I can see how that would happen. No name calling is a good rule.
Sam: In our family if it is a big decision we all have to agree. Recently we had a family meeting to decide if we would go visit grandma and grandpa for Christmas or buy new laptops for my brother and buy the new refrigerator for the family. Mom and dad wrote down the dollars on the board for the laptops and the refrigerators. The they wrote down the dollars for the trip. We had previously decided we would save so much for the holidays. Every week everyone put in 3% of their money for holidays. Paul and I put in 3% of our allowance. Mom and dad put in 3% of what they brought home from work.
Me: It sounds like there are two rules here. One is that everyone has to agree to a decision. We call that consensus decision making. I will write it on the board. The other is that everyone contributes an equal percent of their income for vacations spending. That is another way of being fair while allowing or the fact that everyone has a different income.
Ahmes: In our family you cannot miss a family meeting unless you can get everyone to agree to meet another time. If someone is sick, we all agree to meet another time.
Tara: You cannot share what someone else in family talks about. This does not mean that if someone in family was mean we could not ask for help. Mom and dad were afraid that if I shared this rule it would sound as if we were hiding something bad.
Me: I am glad you explained that Tara. Some families have a rule that if there are bad things happening in the family such as violence no one is allowed to tell anyone outside the family. It is important that we all know it is okay to ask for help if someone is being abused in a home, school or work situation.
We have time for one more. Who else can share a family rule?
Susie: In our family, anyone can ask for a family meeting even if it is not time for one.
Me: That is great rule. Let’s review all these rules which I have put on the board:
· Listen and do not interrupt.
· Limit talk to one minute.
· No blaming.
· No name calling.
· Consensus decision making.
· Contribute equally - percentage – to family vacations.
· Do not share private information outside the family unless someone is being hurt.
· Ask for family meeting any time.
· Keep family meetings a priority- important.
Sounds like all of you have families who are committed to family meetings. There is a lot of information on line about family meetings although the focus of a number of them is wealthy families making decisions about the family money or business.
I will print off a copy of the rules which you can share with your families. Does anyone have a topic that they want to discuss next week?
Susie: My brother says that there are boy jobs and girl jobs. Is that true? Why is that true?
Me: That is a great topic. Is everyone okay with that topic?
Class: Yes, Mr. Jim. Cookies?
Me: Okay. We will have cookies next week and we will discuss why some people think that there are boy jobs and girl jobs. Let me print the rules and the topic for next week. Everyone please pick up a copy of each on your way out.
You all did great. Thanks. Have a great week.
Ring! Ring! Ring!
Written November 17, 2016
I continue to look forward to meeting with this group of young scholars. Since I send the discussion assignment home with them with the suggestion that they and their family talk about the topic during the intervening week, I have become acutely aware that these children are all in families who are committed to functioning as a unit. They all have regular family time together in which they make decisions. Some of them have regular time set aside for family meetings. Some of them rely on sitting down together as a family for meals, especially dinner. The assignment this week was to talk about rules for meeting as a family. All the students were clear that there were rules for the family meetings although it was not clear that any of them had written down the rules.
Here come the students now.
Me: Good morning class.
Class: Good morning Mr. Jim. Cookies!
Me: Good try. As I recall we had cookies last week. No cookies this week.
Class: Ahhh…
Me: Okay. How was the discussion about family rules?
Sofia: We had never written them down, but we all knew the rules. It took us all week to remember all of them.
Me: That is great. What is the first rule on your list?
Sofia: Listen. We have to listen to each other and not interrupt.
Me: That is great rule. Do we practice that here also?
Sofia: Yes, we do.
Me: What happens if someone just keeps talking and talking and…
Sofia: That is the one minute rule. No one can talk for more than one minute.
Me: Great. I will write these on the white board:
Listen and do not interrupt.
Limit talk for one minute.
Me: How about some of the rest of you? What rules do your family have for family gatherings/meetings?
Steve: No blaming. Focus on problem solving. It used to be that my brothers, sisters and I would start off blaming each other. Our parents said the goal was to solve a problem or try to prevent the same problem again.
Me: That is a great rule. It sounds as if the family knows that we all make mistakes or have accidents.
Steve: That is what my dad says.
Me: What about the rest of you?
Sue: In our family name calling is not allowed. My brother used to get frustrated and call me crippled which hurt my feelings. Then I called him retard. It just kept going.
Me: Yes, I can see how that would happen. No name calling is a good rule.
Sam: In our family if it is a big decision we all have to agree. Recently we had a family meeting to decide if we would go visit grandma and grandpa for Christmas or buy new laptops for my brother and buy the new refrigerator for the family. Mom and dad wrote down the dollars on the board for the laptops and the refrigerators. The they wrote down the dollars for the trip. We had previously decided we would save so much for the holidays. Every week everyone put in 3% of their money for holidays. Paul and I put in 3% of our allowance. Mom and dad put in 3% of what they brought home from work.
Me: It sounds like there are two rules here. One is that everyone has to agree to a decision. We call that consensus decision making. I will write it on the board. The other is that everyone contributes an equal percent of their income for vacations spending. That is another way of being fair while allowing or the fact that everyone has a different income.
Ahmes: In our family you cannot miss a family meeting unless you can get everyone to agree to meet another time. If someone is sick, we all agree to meet another time.
Tara: You cannot share what someone else in family talks about. This does not mean that if someone in family was mean we could not ask for help. Mom and dad were afraid that if I shared this rule it would sound as if we were hiding something bad.
Me: I am glad you explained that Tara. Some families have a rule that if there are bad things happening in the family such as violence no one is allowed to tell anyone outside the family. It is important that we all know it is okay to ask for help if someone is being abused in a home, school or work situation.
We have time for one more. Who else can share a family rule?
Susie: In our family, anyone can ask for a family meeting even if it is not time for one.
Me: That is great rule. Let’s review all these rules which I have put on the board:
· Listen and do not interrupt.
· Limit talk to one minute.
· No blaming.
· No name calling.
· Consensus decision making.
· Contribute equally - percentage – to family vacations.
· Do not share private information outside the family unless someone is being hurt.
· Ask for family meeting any time.
· Keep family meetings a priority- important.
Sounds like all of you have families who are committed to family meetings. There is a lot of information on line about family meetings although the focus of a number of them is wealthy families making decisions about the family money or business.
I will print off a copy of the rules which you can share with your families. Does anyone have a topic that they want to discuss next week?
Susie: My brother says that there are boy jobs and girl jobs. Is that true? Why is that true?
Me: That is a great topic. Is everyone okay with that topic?
Class: Yes, Mr. Jim. Cookies?
Me: Okay. We will have cookies next week and we will discuss why some people think that there are boy jobs and girl jobs. Let me print the rules and the topic for next week. Everyone please pick up a copy of each on your way out.
You all did great. Thanks. Have a great week.
Ring! Ring! Ring!
Written November 17, 2016
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