Well..."Sharing is caring" is a core value instilled in an elementary student. Whether they do it or not. They know it, they've heard it, they can repeat it in their sleep.
Today was 'normal' at work. One 'normal' incident happened when 2 of my students got into a conflict over markers for an economic choice worksheet I had given them. It was a double sided worksheet where they colored and cut their side of choice and thus established their opportunity cost, what they had to give up, on the other.
One little girl approached me during the activity. She is a student who has struggled with her tact...to put it nicely. She's been working on it and, in reflection of that, she says to me "Miss Thindwa, sorry but Chris is being really mean just because I don't want him to use my markers and he asked me and I said no today, but I always share my markers with him, and then he asked Sally and she said no and then he got really mean about it and called me a Know-It-All. I said no because he didn't ask me that nicely."
Chris came to me and responded "I just asked her to borrow them because I don't have any and I wanted to finish my worksheet and she wasn't using all of hers so I asked her if she could share and she just said no, but she has always said yes before."
(yea sometimes they speak like there is a scarcity of commas and periods.)
Anyway...
I thought about it as these two politely frustrated kids stood in front of me. I hesitated to respond.
Truth is, sometimes we just don't feel like sharing our goods. Especially when we are sharing our goods and not feeling that we yield any returns. I understand that. I understand that there is an opportunity cost of pride when we choose to share what we can with someone we don't want to share with. I get that there is an opportunity cost of "caring" when we choose not to share what we can at all.
This little girl, even in her spite, is entitled to reject a plea for her belongings. She feels he is unappreciative and it is her chance to make sure he knows it. He is not caring. This little boy is entitled to feel insulted when someone denies to use the little physical effort necessary to give because they didn't like how he asked. He believes she thinks she knows it all. She is not sharing.
So what was I going to say to these kids?
I wanted to explain all of this, in a way that a third grader could understand. I wanted to tell them they were both half wrong. I wanted to tell them that the issue was really in the intent, not in the entitlement. That when the intention of denial is to reject and hurt, then you are wrong. When the intention of asking is to expect favor, then you are foolish. I also wanted to just send them away and tell them "figure it out".
Aaah the supply was low-ish and the demand was high!
In a muddled way, I ended up saying to them "If you feel like someone is taking more than they appreciate, you should communicate that to them humbly. And if someone says no to a want that you ask for, and you know you asked humbly, then you have to accept "no" and let it be their personal issue."
I should take my own advice. This doesn't even sound easy, but I faked like it is. So after they had returned and I got to thinking some more....
I realized I had truly failed... to hype up the high supply of No. 2 pencils and/or good ol' wax crayons. Let me just do that next time.
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