Bringing Courage to PreK

Last week, I taught a values workshop on courage to Alex's preschool class. Now that my book is nearly finished, I have started testing it out on children other than my own, to work out some kinks. Alex's teachers were kind enough to welcome me into the classroom last week, and it was a blast. I taught from my PreK/K textbook. Alex's favorite value is courage, so I decided to start with that one. The lesson lasted about 20 minutes and the kids were totally engaged. Each lesson has a method. I introduce the value, "test" the kids to see if they know what it means, help them give examples to understand the meaning of the value, connect the examples to themselves, reinforce the value through an in-class exercise, and then assign a homework project that involves their caretakers which is then reviewed the next day in class. For courage, the in-class exercise involved little skits about scary activities a typical preschooler would find himself in. Their homework assignment was to draw a picture of themselves doing something courageous. On Friday, the assignment was due. The class parent sent an email reminder to the parents about the homework assignment and most of the kids managed to get it done and bring it in. As I had been up most of Thursday night with Alex on account of his seizure, I was exhausted on Friday morning. I completely forgot about the assignment I had assigned. After dropping Alex off at school, Izzy and I turned to leave and a little girl came up to me with her homework. Her mom helped her explain the picture she had drawn, about last summer when she learned to swim in a lake that had fish in it. I gave her a high five and praised her profusely for her effort. Then another little girl showed me her homework, with a picture of her reading a book. On the back her mom wrote that she had been scared of this one princess story because it had a scary witch in it, but that she found her courage inside (my catch phrase) and now she can read it and not be scared. I high fived her too and told her mom good job on working with her daughter on the homework. As the children filed past, homework in hand, I realized I had forgotten Alex's. I raced home to get it and bring it back in. At my suggestion, the teachers spent some time that day allowing the children to stand up in front of the class and explain the pictures they had drawn about themselves doing something courageous. When I picked Alex up that afternoon, the teachers said the whole exercise had been excellent, and that they planned to put the drawings together in some kind of book. Then another parent stopped me and told me that her daughter had learned so much from the workshop and she really appreciated my efforts. Having been up all night, I was a bit emotional, and was close to tears by the time I left the classroom. Teaching values is important. Not a single child (except Alex) was able to explain courage to me before the workshop. Each and every one of them was able to explain it after the workshop. The exercise not only taught an important value to little minds heading off to kindergarten next year, but connected the entire class as they shared scary events in their lives, and parents who were involved in the homework assignment. And, it was fun. Alex asked me if I would come teach in his classroom every day. I would love to found a charter school, but given our needs at home, will spend any spare time I have to bring values into the public school.