Early Childhood Education Models

Being Selfish Unit: Overview

Presenting planned opportunities to discuss familiar, or unfamiliar, situations fosters social and moral reasoning in young children as they think through a problem and encounter different points of view. These problem-centered learning opportunities use the books, entitled When a Friend Eats More Than Her Share and When a Friend Refuses To Share, co-authored by Rheta DeVries and Lorraine Goolsby (1994). These social and moral dilemma stories present commonly occurring problems in early childhood classrooms. The effectiveness of a dilemma story lies in the competing claims, rights, or points of view that it presents. Due to the complexities of a dilemma, there is no clear right or wrong solution, thereby creating opportunities for divergent interpretations and perspective taking.

DeVries and Goolsby provide suggestions in the back of their books for teachers to consider when using their dilemma stories. Their teaching tips are presented below in summarized form.

*A dilemma story should be read to the children several times to produce familiarity with the characters and the subtle nuances of the situation.

*Through careful questioning by the teacher, the children's attention will be focused on each character's perspective of the situation.

*Children are reflecting on the dilemma, so accept all ideas without passing judgment.

*Use open-ended questions to get at children's reasons behind what they say.

*Repeating children's statements back to them helps them clarify their thinking.

*Encourage children to share their similar personal experiences.

*Help children reflect how to avoid a similar future problem and consider what to do if it does occur again.
 
 

The authors offer the following precautions when using a dilemma story:

*Avoid asking so many questions that the children feel interrogated.

*When a child has no ideas of how to solve the problem, acknowledge the difficulty in dealing with a dilemma and suggest that more thought can to be given to the problem for a later discussion.

As the discussion of the dilemma ends, the teacher's acknowledgement of the children's efforts and opinions denotes that everyone's ideas are valuable. The goal of a dilemma story is not to come to a consensus, but to provide an opportunity to share ideas and promote children's critical reasoning. Social and moral discussions heighten children's awareness and understanding of opposing points of view in conflict situations, thereby promoting social and moral development.