What Do You Value?

In 2nd grade, our current social studies unit focuses on rules and values. We have talked about school rules, community rules, house rules, and how and why we have those rules. Students have discussed which rules they think are important (Wearing a seat belt in the car is important!) and also ones they don't like or agree with (Why do I have to stay quiet in the hallway?). After allowing them to take an inquiry approach to rules, I posed the question, "What would happen if we didn't have those rules?" After many activities and discussions, students came to the conclusion that all rules serve a purpose, and were created based on a value (safety, responsibility, honesty, etc.)

Last week, we had the opportunity to do a fun activity called 4 Corners. The students took a Values Quiz, which were scenario based questions about what they would do in certain instances. For example, what would you do if a friend asked to copy your paper? Would you tell the teacher? Would you tell them no? Would you let them copy because they're your friend? These kind of questions allowed students to have in-depth conversations with each other about which they believe to be the best answer. When playing 4 Corners, students went and sat at the corner of which answer they chose to discuss with other people who chose the same answer. What was difficult for those students to do was learn how to stand by their beliefs, and not just agree with what their friend said! In some cases, groups had 10 or more students who agreed on that answer, and in some cases there were only 1 or 2 people who chose that answer... and that is ok! The 2nd graders were learning how to stand by their beliefs and values to prove a point, and I was proud to see these young learners stand up for what they believe is right.

As we are starting to wrap up our first unit, I had students reflect on our Goodrich school rules. Do we agree with them? Would you change anything? Ultimately, we agreed that our three school expectations Be Safe, Be Respectful, and Be Responsible all reflected many different ideas we believe to be important in a school. We then created posters to hang in the hallway to remind ourselves and other students in the building what our school rules are, and what they look like. 2nd Graders believe in the Goodrich Way!