Black Ants Reading Chapters 5, 6, 12

“If we are to teach real peace in this world, we shall have to begin with the children” (Ghandi).

While reading through Mary Cowhey’s chapter 5 of Black Ants and Buddhists, I’m loving her devotion to peace and how she gets her students to dialogue about how to go about creating and living in peace.  I’m struck by how her simple methods of opening up discussions and conversations led her students to actually participate in a peace march in their community.  I connected with her when she said, “they didn’t do it because it was in a lesson plan.  They did it because they are used to learning through and engaging in dialog” (Cowhey, 2006, p. 93).  This is so powerful to me because she made dialogue and critical thinking a part of her classroom culture and community.  I think one of the biggest reasons this works in her classroom is because she (along with her students) created an environment where inquiry and questions could happen safely.  When she says, “But how can we assess their critical-thinking ability? How do we know if they are making sense of the stories we tell and the things we do? I wonder if the social justice element of my teaching carries over beyond my time with my students, whether first and second graders do “get it” in the long run” (Cowhey, 2006, p. 87), I immediately thought of my students and if what I am doing with them is actually working.  Is it sinking in? Does it even matter if I teach to them this way? I think she makes her point in the end of the chapter when she says even if their actions don’t immediately have a tangible effect on their world—it just matters that they did it.  I think as teachers, sometimes we have to come to terms with the fact that not all of our kids are going to “get it” the way we teach it.  But even if some of them are affected by our teaching—that matters.

I loved reading through chapter 6 of Black Ants and Buddhists on teaching through activism.  If Mary Cowhey thinks her 1^st and 2^nd graders have a hard time dealing with the hard issues and discussing things like landmines and slavery with her kids—then I definitely am going to have a hard time! However, like Cowhey—I’m up for the challenge.  I don’t believe in avoiding the difficult questions in life just because I don’t have the answer.  I find that most of the time, the things my kids are asking questions about are the things I am asking questions about.  One of my male students asked me why I have boobs.  First of all, I don’t really want to have a conversation with a 5 year old about my private body parts, but I also didn’t want to shut down his question because he was genuine in his wonder.  I told him it’s because I’m an adult female and most adult females have them.  He said, “well what are they?” Which of course made me laugh.  I told him they were mostly fat but there was some muscle too and that males have muscle on their pectorals too.  Another girl was listening in on our conversation and said she hoped she never had boobs because she didn’t want to be fat.  Hearing her say this made my heart so sad.  I wondered if a 5 year old was capable of hating their body (or their future body) and where she got this notion.  We continued our conversation on having fat on our bodies and why having some is good.  I say all this because this was a really hard conversation for me to have.  I wasn’t sure if I was going to far or saying something out of turn or inappropriate, however, I didn’t want to avoid it.  A lot of times, we’re afraid of speaking out or talking about issues that seem taboo—this chapter of Black Ants and Buddhists reminds me that I never want to be afraid of myself of my teaching style.  Of course I always want to be respectful and honoring to my students and their families, I just don’t want to operate out of fear.