A couple days ago, my Grade 2 students were on their way struggling to differentiate between ‘wants’ and ‘needs’. Every time we tried to list down our ‘wants’ and our ‘needs’, all things were collided and we were confused in the middle of the Venn Diagram of ‘wants’ and ‘needs’.
Okay, at least we have arrived to a conclusion that ‘needs’ are something that we must have to be able to stay alive and survive. Cool. Problems occurred when we were trying to make chart of Top Ten Needs.
Teacher: ‘Okay, now what do you think we need most to survive?’
Students: ‘MONEEEEYYYYY!’
Teacher: (take a deep breath) ‘Are we going to place money at the top of our needs? Why?’
Students: ‘Because without money we can’t survive. we need money to buy everything that we need!’
Teacher: (think hard) ‘We are talking about general living things, not only human, not only you, not only me. Do animals and plants need money to survive?’
Students: (insist) ‘Ehm, no Miss. But we need it!’
Teacher: ‘We’ll see are we going to put money in our list or not. Now what do you think we need most to survive, to stay alive?’
Students: (noisy) ‘Air…. Water…. Food… Shelter… … … Money!’
Teacher: (writing in whiteboard) ‘Air, water, food, shelter, what else aside from money?’
Students: ‘Money Miss! Without money we can’t buy anything that we need! Our pets need food to eat, but if we don’t have money, so we can’t buy their food!
Back in those years when I taught the students based on textbooks, these kind of discussions were never exist. It was easier for both teachers and students. We were plotted to follow everything written in the textbooks, pages by pages, units by units from cover to cover. No discussions, no debates.
But then those questions were raising:
- Are we living in a world of textbooks?
- If learning should be coming from textbooks, why can’t textbooks give answers for every questions arise?
- If an experience should be considered as learning, what if some experiences are different from what it is written in the text books?
Teacher: ‘Let’s do a role play, imagine if you have all the money in the world, so you’re the richest person in this world. The problem is, no one want to be with you, no one want to trade with you and you are left alone with your money. Do you think you can fulfill all your needs using money?’
Students: ‘(coming with different answers)…’
Finally we came up with some other needs aside money; love and affection, friendship, healthiness, education, etc. But somehow that’s not the end of the story.
Students: ‘Miss, I think we should put money in our needs. Everybody need money, right?’
Teacher: ‘You are right. We need money. But why do we need money?’
Student: ‘To buy something that we need.’
Teacher: ‘Which is to trade money with what we need, right? What if you have all things that you need; foods, education, love, healthiness and so on and so on. Do you still need money?’
Student: ‘So I will need money for buying things what I want, like toys or other fancy things.’
Teacher: ‘Great answer. So we need more time to discuss.’
Again like I said, that’s not the end of the story ;)
I was sent out to teach Grade 2 students 7 - 8 years old. We are learning from each other. No, actually I’m the one who are learning to understand how they think. It’s no more students should be the one who learn to understand their teachers.
And I’m grateful to be the part of it.
