Philosophical Chinese soup for the preteen soul

The only history lesson I knew I was going to teach this year (and gleefully anticipated) was one my former colleague Schaef has perfected over the years. We are teaching the same 6th grade curriculum, which is a hands-on overview of the ancient world that should come with acting lessons and a costume bag. For the teacher, that is. Schaef, everyone's #1 go-to guy, has, in fact, invested in a wide array of costumes over the years. (His Socrates regularly brings down the house), but this lesson requires nothing but a whistle, a ruler and the spirit of your favorite drill sergeant.

It goes like this: in order to teach the finer points of the ancient Chinese philosophy of Legalism, the teacher is instructed to blow a whistle, line the kids up, march them into the classroom, and make them sit in rows and read the textbook silently while s/he prowls the aisles smacking a ruler in his/her hand with vigor, if not outright menace. After not enough time, the kids close their books and are peppered with questions. They must stand up to answer and look straight ahead (to look the teacher in the eye would be insubordination). They are rewarded if they answer correctly (praised and allowed to sit down) and punished if they get the answer wrong (I made them stay standing). After about 10 minutes of this charade (which the kids know is a put-on, but at that age it still packs a punch), we all take a deep breath and debrief.

Now, regular readers might be getting the idea that this curriculum is designed to traumatize kids into learning history (see the post "Friends, Romans, Pringles" (January 2009) about how pitting kids against each other based on access to junk foods provided an excellent look at class conflict in ancient Rome). But lest you think it's all Machiavellian drama, we did have a very different lesson the day before the Legalist whistle and ruler.

Another ancient philosophy the kids learn about is Daoism. In that lesson, kids are allowed to express their knowledge of the material any way they choose. They can draw, write stories, or act out any of the elements of this balanced and peaceful philosophy. Though some kids stuck with the workbook, others drew yin and yang symbols and scenes of forests and flowing streams. One boy wrote a poem, another girl did an interpretive dance. (It was too cute, but definitely one of those bite-your-cheek-to-keep-from-laughing moments.) All I did was draw on the board and ignored everyone. We debriefed that lesson informally. The kids were taken aback that no one had to raise his/her hand. Not even once. I know the lesson sunk in when I started getting reports from other teachers that this particular class was requesting Daoist lessons, please. A colleague who is also a parent of one of my students told me her daughter couldn't stop talking about her "meditative bubble" (a phrase that came up during our debrief to describe the Daoist sense of peace and oneness with nature).

We also did Confucianism, of course, though that lesson is a little less memorable. Kids liked the philosophy itself, though, and pointed out that much of the structure (including the teacher/student and parent/child relationships) are a major part of their lives. I've never thought about how Confucian a child's experience is, but they live in a hierarchy of relationships that we adults have forgotten about.

It was cool talking with the kids about how all three philosophies came about in reponse to the chaos of the Warring States period of Chinese history (as I'm sure you recall). They were amazed that philosophers would have such different ways of looking at the same issue. "Why didn't they just combine the best parts of all three?" the kid who wrote the Daoist poem asked. Why not indeed. This comment led to a discussion about how some people prefer more structure and some people less. People who need more structure would love Legalism, while those who didn't need/want as much would be happy as Daoists. This led to yet another tangent about how comfortable Legalism was for some in the class, while others hated it. It wasn't long before someone pointed out that it was a matter of personal preference--yet if one person had a lot of power, then everyone would have to live with his/her preference. In addition to providing a perfect segue into the next chapter of Chinese history (Emperor Qin was definitely a structure aficionado), it also made kids aware of the heart of philosophy (for lack of a better term); philosophy as an examination of the human condition stemming from indivdual human experience, and as a reflection of the way the world works or could work. Not bad for a lesson that didn't even need a costume.