Earnest Parents

I gave a presentation tonight at a private school in the Sand Point neighborhood. A dozen parents showed up to hear me speak on the advertised topic of Critical Thinking and Moral Education for Young Children. In fact, I only tangentially touched upon that, focusing instead on a number of exercises I've used in to explore ethics with students in philosophy for children classes.

I demonstrated three different activities: one, a Prisoner's Dilemma-influenced game that encourages students to cooperate rather than compete, second, a reading from Stuart Little that helps develop an understanding of classroom rules and norms, and third, a card game called "Hand Dealt" that introduces players to a Rawlsian conception of justice as fairness through simulating the choosing of principles of just distribution from behind a "veil of ignorance."

All in all, it went pretty well; parents were engaged with the activities and they asked thoughtful questions and made good eye contact with me throughout.

But what really struck me about the evening's participants was how earnest they all were. To a person, they seemed deeply committed to being the best moms and dads they could be even if that meant coming out on a Tuesday night to their kids' school to hear some guy tangentially-affiliated with the University of Washington talk about how to raise good kids.

And when it turned out that wasn't really what I was going to do, they hung in there, hoping for some guidance of some sort on the road to improved parenting.

I'm not sure I would have done that; I'm not sure I'm as good a parent--or that I'm as good at trying to be as good a parent--as they are.

I was invited by a former professor and even offered an honorarium to be there; if I'd have had my druthers, though, I might have been out drinking and riding bikes instead.