Is it better to give or to receive? I asked the students for the question of the day. As we enter the season of gratitude and gift-giving, I was curious about where they stood. Plus, the moral of the folktale we had read together about about Anansi the Spider was What goes around comes around, and I wondered if they would make a connection.
They did not disappoint me: by a margin of 52 to 24, these kids professed a preference for giving. Though I was careful to respect either position taken and argued in good faith, I would have been dismayed if the results had gone the other way. Some of their reasoning also touched upon the theme of our story. "If you give, some people may give back to you, or even to others, and it will probably come back to you," said one young writer. "I like to be a part of that," she added.
Even the kids who said they would rather receive did not have onerous reasons. "I don't have much to give," wrote one. "Especially since I'm just a kid."
"But you can give friendship or help or volunteer time," one of his classmates reminded him.
"Yeah," he admitted. "Can I change my answer?"
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