P4C: Happiness

Today we did another P4C (philosophy for children) class.

This time, we had eight students—Mulan, Miya, two friends from last week, and my Big Sis’ four children.  The translations back and forth between the non-Chinese speakers and the non-English speakers slowed the conversation down a little, and it meant that the adult translator had a little too much power, but, despite this, it still went pretty well.

When preparing the lesson, I thought it would work best if we got the children to initially work in two separate groups, with me facilitating the English speakers and Mama facilitating the Chinese speakers.  Then at the end we could join together to discuss the findings.  So, with this in mind, I chose a small group based “In or Out” activity called What do you need to be happy?.

Each group was given 16 cards.  Each card had a picture on it of something that we possibly need to be happy, such as family, laughter, holidays, food, cars, and so on.  All 16 cards were dropped inside a circle drawn on the floor (a chalk circle on the tile floor—easy to wipe off!).

The task for each group was to decide whether each card should be inside or outside the circle.  Cards should stay inside if the group agreed that it was something we need for us to be happy.  Cards should be taken out of the circle if the group agreed that it was something that we don’t need to be happy.

Some cards were ones in which everyone agreed weren’t needed for us to be happy.  Everyone quickly agreed to throw out things like TV and cars.  And some cards were all ones in which everyone agreed were needed for us to be happy.  Everyone agreed to keep things like food and water.

But many of the other cards were debateable.  And on these debateable points, they needed to give reasons for their opinions.  This turned out to be quite hard for some, and there was often an initial tendency for them to go back and forth with “we can be happy without X” and “no, we can’t, we need X to be happy”.  So, as the facilitator, I needed to try to extract something more.  One way was to ask them to give stories about someone who doesn’t have X and then to consider whether such a person could possibly be happy.  For example, could a person who doesn’t laugh still be happy on the inside, or will a happy person always show it with laughter?  Or, is it possible for a deaf person, who can’t hear music, to be happy?

Good discussions were had, and lots of interesting points were made.

We then returned to the big group, and compared answers between the two smaller groups.  Mama had to act as translator.

It seems that everyone agreed that if we don’t have the basics for survival, such as food and water, we can’t be happy.

But one interesting finding was that the English-speaking group (my Big Sis’ four children), had far fewer cards remaining in their circle than the Chinese-speaking group (Mulan and her two friends).  Apparently, in the Chinese group, Mulan’s two friends thought that many of the “higher” goods, like school, music, laughter and thinking, were necessary for happiness.  Mulan and my Big Sis’ children often disagreed.

With some cards, such as laughter and music, neither side could convince the other.

With some cards, such as school, Mulan’s friends were convinced by the discussion that followed that they could be happy without them.  (Actually, their reasoning was more complex: they thought school led to knowledge, which led to jobs, which led to happiness.  The English-speakers disagreed with every step in this line of reasoning.)

With some cards, such as thinking, the English-speakers were convinced that this was needed to be happy.  (They decided, for example, that it was important to be able to think to decide which games to play, and how to play games.  They had already said that playing was necessary for happiness.)

One of Mulan’s friends liked the game so much that she wanted to ask her parents what they thought; she took home a set of cards with her.

A difficult decision

Last Friday, we had an outing to a place we called “The Cat Factory”.

No, it is not a factory that processes cats (KFC, anyone?).  It is a toy-manufacturing factory owned by a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend (or something like that).  The owners are open to the possibility of taking our three cats, when we leave China in October of this year.  Basically, our cats could live in and around the buildings, and have a free run inside the gated area.  There is already one cat and a few dogs living there.  The cook puts food out for the animals, and the animals come and take it as they choose.

The Cat Factory is about two and a half hours away from our home (by metro then bus), so it was a long journey to go there, look around, then come home.

The factory is a pretty typical gated zone of low buildings of a few stories high, with concreted driveways, all surrounded by a high brick wall and secured with a metal sliding gate.  The only greenery I saw inside was a few low, skinny trees growing in dirt circles cut into the driveway concrete.  There are dorm buildings for the local workers, housing for the foreigners, a production area, an office area, kitchens and canteens for the workers, and a guardhouse at the entrance.

We were shown around by one of the staff.  She said that she hadn’t seen the cat for several days.  They think it may have got outside when the gate was open, then not come back again.

The question is whether we want to send our three cats to somewhere like that.  And our answer is, “not really.”  They won’t be pets there, and if they got lost no one would search for them.  Kitty might survive there, but we worry that Maggie and Mickey would get depressed and curl up in a corner and starve themselves to death.

So, we are still trying to find a more suitable cat home.  And it really is hard to find anyone willing to take even one of the cats.

If we can’t find anywhere suitable, we are asking ourselves whether we should take them to New Zealand with us.

Moving the cats to New Zealand is time consuming, complicated and expensive.  New Zealand doesn’t accept pets directly from Mainland China, so they must spend six months in Hong Kong first.  They need vet checks and injections.  A friend of a friend is connected with a pet-moving business, so we can pay them to do the organising for us.  In total, we expect it will cost us around 60,000 to 70,000 RMB for the three cats.

That is a lot of money!

To put it in perspective, our recent five-week holiday to Europe cost us about 60,000 RMB.

Now, we can afford it.  But it is a big chunk of money for us.  It would probably mean putting off our next overseas trip for a bit.

So, the question we are now asking ourselves is whether we should spend that amount of money for the sake of three cats.

It is a tough one.

As Nainai said, we cannot take our money with us when we die.  We all have to choose what to do with the money that we have.  It is a choice that Mama and I have to make about the values that we have in life.  (And in the end it will be Mama’s decision, because she is the money-earner in the family; I can only advise.)

We will continue to look for a nice home for the cats here in China.  That is the first priority.  But if we are going to send the cats to New Zealand, we should make a decision within the next couple of months.  They should be sent to Hong Kong early enough so that we can visit them occasionally while we are still here in China.

P4C in Chinese

Yesterday, we had a P4C (Philosophy for Children) class in Chinese.  It went well, and we plan for this to be a regular Monday after school event.

Mama had mentioned to a few friends that the girls and I had been doing some P4C lately, and the friends liked the sound of it.  So, in addition to Mulan and Miya, we had three other children (the same age as Mulan) join us.

Earlier in the day, I prepared the lesson.  But Mama took charge of the actual class (with me sitting alongside whispering in her ear when needed).

Again, the lesson we used was inspired by The Philosophy Man.  We took his basic plan here and modified it.  Mama printed off the cards, and wrote the Chinese words for each object on them.

We all sat on the floor in the playroom, and started with introductions.  I had suggested that each child give their name and then say one thing that is not true about themselves.

Mama then briefly said what would be happening in the class.  The main point was that P4C is different from normal school lessons in the same way that storytelling is different from story reading.  In P4C, the children do the storytelling; they are not merely listening to a teacher reading the story.

The rest of the lesson was spent doing various activities with the cards.  Since this was the first lesson, the topics themselves weren’t deeply philosophical.  It was more skills preparation and development.  The main objective was to get the children used to “because-ing”.  That is, giving ideas and then giving reasons for those ideas.  A second objective was to get the children thinking about similarities, differences and categorising.  A third objective was a general one about the P4C environment—getting them used to contributing and listening to others contributions.

These were the activities I listed to do with the cards:

1.      Place all cards face down on the floor in the middle.  Children each choose three cards.  Each child then chooses from their three cards the animal they would most like to be, and in turn they tell the class why they chose it.  They keep that card and return the other cards face down.  Do two rounds of this.

2.      Children each choose three cards.  Each child then chooses from their three cards the animal they would least like to be, and in turn they tell the class why they chose it.  They keep that card and return the other cards face down.  Do two rounds of this.

After this, each child should have four cards.

3.      Noah’s Ark activity.  Someone should briefly tell the Noah’s Ark story, if some children don’t know it.  The ark is just about to depart and there is only space left on the ark for one more pair of animals.  Each child must choose one animal from the four they have.  In turn, they say why they think their animal should be saved.

Put all the cards back in the middle, face down, and mix them up.

4.      Children each choose two cards.  In turn, they give three similarities between the two animals.  Return the cards.

5.      Children each choose two cards.  In turn, they give three differences between the two animals.  Return the cards.

6.      Children each choose two cards.  In turn, they choose whether to give three similarities or differences between the two animals.  Return the cards.

7.      Children each choose two cards.  In turn, they say how their pair of animals could be related to each other (A eats B, A is a pet of B, A is cuter than B, etc). Return the cards.

8.      Turn all the cards face up in the middle.  Get the children to work together to sort them into categories (eg, size, or type, etc).  All animal cards need to be categorised.  Mix them up and re-sort them again into different categories.

9.      Turn all the cards face up on the tile floor (lots of room needed for this).  Get the children to work together to move the pictures around and draw (with chalk) relationship arrows between each of the pictures.  Write one word next to each arrow to explain the relationship.  All animals need to be connected in the web of relationships.

Our lesson lasted about one hour, and we completed up to activity 8.  The children were all active and talkative, and were all very happy to do the activities as planned.  Good answers were given by all.

The main problem was that it went on a little too long.  After about 45 minutes, they were starting to get overly excited and bouncy.  Activity 8 wasn’t done quite so well, as it required more cooperation, discussion and patience.  Their bounciness meant they weren’t able to take the time to organise themselves first.  So, some children started sorting by size while others started sorting by type.  At the end, when we went through the “fish” category, we were able to ask whether the goldfish could have equally gone in the “small” category and the whale in the “big” category.**  In future, we will aim to keep the lessons to no more than about 45 minutes.

** This reminded me of Michel Foucault in The Order of Things where he quotes Jorge Luis Borges quoting “a certain Chinese Encyclopaedia”:

[A]nimals are divided into: (a) belonging to the emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies.

Either / Or

I’ll try to keep summarising our P4C lessons for the moment.  I think it is interesting to see the ideas.  And maybe later on it will be interesting to look back on them.

Today, after our maths times tables, we did another either/or activity.  I can’t find this one online, though I did get it from the same place as the previous ones.  (Have I said that I think that The Philosophy Man is brilliant?  He has got so many lessons already prepared, and openly, encouragingly available.  It is so easy to skim through them and pick one to form the basis of my lessons.)  This is what we did:

Which are better, dogs or cats?

Both Mulan and Miya immediately said cats.  I first asked Miya why she thought cats.  Miya said that cats like to cuddle you, and are very cute.  And dogs don’t cuddle?  No.  I asked Mulan if she agreed.  She said yes.  And dogs push you over.  Are all dogs not so cute?  What about the pictures of the dogs that we have on our playroom wall (Papillion dogs)?  They are cute too.  I wouldn’t mind a Snowy dog (Snowy was the dog I had when I was a child, and looked similar to a Papillion).  Small ones are okay.  So, how do small, cute dogs compare with cats?  They are about the same.  Just not big dogs?  Yes.

Which are better, boys or girls?

Silence, for a long time.  Is it too difficult to decide?  Mmmm.  Girls are better (said more tentatively).  Why?  Because boys are too bustle-y.  And girls aren’t?  Not so much.  Are all boys bustle-y or most?  Most.  How about girls?  Are any girls bustle-y?  Some are.  So some boys are and some girls are?  Most boys are, but just some girls are.

Miya agreed.

If we put your brain in my body and my brain in your body, which would be you, where your brain is, or where your body is?

My body.  Why?  Because that is what people would see me as.  What if someone phoned you?  Your body/my brain answers.  It would sound like your squeaky voice talking, but it would be my ideas and thoughts being said.  Would people think it was you or me?  Some parts they would think were me and some they would think were you.

Is ibloggdyobdebog a real word?   If yes, what does it mean.

No.  And if yes, it doesn’t mean anything.  (At this point we were all laughing hard, and trying to pronounce it—i-blog-dee-ob-dee-bog.  Then Miya tapped me on the head with the pencil she was holding, while saying the word.)  Is that what it means, “hit Daddy on the head?”  (Lots more laughing.)  What if in our family, we all start using ibloggdyobdebog to mean hit Daddy on the head?  Would it then be a real word?  No.  How are real words created?  Was there someone at the beginning who decided what they mean?  (Thoughtful silence.)  How many people need to use the word before it becomes a real word?  Everyone.  If everyone in our apartment building used ibloggdyobdebog in that way, would it become a real word?  No.  It has to be everyone?  Yes, everyone in the world.  What about the word ni hao?  Lots of people in New Zealand don’t know what that means.  Does that mean that ni hao is not a real word?  All English speakers need to know the word before it is a real word (in English).

Is it better to be a child or a grown-up?

I asked Miya first.  She said a child.  Mulan agreed.  I asked Miya why.  She said because children play.  Mulan agreed.  But I play with you, too.  But you also need to do housework.  And you don’t?  No.  But I also get to be the boss.  Isn’t that good, too?  Or not as good as playing?  It isn’t as good as playing.

Are you the same you you were when you were two?

Yes.  Why?  Because I am still called Mulan.  When Gugu was younger, she changed her name.  We can go to the government office and fill out a form and then we get official paperwork that changes our name.  What name would you change to?  Mula.  If you changed your name to Mula, would you still be the same?  Yes.  Why?  Because I would still look the same.  (At this point Miya, who was sitting on my desk, looked like she might fall off.  So I warned Miya to be careful and not fall on her face.)  What if Miya fell off the desk and fell on her face and squashed her face flat (and we also changed her name)?  Would it still be the same Miya?  Yes.  Why?  Because her body would still look the same.  What if it was ten years later?  And Miya would be 13.  Yes, oh dear, a teenager.  And I would be 16.  Almost 17, oh dear, driving cars, and partying and boyfriends!  At 13, Miya would have grown a lot, and her body would look very different.  Would flat-faced, name-changed, different-shaped-body Miya still be the same person?  Yes.

Is the hole in a donut part of a donut?

No.  Do you know what a donut is?  Yes (of course).  Miya said she couldn’t eat a donut because it is a nut.  Mulan and I laughed and explained that it was called a donut but it wasn’t a nut.

Can anything last forever?  What about nothing?

No.  Nothing last forever.  If nothing lasts forever, then does that mean that something (the nothing) lasts forever?  Haha, no.

Is there anything everyone thinks is beautiful?

Yes.  What?  Me!  I asked Miya if Mulan is beautiful.  She said no.  So, Miya doesn’t think you are beautiful.  Do you have any other examples?  Miya!  I asked Miya if she is beautiful, and she said yes.  So, we all agree that there is something that everyone thinks is beautiful, and that something is Miya?  Yes (laughing).  (Sometimes solving deep philosophical questions is easy!)

What makes someone a good person, following the rules or making people happy?

Both.  What if there are two people, one follows the rules but doesn’t care about trying to make people happy, the other tries to make people happy but doesn’t care about following the rules.  Who is the better person?  They are both equally good.  Neither is better?  Neither is better.  Bobbie (in the book The Railway Children, which we are currently reading together) wants to make people happy.

The senses

We did about two hours of school time today.  After an hour of doing times tables, we moved on to P4C again, and did another hour of that.

We started by reading SenseStory.  It is quite similar to Dr Seuss’s story The Big Brag (which we have here at home).

I then got Mulan to write down a list of the five animals mentioned in the story (crow, dog, fly, bat, mole).

(Miya also got out a piece of paper and drew for the next hour.)

Next to each animal, I asked Mulan to write the sense that that animal is proud of about themselves (the crow could see, the dog could smell, the fly could taste, the bat could hear, and the mole could feel).  This was a bit of reading comprehension for her.

I then asked Mulan to think about each sense and decide which animal she would most like to be (thinking only about the senses, not about the cuteness, or otherwise, of the animal!).  She wasn’t sure.

So, I asked her about her least preferred.  She quickly decided that taste would be the least important.  But she thought all the others were equal.

So, I rephrased the question and asked her if she woke up one morning and couldn’t see, would that be worse or better than if she woke up and couldn’t smell.  This thought experiment gave her a structure for her to rank her preferences.

We had quite a long discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of each of the senses.  At first she thought that seeing was best, because then when she plays hide and seek she can see best where to hide.  I pointed out that a dog might be able to smell her, even if she was hiding in the closed wardrobe.  The bat might be able to hear her movements in the wardrobe, and the mole might feel her movement vibrations.  She realised that seeing wasn’t always best.

In the end, she ranked the senses in the order of hear, feel, see, smell, taste.  She wrote 1 to 5 next to each sense on her paper.  (Interesting that seeing only ranked third.)

I then asked her to think about which senses might be the best for discovering about the world.  She clarified the question, by saying that it was like she was a newborn baby who didn’t know anything about the world, and wanted to find out.  I agreed.

I asked her if this list would be the same as her first ranking list.  She said no.  Mulan decided that even though she still personally preferred to hear, hearing was not the best sense to find out about the world.

After more discussion, she ranked the senses in the order of see, feel, hear, smell, taste.  She wrote 1 to 5 next to her earlier ranked list.

I then asked her which of the following items in each pair is more real.  (She wasn’t sure at first what this meant, but after a short pause she soon made sense of it.)

The feel of an ice cube or the way it shines?  Mulan thought the feel was more real, with it being both hard and cold.

A ball dropping to the floor or the sound it makes?  Mulan thought the sound.

The weight of an apple or its colour?  Mulan thought the colour.

The flavour of an orange or its colour?  Mulan thought for a while but couldn’t decide at all.

A person in a dream or a person in a painting?  Mulan thought the person in the painting.  She said that the person in the dream is imaginary and we soon forget it.  But we can still see the person in the painting (even though it is also imaginary).

We then talked about animals that have senses that are alien to us, such as snakes than sense the difference between hot and cold, and bats that echo-locate.  I asked her if she could imagine what it might be like to be able to echo-locate, like a bat.  She said she couldn’t.  But she said that she could imagine what it would be like to be a cat (our new kitten, Mickey, was on my knee at the time).

I told her about one of my university teachers who was blind.  He said that he could echo-locate a little.  But he still couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be a bat (at the time we were discussing Thomas Nagel’s article What is it like to be a bat?).

I suggested that we stop to eat, but Mulan insisted that we still keep talking more.

We talked about the moon illusion (how the moon looks bigger when on the horizon).  Mulan didn’t think that the moon would really be bigger.  That it just seemed bigger.  But she wasn’t sure why it seemed bigger.  She thought maybe the moon is closer to us at that time.  I asked if she thought the moon would go in and out that much while circling the Earth.  She wasn’t sure.  I didn’t push this too much; it is a bit too complicated.

Mulan still wanted to keep talking.

So I asked her if she remembered Dr Seuss’s book, The Big Brag.  She did.  I asked her if the worm in the story could really see that far.  She didn’t think so; she said no one could really see that far.  I asked her why the worm might have said he could, if he really couldn’t.  She thought maybe he was just tricking the other animals, for fun.

At this point, I sort-of walked Mulan through the idea that the worm was criticising the other animals for each thinking that he was personally better than the other was.  I asked Mulan if she thought the worm was right that no one was better, just because of their particular senses.  She thought he was.

I asked her that if the worm is right, is it okay to rank the senses, like she did.  She said it was.  She said that she was just giving her own personal preference for herself.  And that is different.  Fair enough.

I then asked her that since we cannot know what it is like to be a bat, to what extent can we really rank the senses (here, I was trying to draw Mulan’s attention to the fact that when we rephrased the question from ranking animals to comparing her own senses, we were actually changing the subject).  When Mulan said that taste was the least important, she was basing it on her own experience of taste.  But we cannot know how wonderfully delightful a taste experience might be for a fly.  For all we know, a fly’s taste might be experientially far more pleasurable than a bat’s hearing.  She agreed.

Finally at midday she agreed to end our lesson and have our elevenses (morning tea).

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As you can probably tell, the final part our conversation was turning into a bit of a Socratic dialogue, with me doing most of the talking and Mulan saying “yes, Socrates” to me!  (The earlier rankings and preferences, with their reasons, were all of Mulan’s thoughts, though.)  Clearly, with just the two of us (and Miya drawing alongside us) what we do can never be a pure P4C lesson (even though it is still philosophy).  For it to be proper P4C, Mulan needs to be having these sorts of conversations with other children her own age.  The children need to be bouncing these ideas off each other, rather than me (authoritatively) putting forward suggestions.

Another would-you-rather

After doing some maths times tables for most of our school time today, we tried another would-you-rather P4C activity.  This is probably our final would-you-rather for now.  I might try a few other types of P4C activities, if I can find/think of something that will work with just us three.  Any suggestions, anyone?  (I’ve got some awesome group stuff, but I sort-of don’t want to ruin them by just doing them alone.)

Question: Would you rather be chased by a bear, slithered on by a snake, or kissed by a monkey?

Mulan said she would rather be kissed by a monkey.  Why?  Because she would be slower than a bear, and would get eaten when she got caught.  And a slithery snake would be tickly.  But a monkey kiss would be slobbery.  Yes, but still not as bad as a snake.

Miya agreed.

Question: Would you rather play snap with a crocodile, swim with a shark, or lie down with a lion?

Mulan couldn’t answer.  Why?  Because I’ll get eaten in all of them.  Is there a least-bad one?  Still can’t answer.  But she pointed out that the shark in the picture has a broken tooth.

Miya agreed.

Question: Would you prefer to be sat on by a spider, sit on a pin, or pecked by a parrot?

Mulan said she would rather be pecked by a parrot.  Why?  A pin would be painfully spiky.  And a spider might bite.  Are you sure?  Well, maybe a nice spider might be okay, like a hoppy spider.  But not others.  But parrots’ beaks are quite sharp, and they may peck a lot.  So you might get even more stabs than you would with a pin.  And most spiders don’t bite.  Hmmm, yes.  But the webs are sticky.  Okay, a spider, but only if there is no web.  And she thought the parrot in the picture was not very colourful.

Miya agreed.

Question: Would you rather be king or queen for one day, rich for your whole life, or a superhero for a week?

Mulan said rich for her whole life.  Why?  Because a day and a week are a short time.  A whole life will be a long time.

Miya liked the picture of the superhero.

Question: Would you rather hear the world’s funniest joke, the most surprising fact, or the world’s best story?

Mulan said, with a big grin on her face, she would like the story.  Why?  Because she likes stories.  Big grin.

Miya also had a big grin, and agreed.

Question: Would you rather have dinner with a witch or a frog for dinner?

Mulan said she would rather have dinner with a witch.  Why?  Because a frog would taste yuk.  And poor little frog!  But a witch might be scary.  Yes, but a frog would be worse.  Mulan also commented that she had never seen a witch like the one in the picture before.

Miya agreed.  She also liked the witch’s cat and wanted to cuddle it.

Would you rather …

Today, we took our first baby steps with our introduction to P4C (Philosophy for Children).

I think Mulan is old enough to do P4C lessons.  She is certainly argumentative enough!  But to date we haven’t done much.

The reason for this slow start is that an essential part of P4C (and, I think, philosophy in general) is doing it with a community of people.  You need to have other people around to bounce ideas off and be inspired by.

Here in China, it is not easy to pull together a group of people willing to chat deeply in English.  (My Chinese is not good enough to try P4C in that language.)  I discovered this when I enrolled in a philosophy PhD programme here.  It is equally hard to find peers for Mulan.

So, I have had to put off starting P4C until we move to New Zealand later this year.

But now with my sister and her family coming to visit us here in a few weeks (and we are all planning to continue with regular school times while they are here), I thought I should prepare Mulan for some proper P4C lessons that we will no doubt have with the four cousins.

So today, after we completed the last page of the science book we have been working on, we switched to P4C.  It was really just a warm-up that we did.  But it went quite well.

We did a “would you rather …” activity.  We looked at the pdf document on the computer.  This is what happened.

Question: Would you rather be a giant or a wizard?

Mulan said she would rather be a wizard.  Why?  Because then she would be able to do stuff.  What stuff?  Like making herself able to fly.

Miya said she would rather be a giant.  Why?  She liked the idea of being able to step over a mountain (like in the picture).

Question: If you were bigger than your parents, who would be in charge?

Mulan said she would be in charge.  Even though Mama and Daddy know lots more stuff than you?  Yup.  So, is size the most important thing for deciding who is the boss?  Hehe, yup.  (I am not sure if Mulan really believed this, but she clearly liked the idea of being the boss!)

Miya just liked the idea of being big, and she said the big girl in the picture was her.

Question: Would you rather be a bird or a plane?

Mulan said she would rather be a bird.  Why?  Because planes crash sometimes.  But they almost never crash.  Mmm.

Miya said that she would rather be in a plane.  She said that she likes it when she is in a plane and she loses her tummy (she still remembers that feeling from when we went to Europe six months ago).  Mulan pointed out that the question was what you would like to be, not what you wanted to be in.  Mulan said it didn’t make sense to be a plane.  I think in the end Miya agreed with Mulan to be a bird.

Question: Would you rather live at the top of a skyscraper or in a country cottage?

Mulan said she would rather live in a country cottage.  Why?  Because you can do whatever you want.  You don’t have to share the building with other people.  (I can’t argue with that powerful logic!)

Miya agreed.

Question: Would you rather choose no sweets or no television? (This was not so easy for us, because we have no TV at home, and we mostly don’t bother with sweets.)

Mulan said she would rather keep having sweets.  Why?  Because TV is boring.  And sweets are yummy?  Yup.

Miya agreed.

Question: Would you choose to be rich or famous?

Mulan said she would rather be rich.  Why?  Because she could then buy fun stuff.

Miya agreed.  (I doubt she knows what famous is.)

Clearly, each of these six discussions could have been extended much more.  With a bigger group of children, more reasons would have been put forward and potentially argued about.  I thought it best, though, that I don’t question Mulan too strongly about her choices.  Like it or not, I am the authority, and my “yes, but …”s can easily move from being helpful thought-provoking ideas to authoritarian shut-down criticisms.

As I say, baby steps.