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.