conflict resolution lesson in a nursery

I was lucky to have an experience as a teacher in a Japanese nursery.

The head of the teacher, Murakami sensei, first assigned me to join the big class which consisted sapphire, coral and ruby group.

it was a class for the range 3-5 years old.

The class consisted 25 bright and 'genki' children.

first, we had our toilet session, the children was lined up to walkto the small cute toilets where they were

do their toilet practice. they had to remember to flush, wash their hand properly with soap and dry it with dry towel paper. then one by one went back to class.

today, Sensei planned to mingle up the Sapphire, Coral, Ruby groups, which is based on age.

The made a new groups which each table consisted 4-5 children.

Sensei, had a polling to remake the new name of the groups. She aksed what category is suitable, then came out animal category, sea animal category, insects category and country's name category.

and the category based on the major vote was COUNTRY category. children now was assigned to decide the name of the group, which is based on the group concession, not an individual or 2 person's favor.

then, it came to CHAOS. concession did not came at all. the small 3 year old children just nodded to what the big 5 year old children opinion. they felt they dont know what is country's name and where is it.

they felt left out. and turned silent to what the majority is.

in one group, 2 children in the age 5 year old was arguing about the name of the country. the group consisted 4, 2 agreed to name the group indonesia and the other wanted the name nihon.

the 2 representated, Sota and Mahiro, did janken and the result was indonesia.

but Mahiro did not agree and start crying.

Sensei stopped the chaos. She said that many children do not know the name of countries and they left out. She asked the big children to understand and not leave them out in the group.

Country name was a decided for the category but then she emphasized that not all know about country names.

she said they it would be better to choose a category which everyone was familiar with and said she will redo the categorization name.

the children was silent.

finally, the category was decided animal's name.

all the children can participate. and the discussion came out well.

the names of group which were decided: tiger, monkey, giraffe, lion, and alligator.

:)

conflict solved.

lesson learnt.

life is a unending learning lesson (bagus:2010)