Hello All!
Today I wanted to talk on the subject of the term Cooperation. I'm teaching this term to my Kindergartners this week. The term cooperation is defined as :
1. an act or instance of working or acting together for a common purpose or benefit; joint action.
Or:
2.more or less active assistance from a person, or organization etc.: We sought the cooperation of various civic leaders.
Or:
3. willingness to cooperate: indicate cooperation.
4. Economics . the combination of persons for purposes of production, purchase, or distribution for their joint benefit: producers' cooperation;consumers' cooperation.
Or:
5.Sociology . activity shared for mutual benefit.
Or:
6. Ecology . mutually beneficial interaction among organisms living in a limited area.
I constantly have to teach my students the act of cooperation in the classroom. For instance, the use of good manners to share and learn how to play fairly. The good act of kindness and empathy when one of their friends is hurt on the playground, or having them use their kind words to communicate effectively when they need a peer to cooperate with them. I couldn't help to bring up this subject when we are in the midst of a face off in our government. Not to take sides, but just observing as a unbiased individual, we need to stop tattle telling on which side is right, and grow up! I can't believe this is happening in 2013. Especially since we have gone through this before. I really feel like our government is acting like two children playing on the floor and one child cannot share the classroom block (for instance). I have to constantly come in between them and take the block away because we are not understanding the term "cooperate" or are being too greedy in their play. Our nation is wasting millions or billions of dollars if we don't come to an agreement. This is the money we could have used to solve the problems we are fighting about in the first place. Sounds absurd. If we as citizens of The United States of America can't figure it out together, then we aren't going to get anywhere. Hence, our state of being in Washington today. Should we be teaching our children about taking sides, or using the term cooperation correctly? Let's be mature adults and show our children how "WE" adults can use the term "cooperation"for an improved and successful future society. On that note, I wanted to end with saying let's work together, not divided to solve our nations dilemma:)
Problem solved!
