Friendship

In my class we are reading stories that follow the theme of friendship. This past week we read a story about a little boy who had to go stay with a family during the week while his mother worked. The older boy thought this little boy was quite annoying for a number of reasons. I thought many of the reasons were quite justified. He was a greedy little guy, always wanting whatever the older boy had. The older boy had to take him places with him where he never had to do that before. He would okay with the older boys toys and break things....typical kid stuff.

After we read the story a couple times I had the kids write a paragraph about whether or not they would like this little boy has a friend. The majority wrote as I expected: that they would not like him for a friend. There were a handful though who said they would have him for a friend. They felt bad for him that his mother had to leave him with another family and they thought maybe he'd be sad or lonely and needed extra love. It was so touching.

One interesting thing to note: the kind paragraphs came from kids of all sorts of religious backgrounds. A Jehovah's Witness, Mormons, and Muslims. If only this could be magnified for the whole world to see. Perhaps we would have a little more peace in the world.