Children hear about and feel our pain.......

The Jump Rope For Heart pamphlets have all been sent home and within the physical education class we have talked about this fundraising effort. During each class we talked about the spirit of fundraising, the nature of heart disease in language that they, hopefully, might understand and discussed the"how to" of doing the fundraising. We emphasized safety in asking only family and close friends and helped them to understand that not all people can give money for many of their own personal reasons. We have highlighted our appreciation of their effort and willingness to try to help in this worthy effort.

As we discussed these issues with each class, the children asked questions and/or shared stories about their families medical experience with heart problems. Some students talked about their own personal heart problem, which makes us, as teachers, feel privileged to have been trusted by these students t0 talk about their personal situation.

But, over the past week we have also been asked about the heartbreaking nature of students thinking about their home life and asking if, "they could keep the money collected because their family needs money for a broken down car, for food or other things." As you can well imagine, the children hear about the economic strains impacting their family and carry those "feelings" and emotions to school. Within the physical education class, there are numerous "teachable moments" to help children learn about their developing self concept and this certainly was worthy of our time and discussion. As we addressed this emotional question, we focused on the type of person that they wanted to become as they grow up in life and that people respect them for their honesty, trustworthyness, and having good character. The fact that their families need money, we explained could be helped in many other ways and that taking money in the name of this charity was not the way to help their family.

We always debate whether we want to do a fundraising activity every year, but its opportunities like this that make us feel that it is a worthy effort, for not only the American Heart Association, but also, a special time for us, as teachers, to help children to explore and develop their own sense of values as they try to understand difficult issues.