The students came in this morning absolutely buzzing about last nights American election. It's a hard thing to know as a teacher when to talk about current events in the classroom and when not to. Children shouldn't be sheltered, but eight is too young to know all challenging things happening in our world.

I made the decision to speak to them about the election, but coming at it from a perspective of what life lessons we can learn. I didn't go into any details of allegations or exactly what was said. My hope is that you continue this conversation at home, as these things come up in day-to-day life, not just during election time.

I will try my best to remember all the points of the conversation and lesson, but nothing was planned. It was all organic. 

Here are some of the things that came up:

- it can be hard to see adults in our lives upset about things on TV. Sometimes, it's children's jobs to take care of the adults and give them an extra hug

- we practised how to say 'no thank you, that's not cool' two people who are saying things that we find it disrespectful. This came out of speaking about how politicians have different views and that we don't always agree with them. This is something students can use with any disagreement in their lives. 

- we spoke about how lucky we are to live in Canada, and all the wonderful things about our country including diversity, acceptance, and respect. It's not a perfect country but it's headed in the right direction. 

- we spoke about how boring the world would be if everyone was exactly the same, and why it's important to allow people from other countries into our country. This also falls into our socials curriculum, and learning that the aboriginal people were the first ones here and the rest of us are immigrants. 

- We spent a long time speaking about the power of positivity. It can be easy to have anything negative get stuck in our head and dwell on it. This can happen with anything… An argument at home, trouble on the playground, a bad dictée test mark. We spoke about ways to focus on what's going well in our lives, and to use that to push out the negative. I find this one extremely important for adults and children alike. We need to be taking care of ourselves, and it can be really hard to do if we are always focussing on the negative.

- I spoke about the concept of being the bigger person, and that you may find someone who has different ideas than you. It does not do anything productive to call this person names, or say bad things about them. We spoke about strategies to engage in conversations about ideas. 

I will admit I got a bit teary eyed speaking to them about all this. It feels like a lot of life lessons for young beings. 

I feel like there is more that we spoke about, but that I can't remember right now. It was a wonderful discussion with your children, and that was my way of positivity today. I came into work feeling worried and stressed this morning but hearing all the positive things that your children have to say, I am less worried for the future of our world. I know they will take good care of it. I encourage each of you to take time to yourself this weekend if you're feeling overwhelmed by the state of this world. Spending time with children can be just what's needed