The Enlightenment from the Fairytales

The development of morality, that stemmed from the discussion after Jack & the Beanstalk, translated…

“Jack & the Beanstalk” is a tale that everybody knows.  Jack who was originally supposed to sell the old cow had instead, traded the cow in for a handful of beans with an elderly man, and his mother, out of anger, threw the beans out the window, and the next day, the beanstalk grew into the skies, and out of curiosity, Jack climbed up on it, and was welcomed by the giant’s wife, but he’d not repaid her kindness, instead, he’d, stolen a bag of gold coins, a hen that lays golden eggs, along with a harp that played on its own.  In the end, he was caught by the giant, and the angry giant chased him down, but Jack used an axe, chopped up the beanstalk, the giant fell to his death, and since, Jack and his mother lived their lives richly.

And naturally, this is a great opportunity to discuss the morals and laws.  As I told the stories in Mimi Chou’s class, I’d asked the children, can Jack steal from the giant?  If you’re the giant, and everything you’d worked hard for was taken from you, how would you feel?  And, if as you chased the thief out, you’d, fallen to your death, wouldn’t you feel unfair?  If you’re the wife of the giant, and you’d shown so much hospitality toward Jack, and the items in your house were stolen, wouldn’t you blame yourself?  If you’re Jack, and being a thief makes you rich, will you steal?  In the discussions, the children mentioned, “The giant’s corpse is so big, it will surely get found.”  So, I’d asked them, what would happen, if the police arrived.

here’s Jack, climbing onto the beanstalks…picture from online…

As I tossed out the question, “Can Jack steal from the giant?”, there was a group that said yes, and a group who was against it, and so, I’d had the children bring up three points each.  For the “yes he can steal from the giants”, the reason was that the giant was originally evil, the giant will eat Jack, Jack is poor; for the “No he can’t steal from the giants” group, the reasons included: “you can’t take something that’s not yours, you will get hauled away by the police, and it’s awful to cause the giant to die by chopping off the beanstalk.”

The adults naturally understood, that the laws stand by “no you can’t kill the giant”, and as I started getting the discussions going, to lead them to think on various angles of the characters, the children started to understand, that “We can’t judge things from the surfaces” and “the rule of thumb for following the laws include trying to protect the safety of the majority, and keeping it fair for everybody.”  In this sort of a discussion, it is easy, for us to characterize children who believed that “yes he can steal” into a group of children whose morals developed slower, but, from the contents of their discussions, it’s not as simple as right or wrong.

These children, may be braver, to challenge the unknowns of their futures.  For instance when I asked them, “if you were Jack, will you climb up the beanstalk?”, those from the “no we can’t steal” group almost all shook their heads, said that they don’t know what’s up there, that it’s, scary; but on the contrary, the “Yes we can steal group”, they’d said yes: “We don’t know what’s up there”, “We need to go check it out”, “I will be careful, and run really fast”.  But even as the “Yes I can steal” group posed such positive answers, the “No we can’t steal group” still shook their heads, “The giants up in the clouds are too scary.”

the giant going after Jack for stealing the harp…illustration from online…

Back then, I’d already realized, the power of how differently the two groups of children saw things, other than having separate values in morality, the collective conscious of the “Yes I can steal” group is stronger, and they’re more than willing, to try things, and even as we’d taken the discussion to “if you’re the giant who had things stolen from him”, they’d reacted more strongly, “I will BEAT Jack up”, having a collective conscious isn’t bad, on the contrary, in the lessons of teaching the children to know the rules of the world, we must be careful, not to erase the positive qualities that stemmed from the bad behaviors, sometimes, the “bad children” know how to make better judgments, and they’re, innovative in problem-solving.

So, there’s, not a simple right or wrong, when it comes to someone’s behaviors, and we must see beyond the surfaces (the actions), and consider the motives of why someone had done something awful, because the world is NOT just black and white, it’s also, gray too.