Back

Prisoner’s Dilemma

An exploration of our moral motivations

Next

Gender And Sexuality Education Philosophy with Children Reflections on Pedagogy

12-13y Age Group

RHEA KUTHOORE

Oct 10, 2021 · 5 min read

Children, who find themselves surrounded by adults who have control over their reality, can often take to secrets, fantasy and play to retain a sense of their autonomy. As a child, I remember enjoying games in which I was a secret agent. Making promises to my sister about hiding secrets from our parents, passing chits under the teacher’s nose and learning P language was all part of a world that I thought of as mine.

Now, as a teacher, I try to exercise less control over children’s lives. I am also learning to respect that children will keep secrets from adults despite my individual behaviour towards them. I continue to wonder about the possibilities of a world in which adults, parents and care-givers are not authoritative, judgmental and imposing of their values, and are instead, open and respectful of children’s freedom and exploration. In such a world, would children keep secrets from adults?

Although secrets begin when we are young, it does not necessarily stop as we grow and most of the time, we become jaded of its prevalence. As children face dilemmas regarding 'right' and 'wrong,' especially when their secrets are compromised, it is crucial to encourage discussions that allow them to share their confusions. Hopefully, an education that nurtures our conscience from a young age will lead to a world in which there are fewer adults grappling with issues of trust in their relationships.

Class Activity

This class was dedicated to becoming conscious of morally complicated situations. In our class, we tried to identify all the different motivations that drive our choices.

The class was split up into pairs and each pair faced their back against each other. They had to pretend to be in separate rooms and they could not communicate with each other. I was on one side, facing a line of suspected prisoners, while the co-facilitator of this class was on the other side. The children were asked to imagine the following scenario:

‘You are all notorious criminals. Your very close partner and you had made a promise to never reveal the other’s name if you are caught. At present, you both have been caught. We will speak to each of you individually from now on. There will be consequences if there is any movement or sound.’

We speak to each child individually and give them the same options after asking them, ‘Did your partner commit the crime?’ We tell them that we have to do this because we did not have sufficient proof for each of their criminal activities and they were merely suspects.

The options were:
· If you both do not snitch, then you go to prison for 6 months each.

· If your partner snitches and you do not, you go to jail for 10 years and your partner goes free.

· If you snitch and your partner does not, you go free and your partner goes to jail for 10 years.

· If both of you snitch, then you both go to jail for a year each.

While the air smelt of silence and guilt, each child had a unique facial expression: a scared demeanour, a confident look, an excited grin and a poker face. After going through a nerve-gripping time of waiting for all their responses to be recorded by us, we revealed the fate of each partner. Cries, sighs of relief and anger ensued!

Discussion

After calming down, we began discussing each person's reasoning. Some of them had some serious justifications to give to their partners!

One child kept her promise as ‘it is a matter of trust’ and ‘lying is just not okay.’ Her reason was that she was hurt in the past because of lies told and she did not want to go through that again or put another person through that hurt. On the other hand, some children felt that they could not trust their partner to begin with. We wondered: what is required for us to trust someone? Were those who mis-trusted their partners justified in any way?

For another child, the fact that a promise was made was reason enough to not break it. On the other hand, there was a child who did not know what the right thing to do was but she was okay to break her promise because she cared for her family and she could not bear to hurt them or be away from them. In this case, is it okay to do ‘bad’ things if it is for the people we care about?

Many children mentioned that they were trying to base their decision on their judgments regarding the moral rightness of their partner and had tried to predict their partner’s motivation. This led to an interesting dilemma about our actions -- are our actions merely reactions to others? Is it helpful to act in the same manner as we see others acting?

Reflection

In the end, we left with several important questions. Our emotionally charged conversation had left a child in tears. Our responsibility as facilitators is to support children who feel vulnerable. At no point does the class ‘go on’ while neglecting the emotions that are being expressed.

The children’s responses made me realise how children are in fact deeply entangled in complicated moral situations that emotionally affect them in various ways. Although this activity focussed on a dilemma that is not directly applicable in their lives, it allows children to pay attention to their own reasoning and see other perspectives as well. It is crucial, moreover, to have children share dilemmas that connect to their own lives.

RHEA KUTHOORE is an educator who is passionate about facilitating philosophical and feminist thinking amongst young students.

Thinking Rhizomatically

Heading

Heading

Heading

Heading

Heading

Heading

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.

Thank you! Your submission has been received!

Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content. The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content. The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content. The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content. The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

This is an h2 heading inside rich text

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

Static and dynamic content editing

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.