By Irene Moncayola
I'm planning my activity for a class of 5-year-olds in Early Childhood Education. At this stage, they begin to understand moral concepts and are capable of some empathy for others, as well as understanding how other living beings feel.
In Early Childhood Education, the topic of animals can be addressed extensively, conveying empathy towards them and briefly touching on the issue of animal abuse, especially focusing on positive experiences that students have had with animals and trying to understand what we cannot do to them.
My activity can be included when working in class on a teaching unit about animals, in a project about elephants, or simply at a specific moment in the class so that they can relax, listen, and learn a series of moral values through stories.
Through this story, we will work on the area of Knowledge of the Environment of the Early Childhood Education curriculum, as well as the Basic Competence in Knowledge and interaction with the physical world.
Goals:
– To convey empathy towards animals.
– To transmit certain moral values about animals.
– To take a brief look at what is happening today in circuses with animals.
– Promote active listening while reading a story.
Contents:
– An approach to animal abuse that takes place in circuses.
– Listening attitude towards reading a story.
– Creating empathy towards animals.
Evaluation criteria:
The assessment of learning is situated within the educational continuity of the teaching-learning process and is inserted into the development of the activity.
This project will be evaluated through direct observation. We will use a guideline based on the proposed objectives.
| And | No | Observations | |
| It shows some empathy towards animals. It learns a series of moral values about animals through the story. | |||
| Get a slight understanding of the reality of what happens in circuses today. | |||
| Listen actively to the story. | |||
| Participate in the proposed activity. |
Material resources needed:
– Short story titled “The Chained Elephant” by Jorge Bucay. (Appendix)
– Pages.
– Pens.
– Colored paints.
Activity development: Sentados en asamblea, la profesora lee a los alumnos el cuento de “El elefante encadenado”, no hacemos una introducción sobre el cuento que vamos a leer, simplemente dejamos que ellos escuchen y observen las imágenes del cuento.
Afterwards, we all reflect on the reading. We ask the children how they think the elephant feels, where they would like the elephant to be, if they have ever wanted to do something but tried hard but couldn't, etc., focusing primarily on fostering the children's empathy towards animals and gently introducing them to the current situation of circus animals.
Finally, each student will draw a picture of how they would like the elephant to be instead of chained up in a circus, and we will display the drawings around the classroom.
Appendix:
“The chained elephant” by Jorge Bucay.
When I was a child I loved the magical world of circuses.
I was thrilled to see each of those animals up close as they traveled in caravans from city to city.
During the performance, everything seemed wonderful and dazzling, but the elephant's appearance was my favorite moment. The gigantic beast displayed impressive skill, size, and strength. It was clear that such an animal could uproot a tree with a single pull. And yet… To my surprise, after each performance, the circus staff chained the elephant to a small stake barely driven into the ground.
This was a great mystery to me. Although the chain was thick and strong, an animal capable of knocking down a wall with its strength could easily break free from the stake and escape. What was holding the elephant? Why wasn't it escaping?
When I was five or six years old, I still believed that grown-ups knew everything. So I asked my teachers, and my mother, about the mystery of the elephant. They explained that the elephant didn't run away because it was trained. Naturally, I then asked them, "If it's trained and that's why it doesn't run away, why is it chained up?" Nobody knew the answer to that question.
Many years later, one night, I met someone who had traveled extensively in India who helped me find the answer. The elephant had been chained to a stake since it was very young. I remember closing my eyes and thinking about the tiny newborn elephant tied to the stake. I imagined it pushing and pulling at the chain, day after day, trying to break free… I could almost see it, falling asleep each night, exhausted from the effort, thinking about trying again the next morning. It was all in vain: the stake was too strong for a newborn animal, even an elephant. Until one day, the saddest day of its short life, the little elephant accepted that it couldn't free itself and resigned itself to its fate.
Then I understood why the enormous, powerful elephant I saw in the circus remained chained up: he was convinced he could never break free from his stake. The poor animal had that failure etched into his elephantine memory and had never, ever tested his strength again…
Some nights I dream that I approach the chained elephant and whisper in its ear: “You know, you’re just like me. You also think you can’t do certain things just because you tried once, a long time ago, and failed. You must realize that time has passed, and today you are bigger and stronger than before. If you truly wanted to break free, I’m sure you could. Why don’t you try?”
Sometimes I wake up thinking that my elephant finally tried one day and managed to pull out the stake… Then I smile and imagine that the enormous animal continues to travel with the circus because he really enjoys entertaining children, although of course he is not chained up.