Ched Smokovic believes ethics lessons give children “crucial skills” for the modern world. He’s in his seventh year of ethics volunteering at his children’s Sydney school.

Starting out…

My wife was reading Greenwich Public School newsletter, saw they were looking for volunteer ethics teachers and thought it would be a good change of pace for me – balancing the abstract corporate role I had at the time with a more down-to-earth, wholesome activity. It took a few nudges on her part, but looking back, she was absolutely right. As soon as I started reading about the Primary Ethics methods and goals, I found that it resonated with my deep beliefs on how children should be educated – by allowing them to think for themselves.

After I got in touch with the Primary Ethics regional coordinators, they explained the process, which seemed simple enough. I remember going to meet the coordinator for an interview, where we discussed my reasons for wanting to volunteer and my availability.

The online workshop that followed focused on the outcome – to have a well-behaved classroom that works as a team discussing the topic, thinking and broadening their minds. It covered everything from the Primary Ethics curriculum methods to behaviour management to working with children of different ages, child safety and support structure. The workshop was very thoughtfully prepared and delivered.

Six classes a week

I’ve been gradually increasing the number of classes I do every week. It started with two a week, covering just my kids’ classes, to now six a week – one high school class and five primary school classes, all spread over three days. My typical preparation consists of downloading the material from the Primary Ethics website and going through it the day before the class. The material is well written and describes in great detail how the class should be run, what the main points of discussion are, what is expected, how to run various activities, etc. It usually takes me 15-20 minutes per class to prepare.

In the class itself, we usually open by briefly reviewing the Discussion Rules (setting behaviour expectations such as ‘one person speaks at a time’) and then refreshing our memory on what was discussed last time. We then jump straight into each topic and tell a story or a scenario that we discuss and ask ethical questions around.

The curriculum covers a wide range of topics from fairness and justice, honesty and lying, friendship and loyalty, how we should treat animals, the environment, cheating, misinformation and what it means to be a member of society. What I find particularly well designed about the curriculum is that the topics are age-appropriate and relatable but never dumbed down.

Personal motivations

I started volunteering as I wanted to do my part for the community, wanted to get out of my comfort zone from a corporate role and, I admit, I was curious to see how my kids were doing at school and how different they are from the kids I know at home.

Although I do get most of those things, there is one thing I enjoy the most.

What’s in it for the children?

I always saw Primary Ethics lessons as a chance to show the young ones the wide variety of scenarios they will inevitably encounter in their lives and ask them ‘what do you think? and ‘what would you do?’ and more importantly, ‘why?’ There’s been many a time that as soon as I ask for the reasons behind their opinion, I can clearly see the student assessing their world view and either coming up with a very strong argument for, or acknowledging to themselves and others that perhaps their original thought was not the best and the group discussion made them change their mind.

One time when we were talking about what’s fair and unfair in society, the consensus in the class was that the laws are already set and the government already has rules for these things so there was little point in discussing them. When I mentioned that government consists of people just like us and one day some of them might be in the government and might need to decide on things like these, the discussion completely shifted and broadened and it was great to hear their uninhibited thoughts.