Elizabeth Tosti looks forward to teaching her ethics lessons so much that she is going even deeper in her third year of ethics volunteering. She has just taken on the role of ethics coordinator at one of the three local schools she teaches at.
Elizabeth writes: “I first heard about Primary Ethics from a friend who teaches ethics at his child’s school. I had taken early retirement from a busy professional career and was discussing my search for meaningful volunteer work. He suggested that being an ethics teacher could be the perfect role for me.
After investigating further via the Primary Ethics website, I immediately felt that the ethics education program was a wonderful, important initiative to help children develop critical thinking skills and the ability to hold respectful discussions. So I signed up for the training. I really enjoyed that, finding it very helpful in preparing me to be an ethics teacher, since I’ve had no formal teacher training.
I started teaching Kindergarten at Ultimo Primary School in 2022 and immediately just loved it! I’m now teaching three classes at three different schools – kindergarten, Stage 2 and Stage 4 at schools in Ultimo, Glebe and Rozelle.
I’ve found it doesn’t take long to prepare for a lesson – about half an hour – and they are cleverly scripted, with the right balance of storytelling, discussion questions, roleplays and fun games for the younger students, all based on interesting topics that are relevant for each age group.
Elizabeth Tosti
I thoroughly enjoy getting to know my students and am constantly surprised and delighted by their insights and opinions. It’s also extremely rewarding when you observe improvements in the way they listen to each other and articulate their thoughts.
Teaching ethics also hones your facilitation and multi-tasking skills – very often everyone in the class wants to voice their opinion at the same time!
I have learned over the past two and a half years that ensuring I have the support I need with class management from the supervising schoolteacher is essential. I’ve found that a brief discussion with the teacher at the start of term to let them know how they can best help me is all that’s needed and allows the lessons to go more smoothly.
I would highly recommend ethics teaching to anyone who wants to contribute towards helping children become thoughtful, critical thinkers, able to identify and evaluate different opinions – and for anyone who enjoys seeing children grow and learn from one another. I look forward to every one of my lessons and find teaching ethics great fun, challenging and extremely rewarding!”