Every afternoon Rose comes home from school and tells me everything. Even when it puts her in a not so good light. A couple weeks ago she told me how she had been playing around with her instrument in orchestra (whenever she does something wrong, she always emphasizes that it was just a little bit wrong, just a little noise) when the teacher accused the boy next to her, who usually is the one making trouble, of making the trouble. He adamantly denied it, rightly so, but before Rose could fess up, another girl in the class admitted that she had been playing.

The punishment was a check next to your name, three checks and something bad happens. (Firing squad? Expulsion to outer space?) But, and here is the important part, the checks don't carry over to the next day. So, Rose hiding her misbehavior hurt her integrity but would not have affected her grade and, luckily, did not get this boy in trouble.

We talked about it. I told her about the time I cheated on a physics test in high school. I was so ashamed that I called my teacher and told him. I almost chickened out and didn't call. I told her the consequences were not the end of the world. I think the worst part was he kept an eagle eye on me after that.

Yesterday, Rose came home and told me about science class. One of the boys started hitting the table in an interesting way. She joined in. When she noticed it was making a lot of noise, she quit, but the others kept going, and the teacher demanded to know who was responsible. The boy raised his hand, and so did she.

They were made to stay after class and clean the erasers or something. Another girl at their table did not accept responsibility. They gave her the evil eye. (Not sure how I feel about that.) The other girl never did tell the teacher she had done wrong, but she told them she would clean up trash too. Then they had a lot of fun tidying together.

I enjoyed studying Kohlberg and Gilligan on moral development, but it is thrilling to see before my eyes.