Superheroes (Part 2) - The hero doesn't always win.

You may have seen these photos on Facebook already, but that's okay.  I'm going to talk a little more about them here.  After talking to my kids last Global Zone about heroes (which you saw), I talked to them about villains.  I had to start just by teaching them the word "villain."  It's kind of counter-cultural to have someone who hurts the group, so it took a little coaxing to get them there, but with the help of some Superman, Harry Potter, and Dragon Ball Z references plus an episode of the PowerPuff Girls (click on the title of this post to see it) we finally got there.  In fact, I didn't ever give them any part of the definition; I let them come up with their own.  Two of my classes had pretty much the same answers:

But it was my third class of which I was really proud.  We spent some time talking about how a superhero isn't always handsome, just as a villain isn't always ugly, but what really blew their minds was when I told them that the villain didn't always have to lose to the hero, so that couldn't be one of the characteristics.  I could tell that they weren't being able to fathom that idea, so I used the only example that popped into my head: September 11th.  Luckily, they had heard about that, and could follow my example.
Then, they did the other thing I wanted them to do: they realized that it was the same characteristics setting superheros apart from heroes that set super villains apart from villains.  This left the conversation open to talking about how easy it is to turn from being good to being bad, and that we always have to fight to be good.  We talked about how we have to always fight the bad guys, even when they win, or else we become bad guys too.  It was a really good lesson.
I want to share their notes with you too.  The top half is their answers, followed by their examples underneath.  Please note, that all I did on this list was act as scribe and veto the previously mentioned wrong answers:

I'm so proud of them, really, I am.

Keep fighting evil, guys.  The fight is not yet over.

Love you!