Today I had an aha moment when discussing coalition politics (I didn't call it that, but it was) with elementary schoolers, 3rd grade.

As a context: I offer an interdisciplinary course in school (voluntary, one hour per week). It gives a small group of pupils a glimpse of how things really work. Call it rationality training if you want.

Today the topic was pairs and triple. I used analogies from relationships: Couples, parents, friendships. What changes in a relationship when a new element appears. Why do relationships form in the first place? And this revealed differences in how friendships work among boys and among girls. And that in this class at this moment at least the girl friendships were largely coalition politics: "If you do this your are my best friend," or "No we can't be best friends if she it your best friend." For the boys it appears to be at least wquantitatively different. But maybe just the surface differs.

I the end I represented this as graphs (kind of) on the board. And the children were delighted to draw their own coalition diagrams, even abbreviating names by single letters. You wouldn't have bet that these diagrams were from 3rd grade.