How much is your kidney worth? worksheet
Welcome to After School Club!
This worksheet is to help your club be a success. Not to be cheesy, but the number one rule of After School is to have fun. As you know, for everyone to have a good time there are a few other ground rules we ask you to follow.
After School is rooted in respect. Discussion is encouraged and disagreement is ok, but please remain open-minded, calm, and respectful of others’ boundaries. Your goal of a discussion shouldn’t be to persuade people to your side, it’s to share your point of view. You can always agree to disagree.
Make room for everyone. Not everyone in your group may be as confident with new people, just because they’re quiet doesn’t mean they don’t have anything to say. Do your best to give everyone an opening to speak, be a friend and ask someone if they have anything to add if they haven’t had a chance to jump in.
How To Engage with Your Group
We find the best format for After School Club is a free-flowing conversation. You’re all adults, who read the article and paid to participate so I’m sure you’ll have plenty to say. But given you’re with a group of strangers we recommend you use our structure and prompts, but don’t feel pressure to follow the process exactly if the conversation is good!
We expect the focused conversation to take between 60 and 90 minutes. Don’t be shy about getting to know each other while you’re waiting for group members to arrive, and you’re welcome to stick around longer after you’re done discussing the reading.
Break the Ice: Start with these questions, loosely based on the reading, to break the ice and get to know your group.
Reading Deep Dive: Once the group has settled in, use the deep dive prompts to dissect the article. Feel free to propose your own questions to the group.
Final Bell: When you’re about ready to wrap up, move on to this final question.
Break The Ice
If you had to give away something that wasn’t money to help someone else, what would you choose to give—and why? (Could be time, a talent, a favorite item—serious or playful answers welcome.)
Are you someone who tends to make big decisions more with your heart or your head—and do you think that’s ever changed over time? (Consider the dynamic between Abie’s logical altruism and his mother’s emotional reaction.)
If you had to trade one of your body parts (purely hypothetically!) for a superpower, which part would you give up—and what power would you want in return? (Get creative: pinky toe for invisibility? One eyebrow for teleportation?)
Reading Deep Dive
Is a tax break a fair and ethical form of compensation for kidney donors? This method of compensation is justified over a direct payment to avoid a ‘get out of poverty’ scheme, what does this say about the decision makers viewpoints on donor motivations?
The article quotes the bioethicist Rosamond Rhodes who says “It’s hard to overcome the initial gut reaction that paying for a kidney somehow sullies the moral waters and taints an otherwise “pure” gift.” On the other hand, activists say this attitude is a moral relic.
Abie’s decision was rooted in logic—“Why wouldn’t I donate?”—but his mother reacted with fear. Before reading the rest of the article, whose response did you relate to more, and why? How does the story explore the shift in values between parents and children—especially when it comes to moral courage or social responsibility?
Do you believe people can ever act out of pure altruism, or is there always a benefit (even emotional)?
Did this article change how you think about value—economic, moral, or personal? If so, how?
Final Bell
What’s one idea, quote, or moment from the article that stuck with you—and why?
