Teaching Generosity
Standing in the kitchen of my home in Bangalore, India I have many recollections of my mother ladling out food into aluminum plates and heaping generous portions of curry and lentils over the steaming hot rice for all the people who were working for us at home. I would then be asked to take the rest of the food to serve every one of the family members at the table. It never occurred to me then that I was being taught lessons in generosity and respect.
I wouldn’t reflect on this until I was married and living away in another home when I recognized that this doesn’t happen in all homes. My mother was instilling through her actions that we serve our workers first before we sit down to enjoy a meal. She was teaching me that we don’t give leftover food to the house helps. She was ensuring that I practice what she had learned perhaps in her own home.
And that was the beginning of my reflection on whether generosity and tolerance can be taught to children. Today, it is a way of life at my school with over 5500 children. It is a place where we have quietly worked at embodying tolerance and generosity — reaching out to the war torn countries adjoining us or ensuring that children in developing countries get a decent education.
Teaching Generosity requires us to seize every opportunity to be generous. It is not an act of convenience but one of thought and mindfulness. It might be sharing your food or giving your time to someone in need or responding to a global disaster. By providing those platforms we are showing congruence of thought and action as children realize we are acting out every word. To my mind, Generosity and Tolerance must be on the curriculum of every school to be valued in equal measure as any academic discipline. We show through our assessment systems what it is that we value and we do not pay heed in developing those very values without which our world will not survive in the future.
A few centuries ago, there were fewer people and more of everything to go around. The sharpening divide between the rich and the poor, the have and the have-nots and the growing racial tensions as people fight for land, food, shelter and basic necessities is colouring our vision of our world. It is becoming alright to grab everything from bread to power. It is alright to turn out of doors all those who don’t look or think or act like us. It is coming down to us from leaders around the world who are justifying intolerance and selfishness.
Against that backdrop is a wonderfully peaceful haven in the Middle East- Dubai. Its ruler embodies tolerance and respect. He exemplifies generosity. He lives out his vision and in doing so inspires everyone to emulate his actions. I have lived here for fifteen long years always believing that what I learned as a child is right. This ruler allows me to be true to my own learning. For five long years, students at my school have rallied behind every cause that would help support children from war-torn Syria to the underprivileged in Nepal and Zambia.
Yesterday, was a surprise as we were recognized for our continuous support to helping Dubai Cares, an organization founded by HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, achieve its goal of educating 16 million children in 45 developing countries. The recognition surprised me but not the fact that our children are ambassadors of tolerance and generosity.
I am tempted to make this an articulated curriculum at The Kindergarten Starters — I think we have what it takes to ‘teach’ tolerance and generosity to all of our children. It is the way forward.
