Humility For Children

From 16Guidelines

From Denise Flora:

I start teaching Humility by showing the children a cool science experiment, or optical illusion or better yet a magic trick. It gets them thinking right away that their eyes can play tricks on them and so can their minds, that we don't always know what we think we know, and perhaps we can learn from someone else. Here's the one I usually use:

Take a 2liter, empty, plastic, soft drink bottle. Fill it 3/4 with water. Put in an eye dropper filled halfway with water and weighted with a fishing line sinker or nail inside it. Adjust the amount of water or size of the weight in the eyedropper so it floats on the surface of the water in the bottle. Cap the bottle. Tell the children there is a magic string attached to the eyedropper and that when you pull it the eyedropper will fall. As you pretend to pull the string, squeeze the sides of the bottle and the eyedropper will sink. Release the pressure on the sides as you pretend to let got of the 'string'. It takes some adjusting to get the eyedropper balanced on the surface of the water before you start or if you let it sit for a day or two, but this will grab the attention of children and adults alike.

The science: What makes it work? Pressure on the sides of the bottle makes the air bubble in the eye dropper smaller and forces more water into the eyedropper which makes it heavier so it sinks.

The lesson: We don't have the whole picture. Our minds play tricks on us. Value others' perspectives. Learn from everyone.

for more activities like this one, see 6 activities per guideline in Ready Set Happy from the Foundation for Developing Compassion and Wisdom.