Sprouting kindness in classrooms

Nabanita Deshmukh

Seven-year-old Manas Bal studies in an elite school in Delhi. He is a bright student but not a kind-hearted one. Why is that so? Well, that’s because when classmates struggle with sums or chores, Manas jeers and calls them ‘retarded’. Similarly, eight-year-old Ritika Sinha studying in a government school in Bihar, does not bat an eyelid when her younger brother Karan falls down while playing. Instead of helping him get up, Ritika continues to suck on her lollipop.

Do these scenes look familiar? Yes? Well, you are not alone! A growing number of children behave in a shockingly unkind manner towards peers, siblings, parents and even older acquaintances.

This startling fact made Bornolota, a teacher in a primary school in Assam reflect on how to create ‘kindness lessons’ for children and after mulling over it for weeks, she finally came up with a few creative ideas. What did the teacher do?

Kindness shoes
Bornolota, a talented storyteller, realized early on that children just love listening to stories so she made up tales related to her students’ backgrounds and interests. One such story was about a little rhino calf called Gundi who was chased and wounded by poachers in Assam. The scared calf eventually got into a farmhouse where she was looked after by a kind-hearted girl called Pakhi and later released into the Kaziranga National Park, with the help of rangers.

After narrating the story, Bornolota, with the help of her students, went on to make three pairs of shoes out of handmade paper, cardboard sheets and attractive decorations. Once done, the shoes for the poacher were placed at the centre of the classroom. Bornolota then made the children play ‘musical chairs’ and as the music stopped, the child who got to the shoes first had to reflect on the story from the poacher’s point of view. Ah-ha! This was certainly not an easy exercise, especially for primary students but Bornolota made the task easier.

To start with, she began talking to the children about poachers. She showed them pictures and films about their dwellings, described the hardships many of them faced due to poverty, unemployment, lack of education, etc., and pointed out that these factors often pushed these desperate men into killing animals on the sly to earn quick money.

Bornolata’s child-friendly narrations and the choice of films made children aware of the hardships poachers faced and many of them ended up feeling ‘just a wee bit kind’ towards these men whom they had previously despised. Furthermore, Bornolota guided students who had got into the baby rhino’s and Pakhi’s shoes into understanding how animals and children feel when they are hunted or brought face to face with wounded creatures. This exercise of literally putting children in other people’s shoes was helpful because it developed awareness, understanding and consideration for others.

Kindness chains
Bornolota then moved from a purely kinaesthetic and musical exercise on kindness to the use of craft. A bunch of colourful and narrow paper strips or ribbons were brought into the classroom. Each child was given a strip where she had to write one kind act she had done or was planning to do such as ‘helping sister with sums’ or ‘accompanying grandfather to the park’. If the children were too small or struggled with writing, the teacher wrote the sentences down for them. Once they had finished writing, Bornolota made each one read his/her sentences to the class. Later on, she used the strips to make a kindness chain which she proudly hung on the classroom wall. Wow! The children were thrilled and many wanted to continue the exercise and make a few more chains!

Kindness sprouts
Bornolota’s mother, Nilima Boruah, ran a small grocery shop in town and often threw away old grains and pulses into the bin. Bornolota, an avid ‘waste recycler’ collected the grains, washed and dried them well in the sun and then carried them to school along with an empty glass jar. She stuck a label on the jar that read ‘Kindness Pulses’ and placed it on a desk in the corner of the classroom. She then put the grains into a small box beside the jar and waited for the students to come in. Once the class was full, Bornolota began recounting a true incident from her childhood when she and her parents once found an old beggar on the roadside, trembling with cold. His lips had turned blue and he looked extremely sick. No one stopped to help the beggar but Bornolota’s father immediately called an auto rickshaw and took the sick man to a hospital where he recovered and was later sent to a destitute home. Bornolata asked her students their views about the story and one small boy from the back row shouted, “Your father’s very kind, ma’am.”

Bornolota asked the child to pick up a grain of his choice and throw it into the glass jar for her father. The student happily did what he was told. From then on, every Friday, Bornolota’s students were encouraged to recount, if possible, real-life incidents. After narrating the tales, the students threw grains into the jar for those kind-hearted characters in their stories and the ‘Pulse Storytelling Day’ was thus created.

In a few months’ time, the jar got full and the waste grains became important learning tools but that’s not all. The grains ended up in pots where they grew into tiny saplings which the children gleefully called ‘Kindness Sprouts’.

Kindness cards
During a school project week, the students were in for a surprise! Bornolota took them to a nearby orphanage where the children talked to orphans and got to know their stories. Seema, a teenage orphan girl narrated how Lalitadidi, the orphanage guardian found her on the roadside and brought her to the centre when she was just two years old. Seema’s story along with those of a few others touched deep chords in the children’s hearts and they ended up making beautiful cards that they distributed to their orphan-friends during New Year.

The kindness curriculum
Lessons on kindness are sadly absent from school curricula and that is a real pity. The practice of kindness with its interesting horde of synonyms like compassion, sympathy, consideration, etc., has a great impact on children’s well-being and the way they perceive and handle the world. Compassionate feelings reduce stress, improve health, foster a sense of ‘belonging’ and increase self-esteem. Furthermore, from a purely medical point of view, kindness improves the functioning of serotonin, a hormone responsible for good memory, learning capabilities, mood regulation, better sleep and digestion. So what are we all waiting for? Why not try out creative exercises with students that would ring in that ‘Ah-ha moment’ with a pinch of kindness, of course!

The author is a teacher, a teacher educator and a writer of children’s stories and poems. She can be reached at deshmukh.nitu@gmail.com.