Teaching Kindness

So of all of the characteristics that I'm putting under the rubric of good people as opposed to just good learners, the constellation, the cluster I wanna really focus on has to do with caring.

Um, and specifically, I've been giving this a lot of thought for a long time.

I want to frame that goal more specifically in these ways, and you can decide for yourself whether these kind of objectives make sense to you too.

Beyond just in broad terms helping kids to become caring, I want them to develop an enduring commitment to what psychologists call a pro-social orientation, that that's deep in their bones, that, that commitment.

And I want them to take pleasure from helping people, sure, but I also want them to help even when it isn't particularly pleasurable, even when there's no benefit to them.

That's the, the subset of, of a pro-social orientation that could be described as altruism.

It means transcending a kind of self-interested motivation.

If that's all we were interested in, we would emphasize just reciprocity, you know? And that's what some parents of young children do, whether they mean to or not.

You know, if you say to your kid, "Hey, uh, if you let Jeremy play with your Legos, I'll, I'll bet he'd let you play with his puzzle." That, that doesn't promote caring.

That promotes self-regarding shrewdness.

So I want us to go beyond just self-interest, and I want that commitment to caring to be a matter of the head and the heart.

I, I want kids to have a, a rational commitment to morality, to understanding values and principles, and not just understanding them, but to be committed to them.

But at the same time, to have an affective connection to others, to, to feel with them, which is what the word empathy means.

And finally, I want this pro-social orientation to be generalized, to go, to go beyond, um, the people they, they know.

Or the people they like, or the people they look like.

You know, it's, it's sort of like the First Amendment, uh, the concept of free speech.

You, you need it for, for speech you find offensive.

You don't need a First Amendment for speech you already agree with.

You know, it's no big deal to help out your close friends.

It is a big deal when you help, help out people you don't even know.

So that's my goal.