Humility
Reception: Being humble means not showing off, and is better than pride.
Core Story
Once a Mouse by Marcia Brown. A wise hermit saves a tiny mouse from its predators by turning it into a cat, a dog and eventually a tiger. However, through pride the tiger forgets his humility, and became ungrateful for for the hermit’s help, so one day the hermit turned him back into a tiny mouse.
Drawing out the virtue
What happened to the mouse at the beginning of the story? The hermit saved him from his predator.
How do you think the mouse felt? Scared, thankful to the hermit.
When the mouse became a strong tiger he forgot the man that had helped him and started to show-off for being so strong. He was proud instead of humble. Does that make you want to be his friend? How did the hermit decide to teach the tiger to be humble again?
Can only weak people be humble? Or can strong, important people also be humble?
Activity 1: Role play
How does the tiger behave? Children act out moving around the classroom pretending to be the proud tiger ‘peacocking around the forest, lording it all over the other animals’.
Ask the children to freeze their positions.
If you were another animal in the forest, would you like to be friends with the tiger? Why not?
Imagine that the tiger sees a scared little mouse scurrying past – do you think the proud tiger would be kind to him?
Now ask the children for suggestions about what the tiger might say or do to the mouse if he was being humble?
Activity 2: Drawing Mr Humble and Mr Pride
Take two large pieces of A3 paper and draw the rough outline of a person on each. Give children a whiteboard each so they can draw their own at the same time. Explain that you are going to draw someone who is humble and someone with too much pride. Label the drawings ‘Humble’ and ‘Pride’.
1. Draw eyes on the drawings. Explain that Pride only likes to look at himself. When he looks at others it is only to notice their mistakes. Humble likes to notice the good things other people do.
2. As you draw the mouths explain that Pride likes to show off about how clever he is and all the goals he can score. Humble uses words to encourage others and say what they have done well.
3. As you draw the ears talk about how Pride doesn’t like to hear anyone say that he is wrong about anything. Humble listens to other people and asks for help if he is unsure.
4. As you draw the hands talk about how Pride is always getting into arguments because he wants to get his own way, while humble is always looking for ways to help other people without being asked.
5. Draw little stick people around both figures to represent friends. Ask pupils whether they think it is Pride or Humility who has the most friends – if not, why not? Cross out the stick people.
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Classroom language
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Sayings
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Thank you X, for showing your humility by praising your friend.
How might other children feel when you say that?
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Pride comes before a fall.
From humble beginnings come great things.
To eat humble pie.
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Library books
The Little Peacock’s Gift by Cherry Denman
The Magic Goldfish by Demi
Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters by John Steptoe
Fox and Fables by Dawn Casey
The Frog and the Ox , Aesop’s Fable
The Fox and the Crow, Aesop’s Fable