When I was pregnant with my first child, I came across an article about “The Little Virtues,” an essay by Italian writer Natalia Ginzburg. It was a breath of fresh air. I’d already gorged myself on parenting advice by reading books on eating, sleeping and first aid. But I longed for something both deeper and broader, a template that cut to the quick of parenting.
I found that template in “The Little Virtues,” which begins this way:
“As far as the education of children is concerned I think they should be taught not the little virtues but the great ones. Not thrift but generosity and an indifference to money; not caution but courage and a contempt for danger; nor shrewdness but frankness and a love of truth; not tact but love for one’s neighbor and self denial; not a desire for success but a desire to be and to know.”
–Natalia Ginzburg, The Little Virtues
Throughout the essay Ginzburg reflects on big virtues, little virtues and how, when educating our children, we often confuse one for the other. Put simply, little virtues are the practical and reasonable habits we rely on to live our practical and reasonable lives. Things like thrift, caution, success. These virtues are defensive in nature, they are motivated by our fear of this very dangerous world. We are thrifty because we fear poverty, cautious because we fear danger or humiliation, successful because we expect success to protect us from disaster.
Big virtues on the other hand, are commitments we make out of convictions that transcend our fears. Instead of thrift we practice generosity–or maybe we’re thrifty in order to be generous. The big virtues, Ginzburg points out, often include the little virtues–thrift and generosity are not necessarily at odds. But a child who is only taught little virtues is unlikely to absorb the big virtues on his or her own.
I find these two categories really helpful, both when applied to myself and to my kids. When faced with practical problems we automatically grasp for practical solutions–I don’t have enough time so I’ll work faster, sleep less, let my kids watch more TV, etc. But sometimes these interventions move us further away from our core commitments. It helps to slow down, identify all the big and little virtues involved and make a decision from there. Here are some examples:
Little Virtue
Big Virtue
- Time: Maximize the amount of tasks I complete in a day/week/month. Value the completion of concrete tasks.
- Trend Based Creativity: Ask, “What TpT resources/blog posts/social media posts are most likely to generate sales/engagement/likes?”
- Achievement: Create classroom resources that are quickly produced, quickly used, quickly graded, quickly forgotten.
- Time: Value meaningful, high-quality work over number of tasks completed. Devalue over scheduling.
- Integrity Based Creativity: Ask, “What can I create with my limited expertise, time, and energy that will be useful to teachers and readers?”
- Formation: Create classroom resources that foster deep engagement with children’s literature and encourage a reading life.
Over the next few weeks I’ll be posting reflections on big and little virtues. If you have examples of big/little virtues in your own life or classroom I’d love to hear them in the comments or on Instagram. I’m hoping to get some ideas that go beyond my little list!
