Is It True? Is It Helpful? Is It Kind?

Today I feel an inspiration to make my first off-topic post on my blog.

I am a Third-Grade teacher. I often have incidents in my class with students saying things that hurt the feelings of another, then sometimes trying to justify it by saying, “I was just laughing with him.” I point out that that unless BOTH people are laughing, then it isn’t laughing with someone, it’s having fun at their expense. It is unkind and abusive behavior, and I don’t tolerate that in my classroom.

About four years ago, I read something which really has made a difference in my classroom, and in my life. I share it with my students every year during the first week of school. I refer back to it every time we have an incident like I’ve given above. I ask the children to try, before saying anything, to ask themselves three questions: Is it true? Is it helpful? Is it kind? Usually, what they say might be true, but when I ask them, “Is it helpful? Is it kind?” they respond, “No.” My students have made wonderful progress with becoming caring and considerate human beings each year. With each unkind incident, usually because someone has spoken their feelings without thinking, I bring up these questions. I point out it’s OK to think what they said, but not to say it, unless the answer to all three questions is yes.

So essentially, I am just teaching them the Golden Rule, Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. I would feel very proud if, in twenty years, my students forgot more than half of the content I taught them, yet remembered having learned that in Third Grade.

The biggest benefit from all of this has actually been for myself, and my own life. As I taught this to my students, I learned it myself. When I was younger (even as an adult) I often said things that I later wished I hadn’t because they hurt someone’s feelings. Now I have been able to reduce those errors by eighty percent. (Yes, I still make mistakes, but far fewer. I keep trying to improve, and now I can remember to ask myself these questions most of the time.) Like they say, if you really want to learn something yourself, teach it to others!

Now that I am in my 50’s, I finally understand, in a much more complete way, what my grandmother used to tell me as a child. She used to say, “You can’t give kindness away.” She would explain that if you were kind to other people, that kindness would always come back to you, multiplied–but not always from the same people. She said if you give kindness to one person, they feel inspired to give it to another, and so on, that it keeps existing, given from person to person.

I would be very interested in hearing what anyone else thinks about this.

Best regards to everyone,

Madame Monet

Explore posts in the same categories: Golden Rule, Helpfulness, Kindness, Teaching Third Grade, Truth, Values