Our sons’ teacher gives her class the following conceptual hook to think about how they speak to their classmates. She asks them, before they address another, to pass the words they are considering through the following “three gates.”
Is it true?
Is it necessary?
Is it kind?
(And kind is not always “nice”… these young people are surprisingly attuned to the need for collegial correction.)
If the words cannot pass through the gates, those words can be revised or omitted.
The gates can encourage communication too. If we have something true, necessary, and kind to say to a person or group, we probably should not keep it to ourselves.
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