According to Henry James, "Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind." If this were simply a sentiment striving for power through repetition, it would be worthy only of a Hallmark card. But there are at least three meanings of the word kind. The first and most common is as a simple virtue—sympathy, friendliness, or tenderness. We may practice simple virtues.
Kind also means alike or without distinction. When we draw invidious distinctions between parents and teachers in a school, or between those on the Board and those on the Council or College, or between those who are teachers and those who aren’t, or even between friends and critics, we indulge a harmful fiction. We are alike. We are one kind, and we do our best work when we take this likeness as a given.
Kind also means natural, innate, or native. In this sense it has the same derivation—and is spelled the same—as the German word “Kind,” child. “Except as ye… become as little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.” For teachers, this entrance is a blessing and a curse. Teachers can more easily become as children—open-minded, reverent, and playful; they live with the best possible examples. They can more easily become childish, too. Teachers are those who have chosen to spend most of their time with children. They sometimes treat adults as they do students. (Parents often act like their children, especially within the walls of a school—petulant in preschool, aggressive in middle school, but that’s a different topic).
So Henry James’s injunction can be taken in its repetition in three ways: Be kind. Be one. And be as little children.
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