In Anita Woolfolk's podcast on Martin Luther King Day and cultural diversity in the classroom, she spoke about ways a teacher can incorporate diversity into the daily routine as well as ways to turn a conversation around when you hear degrading remarks come from your students. "Words can hurt" (Woolfolk, 2007). Teachers need to be mindful of the way they use words as well, that way they are modeling for their students the proper uses of a particular word.
Students use many words in a ways they think is not hurtful to others. An example of this are the words "gay" or "retarded". Young children, if they have not been told these words are not adjectives or positive descriptions of a person, use them in response to questions from friends. "You hear these words in schools all the time. Students saying 'That's so gay". One teacher says whenever she hears that language in her classroom she says 'What was homosexual about that? Then uses the moment to discuss the usage of slang and derogatory language" (Woolfolk, 2007). If students have not been taught about cultural diversity, they do not know they are using the language in a hurtful way. As teachers we need to use every situation as a learning experience and cultural diversity should be a part of the daily routine just as reading is every day.
Teaching kids to respect their words can be so tricky. There is always that class clown who pushes the envelope to get a reaction and the student who brings in hurtful words just to show off. I think there are very few times we use words to actually hurt one another, but we hurt one another with our words so frequently and are unaware of it.
ReplyDeleteWoolfolk's podcast was great, I enjoyed the ones I chose to listen to as well. How do we balance educating our students on hurtful words and also making room for improvement and acceptance? Any embarrassed child who has been told that they are being hurtful will feel backed into a corner. Some children will respond by trying to correct their wrong and others will only lash out again.