Building on my last post about how frustratingly confusing the English language can be, I'm here to present more, in terms of teaching America's children in Illinois and Indiana, over the span of 40 years. Mostly, I taught 8th grade on up through 12th. Thank God for that! The littler ones were way too needy for me.
Although education and America's kids have changed over the course of that many years, some things remain the same. My students frequently complained about the same things I complained about when I was their age. Number One on the list is/was, "Why do we have to learn this?" For awhile, I tried to give them reasoned answers: "It will give you so much background to understand what you read." "You will be more well-rounded in your understanding of the world." Yeah...the kids weren't having any of that.
My next approach was "It's in the school curriculum for the English requirement. You have to pass this class in order to graduate." Still not good enough. Then, I resorted to "I had to learn it when I was a kid, so you have to learn it, too." And when that didn't suit, I finally brushed it all off with, "We teachers just love to sit around at night thinking of ways to make your lives miserable!" Aha! THAT one, they believed!
Each year, with the older students, at least, the question came up in class about what makes words "bad"? Who decides what is acceptable and what isn't? They're just words! When it came up, I usually suspended the rest of my lesson plan in order to address the question to the whole class. What I covered was:
*"Bad words" are used as insults and almost always refer to body parts, sexual and/or bodily functions, or parental lineage. I never used the actual words, but the kids knew exactly what I meant. And who decides? Well...YOU do. And the more they are used, the less effective they are. Respect makes the difference. Respect for self or others.
*Society does judge you by your words. "If you can't say it to your minister or your grandmother, don't say it at all." (That was usually followed by a comment from the kids, "You don't know my grandma!")
*America has freedom of speech but not freedom from consequences of what is said. People lose jobs and relationships over words.
There was also an annual lesson in the "ough" words of our language. I planted myself in front of the white board and asked students to pronounce the words I wrote: cough, tough, thought, though, bough, etc. I was trying to show that our language has no hard and fast rules for pronunciation, or even use.
And then came the lesson in "amelioration" and "pejoration". Big words! The meaning of some words gets better over time (amelioration); others get worse (pejoration). The word "gay" in classic literature does NOT mean homosexual. It means lighthearted and free. I left it up to the kids to decide if it was amelioration or pejoration, as long as they were able to notice the nuances of meanings.
Usually, the previous lesson came with another on its heels: connotation and denotation--the emotions evoked by word choices versus what they actually mean. I used pairs of words that essentially mean the same but with an emotional twist: trim/skinny, chubby/fat, killed/slaughtered, upset/devastated, etc. I hoped the kids would understand that word choice make a huge difference in what they read in the news and elsewhere. (Never too late, I hope!)
Maybe this post is more about being an English teacher than our confusing language. So "sioux" me!
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