Thursday, April 7, 2011

Choose your words well


Apparently, she was sprinkling her 5th grade flowers with some of the same language that they use, trying to teach them in this (shocking?) way. I will say I understand that she might be frustrated, bewildered, out of options, etc. I can't say I would want to go down this road, but I also can't say she's completely damnable.

There are many ways to teach something. None of them is perfectly effective for all learners. This particular lesson no doubt had some benefits and some consequences...maybe a net negative mix of benefits and consequences, but there were some benefits.

Maybe, just maybe, one benefit might be in students witnessing a serious accounting and apology from this principal...a model of what swearing students ought to consider. Or, maybe parents could talk to their kids about why they didn't like that the principal swore, but that adults make a lot of choices and we don't always agree with all of them, so we have to figure out how to engage those people and their decisions in an effective way.

I hope that parents aren't just learning that they can claim their 15 minutes of fame by calling the newspaper to criticize an adult who made a mistake.

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