Seven Dirty Phrases You Don’t Want to Say in the Classroom

In 1972, comedian George Carlin did a now famous/infamous stand up monologue called “Seven Words You can Never Say on Television”. It actually went to court on obscenity charges! The words are, of course, mostly what we consider “curse” words and words that we might hear from kids but we all know better than to say in our roles as teachers.

I’m not going to preach about how you shouldn’t say THOSE words in class. If you are a classroom teacher and you don’t know that already, maybe go talk to someone at your school? Most of your colleagues can help you with that.

I want to talk about seven DIFFERENT “dirty “words (phrases)” that you don’t want to say in the classroom.  It’s 2018 and some things that used to be okay to say in the classroom .. really AREN’T ok anymore, especially in a Growth Mindset classroom  

1. “That kid/those kids CAN’T do this” When you decide for people what they can do, you make it so. Growth mindset is about human capacity for growth. Meaning, EVERYONE can grow.
1. Instead try YET. If your students can’t do something, add a “yet” to the end. My kids can’t write solid thesis statements ... yet. This kid can’t sit still in my class ... yet.  
2. “This is too hard/difficult” When  you or a kid say that something is too hard, you say that  the kid can’t do the thing. You insinuate that intelligence is fixed and that they kids can’t and WON’T be able to do that thing.
1. Instead, try “for now” or “until” Again, add word at the end of that sentence --  “for now” or “until”. Like, “This text is too hard for this kid for now, but we will do blah blah to get the kid there.” or “This task is too difficult ... until we chunk it and explain vocab”.
3. “He/She is smart. He/she is not smart”. Does this surprise you? Usually people think they are giving a compliment when they say this to a student. However, you are reinforcing the idea that intelligence is fixed and that that student got the good fortune of intelligence at birth AND that they should do things perfectly. It implies that effort and challenge are not important, that ability is fixed. When the student inevitably does something less than perfectly, he/she will decide that they are NOT smart and will question his/her whole identity!
1. Instead, try praising effort and endurance Praise the kid when he or she just “knows” the answer for remembering it, but ALSO praise him/her for trying more than once, for struggling, for grappling, and for not being afraid to be wrong.
4. “You are either good at this class or you aren’t:” Well, if I’m not good at it, why should I bother trying? Why care? Why put in effort? I might as well stop showing up. I should stop doing anything for this class.
1. Instead, try highlighting student improvement Praise the kid when he/she gets it right -- and when he or she TRIES (and is wrong). Encourage the kid to get better at social studies, just a little better at a time. There is no need to be an expert right away. But maybe, we can learn a little more each day.
5. “Don’t Make Any Mistakes!” Uh, I don’t know about you, but I’m not perfect. I make mistakes all the time. Every. Day. And I learn from most of them. If I didn’t make any mistakes, I wouldn’t learn anything!!
1. Instead, try highlighting your own mistakes and how you fixed and learned from them.  Help yourself (and your kids) to stop hating mistakes. We want them to stop avoiding mistakes or being embarrassed by them.  Let’s work on owning our mistakes and talking about how and what we learn from them.
6. “I Did Badly on That? I Give Up” Did that lesson bomb? Did that strategy go poorly? Did that parent phone call fall flat? What should I do? Never try that lesson/strategy/parent again? Of course not!
1. Instead, try “How can I make it better next time?” What went wrong with the lesson? Did I forget to plan for how to manage materials? Did it go too long? Did I forget to scaffold? Did I choose the wrong activity? Never throw out the “baby with the bathwater”. Instead, figure out what part is salvageable and salvage it. Then, figure out how to fix the rest.
7. My Advanced Kids Do XYZ, but I’m Going To Be Easy On You. I’m really saying that you aren’t smart and therefore don’t have the ability to do such-and-such. Again, going back to the “Smart/not Smart” part under #2, you just told a whole class that they didn’t measure up and that that class either “has it” or doesn't. And if they don’t “have it”, why bother?
1. Instead, try not comparing class periods, especially advanced to regular. We know that advanced/honors kids are often more motivated. But we know that regular kids who are told they are advanced/honors often rise to the occasion. Give all kids a chance to be challenged. They may surprise you!
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Can you remove some of those phrases from your vocabulary? Can you start speaking the growth mindset in order to make it real? As always, I love to hear from you! Email me at newmantr@pcsb.org  And please don’t use either the Seven Dirty Words or the Seven Dirty Phrases... Neither one goes well on work email ;)