In response to our conversation about how to handle swearing in high-school classrooms, a longtime teacher shares a strategy that works for her. She insists that anytime students want to swear in her presence, they should instead say the words moo cow. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Guaranteed Way to Curb Swearing at School: Moo Cow!”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
A few weeks ago, we had that call from Dean. He’s a teacher in L.A., and he wanted to know what our thoughts were about handling teen profanity in the classroom.
Right, or on campus anywhere.
Yes, and we heard from a lot of listeners about that. And I wanted to share this email from Judy Heights, who lives here in San Diego. She wrote,
I taught high school for years. The rules across campus for language were, to say the least, variable. I quickly realized that high schoolers can be lawyers when it comes to negotiating rules. And I think any parent of a teen will agree with me.
Or a middle schooler.
Right.
Or a preschooler.
Or a elementary schooler.
So she decided to talk with them about how words themselves aren’t inherently bad, but in a context, they have meaning and people associate different feelings with them. And then she said, I said if they wanted to curse in my class, they had two choices. I gave them a list of curses from Shakespeare, or I told them they could shout, Moo cow!
And as you can imagine, Moo cow was the hit. Kids would get mad, start to curse, and yell, Moo cow! Then instead of being mad, they would start to laugh. You cannot stay mad while yelling, Moo cow!
She said, I knew I was succeeding when I had kids come into class snickering, saying someone had yelled, Moo cow, in another class, and all the kids laughed, and the teacher was confused. She said, the best part was nobody got into trouble.
That’s right. Avoided the whole question and didn’t have to play rules lawyer with the kids.
Exactly. Can you imagine every single day, 35 kids, every single one a lawyer, wanted to challenge you on every single rule?
Yeah. High school litigation.
No, thank you.
No, thanks.
No, thanks.
Moo cow.
Moo cow.
Well, we know you’ve solved this problem in your own way, either at home or school, maybe the workplace. How do you deal with profanity, small and large?
It’s kind of safe and not safe at all. We are still taking your calls and your emails about that, 877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org.
