An article in Mail On-line states that a high school in another English-speaking country has decided to allow their students to swear at teachers — as long as they don’t do it more than five times during a session. The administration’s reasoning is reportedly that bad words are a part of the students’ everyday language and, by keeping a tally, they are, “giving them a bit of leeway, but want them to think about the way they talk and how they might do better.”
According to the article, “the teacher will initially tolerate (although not condone) the use of the f-word (or derivatives) five times, and these will be tallied on the board so all students can see the running score.” Anyone who goes over the limit “will be ‘spoken’ to at the end of the lesson.”
Well, there’s a deterrent if I ever heard one. Any student who will use the “f” word five times to a teacher during class is sure to cringe at the prospect of being “talked to” afterward, by that same teacher, no less.
Let’s see, if there are twenty-five students in the class, and each one uses the “f” word five times, that’s a possible 125 of those semi-forbidden words being launched during a 45 minute class, all of them aimed at the instructor. Multiply that by five days a week, and those instructors are either going to resemble the walking dead after being pelted with so much pollution, or they are going to quit and go into something a little less stressful, like working in a munitions plant.
It’s one thing to have the ability to boot a student from the classroom for swearing, knowing the student will at least face possible suspension. It’s quite another to have to cajole with, “Now, that’s three times you’ve said that ugly word and I’m marking it on the board – again. You only have two more!” I assume that telling the teacher to “shut up” is still a punishable offense. It’s only that one, really bad word that they are now allowed to use – reasonably, of course.
My guess is it will be difficult to teach the class at all and almost impossible during the last few minutes. At that point the air will probably be turned a royal blue by those who are making sure they reach their quotas for sort-of-forbidden speech, before the bell rings.
Let’s face it, people don’t improve by being told it’s okay to do just a little bit of something they shouldn’t be doing. A parent of one of the students wondered, “Do we allow people to speed five times or burgle five times?” He added, “You don’t improve something by allowing it, you improve something by discouraging it.”
And discourage it we should, beginning with a toddler’s first words. We discourage it by our own use of a decent vocabulary and by applying appropriate sanctions when decency is breached. We discourage it by bringing children up to respect themselves and others. We discourage it by rearing people who not only understand the smallness of profanity but who know, appreciate and practice the true grandeur of the English language.
