Profanity

Prior to the 1970s, expressions such as “darn,” “dang,” “son of a gun,” “hell’s bells,” and “shoot” were considered by some to be profane, uncouth in “polite company” and certainly not acceptable in schools. Instances aplenty have found teachers and students subject to repercussions from their intended or unintended utterances of profanity at school. Many of us teachers choose to delete pro­fane words and gestures from our daily lives, because we know that those profanities can too easily slip out during the times we are in school. Minor incidents like bumping a shin, breaking a piece of equipment, or being startled by an alarm can cause us to let a profanity slip out in front of students. Why risk it? Values and standards for behavior in schools warrant our reaching higher than our colloquial norms and coarse or vulgar language. Our comportment as educators deserves a review of our use of profanity. Parents have the right to expect professional behaviors from their children’s educators. Co- workers have a right to expect it from their colleagues. When teachers use an appropriate range of vocabulary instead of profanity, students have models from which to learn. We can take a few moments to consider the pres­ence of profanity in our in- and out- of- school lives. And some of us may find that our language needs an upgrade.