NYC Educator: Watch That Mouth

NYC Educator: Watch That Mouth:

Watch That Mouth

by NYC Educator

It's pretty troubling to be charged with verbal abuse. Chancellor's regulation A-421 tells teachers to be careful what they say to kids. It specifically prohibits:

• language that tends to cause fear or physical or mental distress;
• discriminatory language based on race, color, national origin, alienage/citizenship status, ethnicity, religion, gender, disability, or sexual orientation which tends to cause fear or physical or mental distress;
• language that tends to threaten physical harm; or
• language that tends to belittle or subject students to ridicule.
  

Now this isn't necessarily unreasonable, but there's a lot of "eye of the beholder" in this language. I heard of a teacher who got in trouble for calling kids, "silly goose," repeatedly. Certainly this sounds innocent to those of us familiar with the term, but who's to say it didn't tend to cause mental distress in a kid who didn't understand (or simply claimed not to)?

Perhaps it's worse for people, like me, who teach speakers of other languages. No one even expects them to