I’ve written before about why I have never been able to use the word “imbecile” and why, once I’d learned its upsetting history, I no longer describe people as “idiots”.
These insults come from formerly state-sanctioned terms describing people with learning disabilities, and this is reason enough for us all to never use them again. But we should extend the care that we take with the language we use not just about the children we educate but when we describe aspects of their lives.
My colleagues and I call this “language that cares”. It is a deliberate decision to be clear about words. This may feel like pedantry, but ill-considered language can reinforce stereotypes, dehumanise children or entrench low expectations.
For example, is there really a meaningful difference between describing someone as “a Down’s child” or “a child with Down’s syndrome”?
Yes, there is, and I was educated by a parent as to why this person-first language is important. To describe someone as “a Down’s child” places the fact that they have Down’s syndrome as their defining characteristic, whereas “a child with Down’s syndrome” does not do this.
The views of the person themselves are obviously paramount, so they may be OK with this, as I Iearned when discussing this with some autistic children who preferred that to “children with autism”.
Here are some other, perhaps less obvious, examples.
‘Obsessions’ or ‘special interests’?
At my school, we don’t talk about obsessions to describe the things that our pupils choose to spend their own time doing or learning about. We talk about their special interests. “Obsessions” can suggest irrational or unhealthy behaviour, which leads us to want to curb it.
When I started using “special interests”, I could see that I have my own - you will, too - and that they change over time. Currently, I am very interested in the Spanish Civil War. I’m not obsessed with it, but I am absorbed by it. Framing it as something negative misses the opportunity to build on someone’s intrinsic motivation to learn more about things that fascinate them.
‘Meltdown’ or ‘overwhelmed’?
I put out a plea on social media a while back for alternatives to the word “meltdown”. I’ve never liked it, but couldn’t come up with anything better. The suggestion, from a parent (we need to listen to parents an awful lot more, by the way), of the word “overwhelmed” immediately felt right.
“Meltdown” is similar to “temper tantrum”, suggesting a deliberate and unreasonable overreaction, which can negatively influence how we choose to support a child in this situation.
‘Hard to reach’ or ‘easy to ignore’?
The label “hard to reach” is in common usage in schools when describing a subset of parents who appear to be less engaged with our usual channels of communication than we would like. Perhaps this makes them easy to ignore. They may be heavily engaged in the learning life of their child, but not in ways that are visible to us.
I once ribbed a parent governor for not completing our parent questionnaire during an Ofsted inspection. She explained that her fridge door was buckling under the weight of letters from various medical professionals, Department for Work and Pensions documents, local authority letters, social care respite team schedules and so on, and that my questionnaire was buried in there somewhere.
Recognising that parents can be easy to ignore should prompt us to redouble our efforts to ensure we have good two-way communication with all families.
Time spent agreeing on what language we do use and what we will no longer use is well spent and ensures we don’t see some of the children we work with as other.
Jarlath O’Brien is the author of Better Behaviour: A Guide for Teachers and Leading Better Behaviour: A Guide for School Leaders
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