One word can change the atmosphere

A while back, I developed what I thought to be an effective classroom strategy. It was out of desperation, really.

Reading Walt Whitman and Nathaniel Hawthorne are definitely not the most exciting activities high-schoolers would choose, and my plea for volunteers to read out loud would often fall on deaf ears. So I started bribing my kids to read out loud. I began with tossing them miniature candy bars, but that proved to be counter-productive. Although the number of readers increased, I was also increasing the sugar highs, which led to a room full of hyper kids, which then led to sugar crashes, which ultimately resulted in half my class falling asleep before the bell rang.

So, then, I just started offering them extra credit points on quizzes for every time they read out loud in class, and that seemed to work. But I had this one student, Randy, who quickly became my most vocal reader. He didn’t read because he liked to — he read out of, well, desperation. Most of his classmates deferred to him because what Randy didn’t have in smarts, he had in personality, and most of the students knew he needed the extra credit more than they did.

Randy was a country boy with a thick Southern accent and an electrifying sense of humor. I walked into class one day to a crowd of my students huddled around the door leading outside. One girl yelled, “Ms. Green, there’s a big snake!” From behind the safety of the door, of course, I didn’t mind taking a look, and sure enough, there was a massive black snake. I called for reinforcements, and soon our maintenance man came barreling into the classroom heroically. As he headed to the door, Randy finally propped his arm on my shoulder and announced the snake as a fake. That’s the kind of kid Randy was.

On one particular day, we were reading spirituals. Randy volunteered to read, and he began:

“When Israel was in Egypt’s land,/ Let my people go./ Oppressed so hard they could not stand,/ Let my People go.

“Go down, Mosses/ Way down in Egypt’s land. Tell old Pharaoh,/ Let my people go.”

I looked up from my book to see if any of his classmates picked up on the subtle blunder, and just one kid did — Randy’s counterpart in shenanigans, Austin. There lies my mistake. Austin and I made eye contact. The one student in the entire class who you wanted to avoid eye contact with in circumstances of potential humorous outburst was Austin. I desperately tried not to laugh, but I was weak. Austin and I started giggling, which then highlighted the mistake to the other students, which caused an ensemble of laughter.

Amidst the chuckles, Austin blurted to Randy from across the room: “It’s not MOSSES; it’s MOSES, you idiot! Don’t you go to church?”

That same country boy, Randy, wrote an essay once on the importance of studying literature, and what a delightful, inspiring essay it was. And I quote: “Literary analysis is a meathead worth knowing because it will help you in college.”

How amazing is the impact of a single word – how it can change the atmosphere of a room or the meaning of an idea. Mosses vs. Moses. Meathead vs. Method.

There is a profound power in the words we use in our classrooms, in our lives. In the classroom, teachers can help brush a child’s masterpiece with words of life, or we can erase their potential with words of debilitation. In our workplace, we can motivate a coworker with a kind word, or we can squash them with our disdain. And in our families, we can kindle trust and devotion with a soft tongue, or we can create bitterness with an abrasive one. It’s our choice.

Too often my students excuse their apathy towards school as the fulfillment of the prophecies of their teachers and others in their lives. Hearing “You can’t” or “You’ll never amount to much” or “You’ll never graduate” becomes their truth. Speaking on behalf of teachers, there is no greater avenue to express hope and potential than in our words. We must alter our vocabulary.

I admit that I write much about the power of our words. It is because they are tools all of us have equally. No degree can separate the simple fact that we have the spoken word in common. No amount of money can segregate the weapons of our voice.

So speak up.

This story was originally published April 5, 2016 at 5:32 PM with the headline "One word can change the atmosphere."