In classrooms and hallways and on the playground, young people are using inappropriate language more often than ever, The Washington Post reported on April 12.
According to teachers and principals, not only is it coarsening the school climate and social discourse but it is evidence of a decline in language skills.
“The kids swear almost incessantly,” said Dan Horwich, who teaches at a high School in the US. “They are so used to swearing and hearing it at home, and in the movies, and on TV, and in the music they listen to that they have become desensitized to it.”
Horwich said he won’t tolerate vulgarity in his classroom, and he tells students on the first day of school what he expects. But the 31-year-old teacher said he feels as though he is fighting a losing battle ?? and he isn’t alone. Many teachers say that even if they can control their own rooms, only school-wide efforts can make a real difference.
Children aged four and five often go through a phase of using inappropriate language they hear but can’t understand, child-rearing experts say. Parents are advised against reacting too strongly because the youngsters soon learn from adults that the words are inappropriate.
The problem, said James V O’Connor, director of the Cuss Control Academy in Lake Forest, Illinois, US, is that when children learn that the words are inappropriate, they enjoy using them all the more to get a reaction out of their parents. Soon swearing becomes “cool” behaviour at school, even if many children don’t understand what they are saying.
High school students know what is appropriate, but by then the habit has formed, experts say. Teenagers also know they can get away with it. Ivette Lopez, 18, a freshman at Montgomery College, said most of the time students aren’t trying to be offensive. Seth Kroll, a 21-year-old American university student, agreed, saying: “It’s part of our lexicon.”
Others see it as lazy language, especially when the same word is used as different parts of speech. “People use it instead of articulating what they want to say,” said Naomi Schimmel, 21, a George Washington University student.
Horwich said constant use of profanity reveals a poor vocabulary, and O’Connor lamented the toll it is taking on the language.
“There are words virtually disappearing from our language,” O’Connor said. “When people are mad, what do they say? They say they are pissed off or [expletive] pissed off. No range. There is a big difference between being upset or livid. There is a big difference between irritated and infuriated.”
Many teachers and administrators still put up a fight against foul language. Yvonne Morse, a veteran educator, advises strategies such as counselling, peer mediation and problem-solving sessions, parent conferences, in-school suspensions, and letters of apology written by the offender.
Popular culture has made ugly language acceptable and hip, and many teachers say they only expect things to get uglier.
Profanity, in the large sense, is defined as words that others consider offensive, although it was originally restricted to words that were blasphemous. Once heard mostly in whispers, today it is inescapable. “I never thought I would say this ?? once being a hard-core anti-music censor ?? but I understand why young people are doing this: You almost can’t find a song, video game, television show, anything, without a curse word,” said Laura Lee Cox, a seventh-grade teacher at Cedartown Middle School.
Teachers say their principals often don’t give them support on the issue, and principals say they can’t because administrators are worried about “bigger” problems. Many parents are no help, cursing themselves or excusing their children’s outbursts, teachers say.
