Language

I've had language on the brain quite a bit lately. Logan is now almost five months old and when any of us are around him we make quite a spectacle of ourselves encouraging him to vocalize. And he's getting very good at it. That kid is loud!

Jump to another piece of my life: school. Here I'm taking the opposite tack; trying to get kids to vocalize less. It's not so much I mind the conversations my students have. Topics can be quite interesting; loaded with more information that I often want to hear and details I don't really need. What I do have issues with is their lack of creativity in choosing their vocabulary. It's as if name-calling, putdowns, slurs and curses have become normally accepted in society and therefore, public school.

I find it really disheartening that my students can't understand my feelings about their verbal communications. They don't seem to comprehend that you get one first impression. The most attractive person in the world quickly becomes very unattractive when all they spew from their lips is offensive garbage. And I'm more than a little disturbed that language seems to be deteriorating at an incredibly fast rate. Vocabulary, context and syntax don't seem to be important to many people any more; even among some rather well-educated individuals.

Quasi-Anonymity

Hm...I may not have spelled that correctly. Oh well. The point is that being anonymous can be a powerful thing sometimes. Think of all those "juicy tween and teen secrets" you spilled to your brand-new bunk mate at camp. Or those little tidbits of yourself you mention to that stranger on a bus or in a waiting room. It's weird, sometimes, how a person can feel more comfortable talking to total strangers than close friends.

I've personally always been more comfortable having really powerful conversations with some space. When I was a teenager and life was hard and my emotions were rioting I would write letters to my parents and leave them in places they would find them. The teenage years were tough, and I couldn't speak the words face-to-face. I thought, somehow, I'd outgrown that. That with age, experience, and maybe wisdom I'd grown to be more honest in my interpersonal communication skills. I haven't. Tonight I found myself doing that very same thing, this time electronically, to tell a friend some things I needed to say. Things I couldn't say to his face, but things I've been wanting to say for awhile now. I just hope things won't be strange the next time I see him.