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Get real... as if!
Friday 17 February 2012
The debate about whether a school is right to ban pupils’ use of slang (Daily Telegraph 14/2/2012 ) seems to me to be missing the point. I’ll get back to why the attempt to ban slang in school is not only futile but also misguided. Let’s start with what this school is trying to achieve.
Like all schools Sheffield Springs Academy wants to improve students’ job prospects – highly laudable, particularly in the current difficult economic situation. It believes students can improve their job prospects if they use Standard English rather than slang or text-speak– almost certainly true in an interview or written application. But is trying to control how they speak at school the best way to boost their job prospects? I’m sure the school has a whole raft of strategies aimed at preparing its pupils for the next stage – be it college or work. And one of these should be teaching them how they “should” speak and write in different situations. But I hope that the main focus of this preparation for the future is enabling pupils to make good decisions so that they realise, for themselves, what are likely to be successful strategies.
Encouraging them to think about what a potential employer or college principal might be looking for, and then thinking about how to present themself so that they fit this role is a more generic and useful approach. When they get into a workplace they will discover that, guess what? it too has its own slang/terminology/patois. Which brings us back to my original point – trying to stop pupils using slang is misguided because slang is endemic, unifying and specific. Each generation of young people develops its own slang – to identify themselves as separate and unique from their elders, to bind themselves and to exclude others. Slang is as old as language itself; indeed it is a development of language for a specific group and for a specific purpose. That’s why the school is misguided to try to stop pupils using it.
Trying to ban slang is futile because it will simply go underground. After all it is the language of the playground, school corridors and behind the bike shed and that is where it will always be spoken. As it should be. But in the classroom, the interview room and the board room different languages are needed. Students need help from us, their teachers and their parents, to work out the impression they want to project and so excel in a given situation and with a specific and influential audience.
Your comments
As they mature children tend to move on from language they used in their teens to other forms of language. Who are we, the “grown ups” of today, who were the wild teens of yesteryears to be so cut up about language anyway? I would be more worried if I heard an educated 40 something using “youth language” than a teen saying: Get real! or Fit!
C’mon, people, get real!
Yes – language is about communication, and the language children use among themselves (although it may not be appropriate for more formal situations) will be adjusted to their relationships and their communication needs. What is important is that they understand how language varies according to context, and they make suitable choices in the language they use. Apart from anything else, ‘banning’ young people from doing something (especially when it is something that comes naturally to them) is a sure way of making it more attractive and desirable!
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Communication is a key life skill for all children and teens and adults!I think if we consider the reasons children use it we then have more understanding and the shock factor is less.It is often generated by a strong emotion and they need to express themselves strongly.Often they are trying to shock – whether or not they know the meaning of what they’re saying they know what the effect will be. Often they are in the habit of using such language and it means little to them; they may be in an environment where they hear language which would some would find offensive used as an everyday adverb –‘that’s f***ing brilliant’ is not used with the intention to offend.
Banning such words is futile! It is the role of a teenager to explore and express herself and test boundaries and what we can do is pass on whatever our values are about language –the appropriateness of certain words at certain times and in certain settings.