Respect

I saw this video on Addressing the R Word Proactively and Flagging YouTube Videos
from Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer. I really thought it was short and powerful. I think it would be good to show students too.

I grew up where using the word retard was a common word by all of the kids in my school. Of course it was used right along with stupid and dummy. But in my home, those words were bad and you didn’t dare use them. They ranked right up there with the word hate.

I think we have a responsibility to teach students that words like this hurt. But we should not stop there. We need to give them replacement words. They need to learn how to use words that encourage and honor others.

In special education, many times I have had to write a functional behavior assessment which leads to a behavior plan. As a committee, we identify the problem behavior, what leads to it, and the consequences. We also identify a replacement behavior that is the behavior that we want to happen and come up with ways to get the student to act this way. I think this is a plan that leads to success rather than failure.

We need to do the same thing with words that hurt and promote hate. Let’s start by giving them replacement words. Please watch this video and let me know what you think.