The words we choose for children, colleagues, and ourselves are not neutral. They build the rooms we then have to live in.
There is a phrase I hear often in schools: "These kids just can't." It is spoken with a sigh, sometimes with real grief, sometimes with resignation dressed as realism. And every time I hear it, I notice how the room narrows around the words. The children get smaller. The adults get smaller. The possibilities shrink to fit the sentence.
Language creates worlds. It is not decoration on top of reality; it is a way of building reality. When we call a student struggling instead of unfinished, we build a world where the child is a problem to be solved. When we call them a learner in the middle of learning, we build a world where the child is a person becoming.
This is not sentimentality. It is theology, and it is cognitive science, and it is the daily discipline of anyone who works with human beings. The words we choose for our students, our colleagues, and ourselves become the rooms we then have to live in.
So this week, I am watching my own sentences. I am asking: What world am I building here? Is it a world I can live in? Is it a world I would want a child to live in?
“The words we choose become the rooms we then have to live in.”
This reflection lives in the Evergreen room. Come sit awhile.
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