The Language Schools Promote
Every school has its own “language” that is unique to its community. Maybe the person who guides students is an Advisor while in another school it is the Homeroom teacher. Is it Homecoming, Fall Festival, or some other gathering term that encourages students and alumni to assemble in different ways to celebrate the nostalgia of the school? The names of special events are infinite and each school’s traditions become hallmarks to generations of students. In some cases, no one knows where the terminology originated, but everyone in the school knows what it stands for.
As schools choose to dive into the systemic issues of race, gender, and other biases/discriminations engrained in their ethos, they must take the time to analyze what are the origins and impacts of the terms that are rooted in pain, even if no one today sees it. Knee-jerk reactions don’t create change. In some private schools, the institution is led by a Headmaster or Headmistress. In the United States, a Master has connotations of ownership and of course towards the institution of slavery. Within a place of learning and growth, should students really see the presiding force as an owner or with gender specificity?
Some schools have cultural festivals or occasions that are meant to celebrate landmarks when all they do is remind underrepresented groups that their history is dependent or inferior to the other groups. Halloween is a bastion of such discrimination. The Land Run event in 3rd grade was a major event for me growing up in Oklahoma. All the students dressed up as pioneers and decorated wagons to race out to the playground to claim our spots of the Unassigned Lands. What we were never told was that our claimed land was previously occupied by large populations of indigenous tribes who were forced to move to Oklahoma during the Trail of Tears and other governmental acts that can only be considered today as human rights violations. Intraschool athletic competitions that label all who identify as females as one group and males as another assumes one must fit into these set identifiers. As an educator in Hawai’i, I have learned that many buildings are named after the missionary and major business families that colonized the islands. Their names are the streets, the parks, and more. And while one could argue that not all were responsible for the subjugation and overthrow of the Hawaiian people, I’m pretty sure no one is naming a building after Adolf Hitler’s grandchildren no matter how good and generous they might be. Yes, it is a big leap to compare the genocide of Hitler to anyone else…but when is the magnitude of the extermination of a culture (and people) an appropriate measure?
Some might think that these terms and practices do not have the prejudiced impacts they did before. But continuing this language continues the implicit manipulations that drive the way we think about others. Schools need to become more aware and assess what language is part of its vernacular and whether its continuance is really needed for the school to thrive. It tends to be the older and previous generations that want to maintain certain traditions because rarely do they matter to current students who have not yet experienced them. Contributing to thes