Words making a difference: What’s in a name?

• Main Author: Robyn Henderson
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: sami
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.502.7887; http://eprints.qut.edu.au/2071/1/2071.pdf

In doing a bit of television channel surfing the other day, I caught a short segment of a religious program that was debating the ‘power of words ’ and the use of words for good and evil purposes. Whilst I didn’t necessarily agree with the arguments that I heard (in the two or three minutes before I moved on to another channel), I was certainly reminded of the need for us to consider our words and the effects they may have on the children we teach, on our colleagues, and on our work as teachers. What we say, and how we say it, can play a powerful role in our relationships with others and in the way we position ourselves and others within educational discourses. Words play an important part in constructing the world and as Morgan, Gilbert, Lankshear, Werba and Williams (1996) pointed out, ‘the upshot of critical literacy is to enable us to investigate how “word ” has helped to shape “world” ’ (p.10). However, it’s sometimes forgotten that the taken-for-granted words that we use on a daily basis play a critical role in shaping the world as we understand it. Take ‘given ’ names, for example. Whether a child is called Sam (and whether that’s the shortened version of Samantha, Samanda, Samuel, Samet, Sami or Sama) or Jo