Choose Your Words Wisely
In response specifically to the tragedy in Orlando, and generally to the state of our national discourse, I wrote the following essay, published today in our local newspaper. “Words are things,” the inimitable Dr. Maya Angelou once said. “You must be careful about calling people out of their names, using racial pejoratives and sexual pejoratives and all that ignorance. Don’t do that.” She continued, like a prophet, “Someday, we’ll be able to measure the power of words. I think they are things. They get on the walls. They get in your wallpaper. They get in your rugs, in your upholstery and your clothes, and finally, into you .” As an educator, I learned early in my career that a single word, rightly chosen or ineptly used, could make all the difference in my students’ likelihood to grasp a difficult concept. Later, as a school district leader, I was taught again and again, often in very difficult situations, that the words I chose could be consequential—for better