Language and Leadership

Introduction

The following is the narrative of a high school English teacher, Marie, as conveyed to the case authors.

Marie is a tenured teacher at Middle Sized High School (MSHS), which serves 1,800 students in six communities just outside of a large urban area in the Midwest. The school is situated in a heavily industrial area, and most students come from working-class families living in area apartments and subsidized housing. Although some families are middle class, overwhelmingly this is not the case. A total of 44% of students are categorized as low income on a recent school report card. MSHS is diverse. A total of 48% of students are White, 14% are Black, 31% are Hispanic, and there is a mix of many other races and ethnicities. In addition to English, major languages spoken in the school and community include Spanish, Polish, and Arabic.

Financially, MSHS pays higher than the state average and expends more than the state average per pupil. Despite this, ACT scores and other state testing scores are lower than the state average. Furthermore, Black and Hispanic students’ scores are lower than those of White students on these tests. The school is not meeting annual yearly progress.

Marie reports that the school culture has changed in her tenure. Among the students, she reports more evidence of gangs (there is one obvious gang among Black students and two among Hispanics). Students suspected to be involved gather in specific parts of the building each day. Although administrators and staff are present, these gatherings are not dispersed, and there is no discussion of the situation among the staff as a whole. There have been instances of hazing, fighting with students from other schools at athletic contests, and violence in the neighborhood adjacent to the school resulting in injuries and deaths from shootings. Details of the hazing incident spread by word of mouth to the staff, but staff was not addressed regarding the issue. Fighting at athletic contests was met in a similar fashion. Following recent incidences of gun violence in the community next to the building, the staff was called to a meeting, informed of the events, and told not to discuss it with students. She said, “In each case, MSHS carried on as if nothing had happened.”

In addition to changes in culture related to students, Marie notes a culture change among the faculty. Despite there being only eight superintendents in the school’s nearly 90-year history, in the last 8 years, there have been three superintendents. There have also been three principals, three assistant principals, two activity directors, two athletic directors, and many other changes in department chairs, deans, and counselors. There is little communication except within departments. Information gets passed down a scalar chain, and there are few opportunities to raise concerns or discuss issues regarding instruction. For example, Marie notes that the firing of a department chair was met with an anonymous note placed in all mailboxes (though removed before all received it) written from the perspective of the principal with the top 10 reasons to fire the best department chair. This was followed by an anonymous email sent from an account created in the name of the principal (though not from the principal), further slandering the administration for unilateral rule, indifference to staff concerns, and a concern for only test scores and rules. Although sent to all MSHS faculty, the email was erased from the system server before many read it. Marie notes that there was no mention or reference to the firing or other areas of discontent from the administration. “It was as if none of it ever happened,” she said.

Work gets done at MSHS on islands. Each teacher works independently from the rest of the faculty until it is time for test preparation. Faculty meetings address not culture, climate, or other concerns but strategies for test taking. Staff policies are perceived to be enforced sporadically as are student rules, and for this reason, individuals create their own meaning with what they have. For example, Marie says, “I just generally go about my business as an English teacher, dealing with only the students I see in my classroom.” She went on to say that given the recent atmosphere in the school, she has “some fear in challenging students [she doesn’t] know in the hallways because there is a worry of retaliation.” Marie says she has heard this sentiment echoed by colleagues and would say that most teachers focus only on their own classroom.

Despite the culture of the school, the issue of heteronormative profanity seemed on the rise to Marie, and she made the decision to stop walking past it without commenting. It is in this context that Marie, one teacher, attempted to address what she felt was a school culture affecting both students and staff at MSHS.

Before sharing Marie’s narrative, it is important to know her. Marie is a teacher who takes issues of social justice very seriously. In a graduate course, Marie became interested in the use of profane language as a form of oppression. Of specific interest to her was the prevalence and negative impact of heteronormative language on students and staff who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, or questioning (LGBTQ). This is the story of how she tried to address profanity and specifically heteronormative language (much of which is categorized as profane in the context in which it is used in the school—“gay,” “fag,” “dyke,” etc.).

The Case

Marie says that when she thinks about profane language she includes “typical slurs (shit, etc.) as well as racial (the ‘N’ word, etc.), gendered (‘bitch,’ etc.), classist (trash, etc.), and ability degrading (‘retard,’ etc.) slurs.” That said, the language that she felt was most unchecked and also destructive was heteronormative. For that reason, after repeatedly confronting the same group of students in the hall regarding their use of heteronormative language, Marie attempted to refer them to the deans for discipline. Prior to sending in the referrals, Marie reports that she must “get a signature from the department chairman.” When Marie presented the referrals to her department chairman, he did not take them and sign them as usual. “He asked me to take him to the kids,” she says.

The referral Marie wrote stated,

After being asked on numerous occasions to stop using the word “fag” and “gay,” this student continues to do so. As has been explained to the student, derogatory use of these words constitutes sexual harassment and may be viewed as incendiary.

Marie explains that she chose her words carefully as both sexual harassment and incendiary actions are “unacceptable” according to the district regulatory policy and “will generally be dealt with by suspension” according to the policy.

Rather than explaining that the referral was serious as it had been written, the department chair said the following to the students, “If this teacher is made uncomfortable by your language again, you will no longer be able to sit in this section of the hallway.”

Irate but impotent, Marie returned to her classroom, ripped up the referral, and became determined to see that a conversation about this language would be had.

Some days later, in a casual conversation with the superintendent of MSHS’s district, with whom Marie has a friendly relationship, she mentioned profanity as an equity issue that she felt needed to be addressed in the school. Without naming or implying the administrator who was unsupportive, she explained the situation with the students using sexually profane language. He was in full agreement that there was a problem with language and a lack of agreement about what was or was not profane. He mentioned that the administrative team had been talking about this very thing. He asked whether she would be willing to sit on a committee to look at the issue and whether she would also be willing to share names of people who might be interested in this conversation. Marie agreed, but said, “I do not want to be part of a conversation whose intent would be to merely create punishments for various degrees of profanity.” Marie explained that she felt it was a discussion that needed to occur because the issue was one that went beyond the students; there was much profanity among the staff as well (both to other staff and toward students). The superintendent felt the concerns were legitimate and said, “We both know who will just want a list of which words result in which punishments and who won’t even talk to us because they don’t see a problem with the language.” Marie’s conversation with the superintendent ended with a plan to discuss names for a committee later in the week.

Later that week, Marie emailed the superintendent a list of names (as representative of various departments, genders, sexualities, ethnicities, and viewpoints as she could think of) and a worksheet for his consideration. Marie says,

The worksheet was intended to be used as widely as possible to elicit thoughts on language use. It asked participants to consider words they considered profane or obscene as well as words they felt had negative meanings for various races, ethnicities, religions, classes, genders, sexualities, disabilities, and other marginalized groups.

She explained to the superintendent that she envisioned the worksheet being anonymously completed by as many stakeholders as possible then discussed with whatever committee was formed. The committee’s thoughts would then be shared with larger stakeholder groups until the group could arrive at clear values regarding language.

The superintendent came to the teacher’s classroom a day or two after the email was sent and explained that a committee had already been formed with what Marie describes as “mostly administrators.” She said it included two deans (male), the athletic director (male), the head of counseling (male), and two teachers (both female) who she thinks “are known to be working on administrative certificates.” He said that the head of the committee (a dean slated in the activity director position for the following school year) would be contacting her to bring her up to speed with their work.

It took more than 2 weeks for the head of the committee, which Marie believed was formed to address the issue of profanity, to get in touch with her. When they finally spoke (with a university student observer present and three student interruptions), she was told that the committee’s goal was to improve the climate of the school. He told her that the ideas being considered were “MSHS-bucks” (to be given to students doing the right thing for use in the cafeteria or on MSHS apparel) and a list to be posted in every classroom of the most important rules to follow. Marie notes that “he was very explicit about naming the people who had these ideas instead of just leaving it for me to assume that they were group ideas.” She explained that she did not believe she could help him with those ideas as she did not “generally support token societies or rule lists.” Marie explained that her concern was with profanity in specific and that rules against it or tokens for those who did not use it were not likely to address the students who were currently using the language or the deleterious effects that language was having on others. She suggested that much more conversation was needed and asked him to “consider value statements instead of rules to be posted in classrooms” (explaining that rules are made based on values). He did not disagree with the idea and invited her to the next committee meeting. Despite his openness to her idea, Marie reported that she “got the distinct impression from him that this issue was not one that he wanted to deal with, but that if he did have to deal with it that he would put something together quickly.”

Prior to Marie’s meeting with the head of this group, there had been one meeting of the committee about school climate. The second meeting of this committee, to which Marie had been invited, was scheduled during the school/work day but then rescheduled for 1 hr before the school/work day—a time nearly impossible for many, including Marie to attend. Marie says,

I showed up 30 min into the meeting and the committee was talking about enforcement of the existing dress code and electronic device usage policies. There was much lamenting over teachers’ various degrees of attention to these policies and the need for teachers to “get on board” with these policies and be in the halls to enforce the rules. As a new and late addition to the committee I said nothing at first. When I came in I was not addressed, and nothing was said as to why I was joining the committee late.

As the conversation continued to focus on getting teacher buy-in and enforcement, Marie “wondered aloud if all teachers (a) knew about the rules, (b) supported the rules, or (c) felt that enforcing rules was a priority over classroom and academic relationships.” She tells us that when there was complete silence, she continued and noted that she did not feel that policing for cell phones was either an effective use of her time or a valuable lesson for students. Instead, she mentioned that she would rather teach them respectful and honest use of the device (i.e., silencing it while in class) because she places value on understanding situational use of dress, language, technology, and so on. Although the silence continued, Marie apologized for her lateness and explained that her presence on the committee was really only due to a personal concern with the use of profanity in the school. She was told at that point that one of the rules that would be posted in the classrooms addressed language. Marie says she again “wondered aloud if all teachers would agree as to what constituted inappropriate, obscene, profane, or incendiary language.” Again, her wondering was met with silence.

The meeting was interrupted by the bell that indicated there were a mere 5 min before classes started. The head of the committee said he would try to compile the thoughts from the committee and run something by them later that week. He did speak to Marie a few days later with a draft poster to be hung in each classroom. After reading through it and before commenting she “asked if he was under pressure to produce something.” She told him that it seemed that there was much more to discuss. He said he was not under pressure but that he wanted something to bring back to the administrative committee before the end of the year. Marie then shared her thoughts about the poster. “It’s a list of rules,” she said. To this she explains that he dropped his head slightly (still looking down at her as he was standing and she was sitting) and said, “I knew you were going to say that.” Marie asked, “What values drive these rules?” Then she says that she started writing on his poster. His later draft had something that resembled values with bullet points of the “rules” under each. Although this was a step in the direction for which Marie had hoped, it reflected only their thoughts—not exactly something that would garner the “buy-in” that everyone was looking for at the committee meeting.

The academic year in which these events unfolded ended with nothing more said to Marie. She tells us she “expected to return the following August to a big poster of rules” in her room. But the following year, Marie returned to MSHS and found no rules posters, no values posters, and heard of no meetings to discuss school climate or language. She said, “It was as if none of the conversations of the prior year had happened.”

Teaching Notes

Democracy and freedom from oppression are the cornerstones of critical pedagogy (Giroux, 2007; Kincheloe, 2007). The basic tenet of critical pedagogy is that there is an unequal social stratification in our society based on class, race, and gender and those of power, status, and privilege control the rest of society. Therefore, the unequal conditions can be maintained and the status quo remains. We decided to use a critical pedagogical perspective to analyze this case because of its attempt to uncover and eliminate inequalities. Although the case is drawn from the event in one school as told through the lens of one teacher, it is an example of how the status quo and the oppression of nonelite groups get perpetuated.

Freire (1998) and Kincheloe (2007) both state that there is no such thing as a neutral education process. There are social, economic, political, legal, and moral forces continually competing for priority and support. In addition, educators bring their own beliefs, values, prejudices, and lived experiences to the school and classroom. We believe educators need to understand these forces at work and reflect on what they believe, what they are doing, and why they are doing it. Therefore, we suggest you engage your class in critical self-reflection of their own beliefs regarding language—what they deem inappropriate, obscene, and profane and why—prior to reading the case. Encourage them to consider whom they believe is impacted (both beneficially and detrimentally) by this language. Challenge individuals to examine their biases and where they may come from. Furthermore, ask them to explore the language they use and how they rationalize or justify it in varying circumstances.

Following time for critical self-reflection and possible whole-group discussion of that reflection, assign lenses from which students should read the case. For example, individuals can read the case from the lens of a high school student, of a parent of a high school student, of a high schoolteacher, of a school counselor, or of a school leader. Additional lenses can be added by specifying individual gender identity and/or biological sex. These perspectives will assist in identifying issues of power, voice, and influence. Encourage the students to read and consider the case through their assigned lens. Following a first reading, discussion can begin with comparison of reactions from the varying lenses and individual reactions to their thinking through the assigned lens.

The following are areas for consideration related to this case.