The B-Word

The Albany Free School allows children to curse, in an attempt to allow them freedom of expression without holding themselves back. However, some words are banned from the school. Any words whose definition are tied to oppression or hate are not allowed, including the n-word and the b-word.

Last year, the students came up with a consequence for students who used the b-word. They decided that if you used it you had to look up the definition and explain it to a room of women. This consequence has been effective, especially for the younger kids, who don't immediately understand why the b-word is different than the other curse words they are allowed to say.

One 7th grade student has had a particularly hard time cutting the habit. He already completed the consequence last year of defining the word to a group of women. Last week he went to far last week with an 8th grade woman by calling her the b-word. At first she tried to solve the problem in a small group by gathering support from the women's identity group in confronting him. The student said he understood why people didn't like the word, but it didn't seem like he really cared. Some of the adult women in the group encouraged the 8th grade woman to call a council meeting about the issue, because he was a repeat offender and to gain insight from the males in the school. A council meeting is an all-school meeting to help solve conflicts. It is run under Robert's Rules of Order.

So after finding out more about the problem (like that he was a repeat offender, had already served the initial consequence, showed little remorse and expressed that he had little control over it coming out of his mouth or not), the students started proposing punitive consequences to try to get him to stop using the word. For example, some people suggested that for every time he said the b-word he would have to pay a dollar. However, several of the other students had a problem with this because 1. he would probably just get the money from his parents and 2. the consequence was totally disconnected from the problem.

We finally settled on the student being required to do community service at a survivors of domestic violence center, once a week for four weeks. The idea behind that is that right now he doesn't see the pain behind that word, or care for that matter. If he can be exposed to issues of physical and emotional abuse he might decide he doesn't want to be identified with those struggles through his language. We'll see how it goes!

The council meeting was really powerful for me to witness, because it really took it's own course but ended up in a place that we all felt good about.