Time and again it has been demonstrated that if students' own discourse and knowledge, their assets and strengths, are acknowledged and allowed inside the school door, they do wonderful and important learning.
We all have our list of those words. Not the banned-by-the-FCC ones -- I figure all parents agree that those should probably not be part of a 3-year-old's vocabulary. But words that are loaded, words that are hurtful, words that feel personal.