My daughter is in fourth grade. I admit, I've been slacking in the "study your spelling words" department lately, mostly because she does fairly well. Tonight she showed me her list, and it was a review week. And then I saw that the word "orphan" was a spelling word, and because it's a review week, this word was also on the list earlier in the month.
I am not sure how I feel about this. It's just a word...or is it? Is it a label? When my son is in fourth grade, do I want him having the work "orphan" on a spelling list, only to remind him of his status as an orphan early in his life?
I am sure there are other words on spelling lists that possibly bother other people, and I guess it's my white privilege that I've never noticed words to be offensive, as I do teach sixth grade from the same curriculum. I don't even know what spelling rule it was for (or, ph, or -n endings?), but I would have to think that those making the lists could have come up with a better word.
Or maybe it's because I had a personal epiphany with the word "orphan" a few months back (see http://powellfamilyadoption.blogspot.com/2010/10/prase-i-will-never-say-again-and.html ). Or I just wonder how kids are learning about what this word truly means, and that it's easy to talk about when you don't have a name and a face to put with the word.
I don't know...I just thought it was a strange word for a fourth grade spelling lists.
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This goes along with what we talked about earlier today. My girls wouldn't associate the word orphan with themselves (D wasn't technically an orphan, but T definitely was). T knows she was in an orphanage, but I don't think we've ever called her an orphan. And, I know we didn't have any conversations about it, if they had it on a spelling list. Did Kacie say anything about it??
ReplyDeleteJoelle
The word "orphan" has always rubbed me the wrong way. Then there's that movie...which really turned me against it!
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