Changing Scenery

I returned home from St. John, a U.S. Virgin Island on January 2. Today I awakened to a snowy vista--beautiful clear sky and rim of snow on my mailbox and outside stair rails. I was swimming in the warm water of the Caribbean a week ago--sea turtles moving slowly and abundant fish leaping out of the water. I am grateful for the amazing places that I have visited and now hold inside of me.
I am re-reading Language in Thought and Action by S.I. Hawakawa and Alan Hawakawa. It is a book I'm using in my class in the spring semester. I loved this book when I was twenty-something and returning to college. I hadn't looked at it in many years, ordered the latest edition, and retreated to couch with a cup of tea and my daughter's overly affectionate cat. The idea of language as a living, breathing thing used in social interaction, historical context or embedded with prejudices, cultural bias, abstractions, and a kind of magic (as if we sometimes believe the word to be the actual thing--like the word rattlesnake evoking fear though it is not the actual rattlesnake) is endlessly fascinating to me. I hope it will be so for my students. It was a struggle choosing books for this new class I'm teaching on critical and creative thinking. Suggested books had conundrums, math games, right and left brain activities. While I will incorporate some of this (and also some amazing videos that are out there--Silent Beats is one I am thinking of--about our assumptions), I am a language person. It became increasingly evident to me that I needed to find a book that showed the ways in which language impacts who we are and how we live---in advertising they already know this. I remember my father (who made a living in advertising) coming up with slogans or illustrations that showed people looking attractive while they were interacting with a product, implying that the product will do more than its intended use--it may win you the man or woman of your dreams, make you thinner, more successful, prettier or more handsome. It was fun to find that a book that really challenged how I thought in my twenties still has something to offer me now. The newer edition has been updated to include computers and more recent historical events that have changed how we use language. Language is always changing. One of the interesting activities I did in Ireland with Geraldine was to trade sayings/superstitions/cliches. While many are the same, some are different or phrased differently, depending on the culture and context. Language defines a culture but it can also be used to hurt, judge, infer, or slant. I used to do an activity where students shared words they liked and words they didn't like. My daughter hates the word burger. I love the word juxtapose. We dislike a name because we once knew someone with that name that aroused something negative in us. All of this is fascinating to me. I hope I can make this material come alive for my students.