I am often intrigued by the controversy surrounding the contraction, “ain’t” which, to the best of my knowledge, has been created by the American education system. Contractions are an informal form of the English Language and should not be used when formal language is required. We generally speak informally, but when it comes to writing, we employ the formal language. That being said, the acceptable contraction for “am not” is “ain’t”, therefore it can only be correctly used with the pronoun “I” as in I ain’t going to do that!” The problem occurred when people tried using it with other nouns or pronouns. “We ain’t going!” would then mean “We am not going!” “Jim ain’t here” would be Jim am not here, hence the misuses grew. The solution was easy. Rather than teach to correct use of that contraction, teachers banned its use altogether and made every attempt to have it stricken from every lexicon in the English-speaking world. Even as I write this post, the application, Microsoft Word is red-marking this paragraph like there will be no tomorrow. Of course I will need to ignore the rule, since it has now been established as a rule. The banning of this word from our language is so engrained in the minds of Americans that I will probably get comments from readers taking issue with this entire paragraph. Of course that works to underscore the success of the “Ban the word ‘AIN’T’ Campaign”.
Now that the stage has been set, let me get on to where I want to take you on this journey. This week I took my student teacher group to listen to a guest speaker. The speaker was a personnel director from a local school district who was discussing the ins and outs of securing a teaching position in today’s job market. After we got past the usual things about resume’s and panel interviews, the speaker delved into what she thought first year teachers should do to protect themselves as new teachers. When she told the group that they should not email anything to parents for their first three years of teaching, all of my students turned their heads to see if mine blew off my head. Some of my colleagues nodded and voiced their agreement. I said nothing out of respect for the speaker, but later told my kids that I totally disagreed with that strategy.
Our world is rapidly changing. I will not debate whether it is for the better or worse, but I will clearly agree that we are a culture that is connecting in many ways beyond the age-old face-to-face method employed for thousands of years. We talk, phone, email, text, tweet, Skype, post, and sometimes write letters in order to communicate. If involving parents in the education of their children is a goal for educators, we need to employ whatever form of communication that parents use to accomplish that. We can’t demand that parents conform to our limiting choices that are convenient for us. Email and texting are becoming the methods of choice for communication in our world today.
I fully understand the reasoning behind telling teachers to avoid emailing or texting parents. There are times when these things can be used against a well-intentioned teacher. Teachers live in a fishbowl and are held to a higher standard. They are also targets for people who need to place blame on anyone rather than accept personal responsibility. These are the hazards of our profession and they seem to be being amplified in a society which is growing more dependent on what social media and technology have to offer. The solution to the problem, however, does not lie in banning its use. As teachers, we should always rely on education as our first answer. Learning how to do something correctly is always a better alternative to not doing it at all.
Rather than condemning the use of tools that our society is embracing, we need to teach the correct way to use them. It is true that the written word can be used against a teacher, but any words written or spoken can be turned. Look at our political system where that happens every day. We need to teach teachers to consider their words and communicate clearly no matter what form of communication they use. It is not the tool that makes teachers look bad; it is what they say that does that. A parent who is informed about his or her child’s progress and shortcomings has a fighting chance to affect change in their child’s education. The sooner they have that information the quicker things can happen. Of course if the parent has been informed and chooses not to act that is not the fault of the teacher. If email or texting is the preferred method for the parent to get this information then why are we trying to fight that?
We need to streamline the communication for quick results. For years teachers complained that they had no phones in the classroom to communicate with parents. In its day the phone was the technology tool for communication. Today, many, many classrooms have phones for accessing parents. The technology however, has developed forms of communication beyond the phone as we once knew it. For that reason most schools provide email accounts for teachers. What schools now need to do is teach the teachers how to best use that tool. Schools need to teach what to say and how to say it for best results, because this stuff is not intuitive. As I often say, we no longer have a choice about technology. It is what we use in our everyday lives. It does not matter that we can remember when we did not have it. We do not move backwards in time. We need to teach people how to move forward, because no one has been there yet.
My Island View 
I couldn’t agree with your sentiment more! Instead of always looking to stop something, we should focus on how to use it correctly. We often urge students to “pause before you post” and the same should be suggested to adults.
On a funny side note, your “ain’t” discussion makes me fondly remember the time each year when I tell kids that you can start a sentence with “because”. The look of astonshiment on their faces always makes me grin! So often in education we tell kids what we think will be the easiest for them but not the correct answer. Yes, you can use ain’t and you can start a sentence with because!
Wow … Completely agree with you on the email part of the story and not on the ain’t part. Maybe a more appropriate comparison is using scissors, or crossing the street. We completely acknowledge that both things have potential dangers, which are out weighed by the potential benefits. Even at a young age we don’t tell kids not to use scissors, but we tell them how to use them safely.
As far as “ain’t” … my question for you as I began reading was, “What is it a contraction for?” My understanding of a contraction is a combination of two words in which to use the apostrophe to fill in the gap for the missing letters. In the situation of “Am not” the correct contraction would have to be “am’t” or “amn’t,” but not “ain’t.”
Clearly I will need to look into this further, but I was also amused to find that there is a Ban Ain’t Movement. As far as I can tell it simply is not a word, certainly not a contraction of any words that I know.
Thanks for making me think…
Tim
Tim
While your researching Ain’t for Am Not you may want to research why we have Won’t for Will not.
I see it this way, ain’t has been used so much, verbally and in print, that I tell my students that it’s a word. If they still don’t believe me I say, “look it up in the dictionary.”
I totally support ain’t, and using any tech parents use to communicate with them!
Each of my four children, as they were learning to talk and learning the language, came up with “amn’t” as a contraction for am not. I suppose it is unnecessary since, as you say, it is only used with I and we have introduced “I’m not” instead of “I amn’t”. I personally think either should be considered acceptable.
Communicating with parents is vital to a continuing and healthy relationship that will benefit the child. Although I email parents, and encourage all teachers to do so, I educate them to be careful in doing so. Educating teachers “how” to effectively email or text parents is an excellent suggestion in your post.
I personally recommend discussing difficult, or heated, conversations in person, or verbally over the phone. I do that because email is “1 dimensional,” which doesn’t allow the free flowing give and take of discussion necessary to solve difficult conversations.
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‘We can’t go backwards in time,’ It’s so simple but true. I’m a believer that we should be constantly trying out new tools to see how well they work and in what educational settings they might be best applied.Nowadays, one of the tools that I feel educators should try is social media. As people that are ‘connected’ we are experiencing many of the benefits as professionals and we can see how social media can be used by students in certain situations to support learning. Unfortunately, I often feel that when it comes to trying new tools, some people wish for time to stand still. Rather than moving forward, there are many who ‘seem’ to subscribe to the status quo. I say ‘seem’ to because I honestly don’t believe they wish to stand in the way of progress. Instead, I think there could be something that is impeding them from moving forward with their own learning. Whether it’s a mindset, educational structure, fear of the unknown, etc I think we have to do our part to understand why some people are resistant to moving forwards.
The thing I like most about emailing (and watching colleagues email) parents is the process of producing the draft. So often in email I’ve written things just to get them off my chest, or to think through my thoughts, only to delete them once I’ve re-read my own words and taken time to cool off and check for how the parent may perceive that email. Sure, we temper our opinions and emotion during face to face or phone calls, but sometimes to the detriment of some things being said that need to be said. I like the time I can take with an email to make sure I have a good point AND say it politely.
I probably got myself in MORE trouble with things I said on the PHONE my first 3 years than in email. Where are the schools banning phone calls to prevent teachers from putting their feet in their mouths? 🙂
Yes! Good for you. Great post. Just because some educators( admin or directors) say it doesn’t mean it’s sound advice. I ain’t surprised just disappointed. That said, we all email too casually and frequently to everyone.
Tom, A great post. You’ve written about this type of communication before, but you have refined and offered some additional insights to the topic with this post. The personnel director is perhaps advising from her narrow focus or interests that her job sometimes require. The advice might be directed towards younger teaching candidates who probably don’t have the experience or have developed the professionalism necessary to navigate the sometimes swirling waters of classroom/parent/student issues. Electronic communication often lacks context, and with that qualification, the advice, although overextended, has some validity. Learning to deal effectively with difficult situations and difficult situations often takes time and perspective.
Thanks for adding to my thinking on this subject.
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I am often intrigued by the controversy surrounding the contraction, “ain’t” which, to the best of my knowledge, has been created by the American education system. Contractions are an informal form of the English Language and should not be used when formal language is required.