By not distinguishing how to talk and write about people from how we communicate about things or ideas, we contribute to and reinforce our own and others’ biases (positive and negative) by how we use our words to describe people. 

The way we communicate is really essential to how we are perceived and how we perceive others. Effective communication is designed to build pictures in our minds, so we can create the same story in someone else’s head that we see in ours. So what does this have to do with bias and stereotyping? Everything.

Some Boring Background

In the English language we have a specific order in which adjective descriptors of nouns: opinion, size, physical quality, shape, age, color, origin, material, type, purpose. Not only does English have descriptors before the noun, but the order in which the descriptors are used puts opinions first. For an example, let’s take this phrase: big, red, rubber, bouncy ball. If someone says this (or writes it), you have to start picturing the “big,” then the “red,” and so on, before you ever get to what the object is.

There are languages that use postpositive adjectives, like the romance languages. With those, you picture the object (or person), and then you get all of the descriptors afterward. 

So with the same example, we would see in Spanish: gran pelota saltarina de goma roja – or – big ball bouncy, rubber, red. At least in this case, we get to picture the object at the beginning of the phrase and then we can start picturing a little more after we “see” the object. 

This idea is what I call the “big, red ball” theory. There is nothing wrong with defining an inanimate object as such – in that magical order of adjectives before the noun, although it definitely can be confusing in speaking and in teaching younger students to read. But how much of a difference does it make when we are talking about people?

The People Effect

Using this same logic, we do typically describe people the same way. We are forced to hear (or read) bias-inducing adjectives before we ever get to the who. Let’s say we’re talking about a tall, blonde, German … table. We’ve just been shifted in our seats at what we expect versus what we were presented with. Instead of thinking of a bartop in a Deutch-themed bar, we probably pictured a woman first. And with picturing a woman with those descriptions, we held our biases in our minds as we read each adjective, one-by-one. 

I’m not suggesting we flip-flop the English language altogether. I’m not prepared for that kind of fight. What I do propose is that we, especially as educators, speak of people first, and description second. There are already instances where we do this, so at some point we have acknowledged this English idiosyncrasy that prioritizes descriptors over people. 

Student-athlete – There is a reason we put student before athlete. It is (or should be) the priority.

Person of color – We acknowledge here the person first – their racial identity second. 

Man of Steel – Yes, I’m even grouping a superhero in here, because I can argue that there is a stressed importance of MAN being the first word you read. 

Put simply, we know the power of words, what words can do to the listener or reader, and that the order of those words is incredibly important. 

Students First 

In education, this is more critical than ever, especially when speaking about students, families and communities. These statements read drastically differently: 

The easy version: IEP student

Student with an IEP

Student who qualifies for an IEP

Student receiving special education services

The first one denotes that the student is first their IEP and second a student; whereas, the last three phrases identify the student as the most important part of that child. What we also know is that we hold inherent biases regarding students with IEPs. This simple flip of language reminds us all that the student comes first. 

The easy version: Low SES students

Students from low socioeconomic backgrounds

Students from low socioeconomic households

Now, I know that every single one of my journalism professors and teachers would roll over in their respective newsprint seeing an argument that creates longer phrases rather than shorter ones. However, when we are speaking about students, it’s worth those few extra words to describe the person ahead of what category we then lump them into. We have created so many “definitions” of students, but none of them (by nature of the English language) respect what should come first in all of our discourse: the student. 

This argument can be broadened to include phrases such as “students who have divorced parents,” rather than “two-household students.”  If we want to value our students first, then we owe it to them to have our actions speak as loud as our words by shifting the way we speak about children and people in general. If we continue to perpetuate stereotypes by defining students as their identities, we will only perpetuate those beliefs and biases to everyone around us.