This is Jennifer Gonzalez, welcoming you to episode 238 of the Cult of Pedagogy podcast. In this episode,

we're going to look at how teachers' language can build more democratic classrooms.

I'm recording this just a few days after the 2024 presidential election in the U.S.

I can't think of a time when it's been more glaringly obvious that as a country,

we have some very big differences in opinions, a time when it's felt more uncomfortable, more painful at times to know we are living side by side with people who see the world so

differently from us. But this is where we are right now, and we can either succumb to our

current divide and let it get bigger and bigger, or keep trying to figure

out how to close it.

When I originally planned this episode, I had no intention of making it a response to the election.

It's a total coincidence that the date I had it scheduled for just happened to fall on November

10th, because the topic is how we can make our

classrooms places where we have more productive conversations with each other where we develop

the habit of seeking out different perspectives and inviting each other into our conversations

and that just happens to be something we really need right now.

Hear me when I say it's not the only thing we need, but we need it.

My guest is Peter Johnston, author of the book Choice Words, How Our Language Effects Children's Learning.

The book, which he originally wrote in 2004, shows teachers how the words we say to our students can significantly change the way they respond to us, how they approach their work, how they

talk to each other, and how they see themselves. In episode 114, which is called Let's Give

Our Teaching Language a Makeover.

I actually referenced some of his recommendations in that book.

Now, 20 years after its original publication, Johnston has published a revised second edition of the book.

So I invited him to join me to look more closely at one of the chapters, where he talks about

...