School children in West Texas

As part of my job, I visit A LOT of schools across the beautiful state of Texas. I have been in the border, in “the Valley”, in East Texas, and, of course, in West Texas. In fact, right now I am writing this from the smallest airport I have ever seen: Abilene Regional Airport, in Abilene, Texas, “the friendly frontier.” And yes, they have FREE wireless internet unlike those snobby big airports (Yes, I’m talking about Austin’s, Houston’s Dallas’ airport) which don’t let you do anything for free. You big airports should learn from the small, friendly airports.

So, here I am, done with my school visits for this trip, and here is the highlight of the visit.

First grade teacher was asking a group of 3 blond kids for words that had “ig”. She made a list, big, fig, wig, pig, twig, etc. Then she kept probing. “What else has “ig” in it?” The little blond boy comes up with dig. Good job, little blond boy! Another student comes with chiggers (and I am like What!? What’s that?” As a Messsican I am always learning new words). “Nice word!” the teacher exclaims, “chiggers has “ig” in it.”



And, then, this adorable first grade girl blurts it out, “Oh, yes, like ni---r.” (Add a double g and an e if you have to.) Yes, yes, yes. Yes, the word that I naively thought was pretty much eradicated from the English vocabulary (yes, I know, who am I kidding?) was just said in front of me this morning. The permanent smile that I always have when I am in classrooms regardless of what’s going on remained the same – always non judgmental is my MO and I surely didn’t want the teacher to feel more uncomfortable than she was already. But OH GOD – the word is still used. I had never heard the word used outside a movie. I guess in West Texas the word is still very present. Adorable little girl number 3 must have heard that word a couple of times – but how many times do you have to hear a word as a child for it to become part of your vocabulary?! I still give the girl the benefit of the doubt – perhaps, like me, she heard it in a movie.

If the teacher freaked out with me right there observing everything that was going on, I didn’t notice because she handled quite well. “Let’s not use that word,” she said. And she moved to the next child who didn’t have a word with “ig”. Bummer. Or "Great, let's put the “ig” word list away and check out the words with "ill”. A safer choice, she must have thought. I really hope first grade teacher here had a moment to talk to adorable little girl number 3 about certain words that are way better left unsaid.