Throwaway Lines in Education ~ Is Our Care-less Use of Them Harming Us All?

Researchers have long presented how the constraining effects of stereotyping negatively impact genuine relationships and communication in society and in education, giving rise to, at best, superficial exchanges and, at worst, as being the source of extensive conflict around gender, all the way through to at times violent racial conflicts.

However, to date there has been little focus brought to the phenomenon of throwaway lines, the nature of their source and the effects upon the person delivering the words, nor upon their intended recipient/s and the societal fabric of which they are both a part.

This article presents observation based, anecdotal evidence of what potentially lies behind their use in education and how this undermines true communication and the integrity of genuine care among us all.

Throwaway Lines are Everywhere

Throwaway lines: those ubiquitous one-liners that brook no further discussion because the person or matter in hand has been summarily addressed, often bundled into a dismissive categorisation and then dispensed with as requiring no further consideration, space or time.

Throwaway lines permeate most, if not all, of our exchanges in society. From the intimacy of a two person engagement, through to the dynamic of significantly sized groups, it is a matter of, the more we look, the more we find. Because of this, this article necessarily brings focus to a small sampling as examples of how deleteriously impactful are the great number of throwaway lines that pass for normalised and socially acceptable exchange in our day-to-day.

Throwaway Lines in Education

I Blame the…

In many of our social roles, we are positioned to guarantee that we blame someone or something that is always distant and hence removed from our affiliated group and definitely from our circle of intimates. In education, this plays out as follows.

I blame the parents (said by teachers)

I blame the teacher (said by parents)

I blame the school (said by teachers and parents, generating an uneasy alliance between the two groups based on common blaming ground!)

I blame the government (said by all of us save those who are the government, who in turn are busy blaming the opposing political parties).

In each of these situations, the person who is blaming often assumes the posture of righteous indignation, of being right and of having the exclusive measure of a situation, of holding the moral high ground; whereas the other person is judged as lacking or wanting in some way and is called upon to justify their position or their actions. They are ‘the accused’ who will never have their day in court because the blamer is the behind-the-scenes, invisible counsel for the plaintiff, the judge and the jury all rolled into one, rather unsavoury package of condemnation.

Both participants are then essentially in combat, engaging in a battle of right-ness and wrong-ness, where ultimately there is a victor and an also-ran. Both positions leave each person or group as pre–judged, with no discernible openings for true relationship that would set the ground for supportive, mutual growth and enrichment. Simply, this particular type of throwaway line lays decidedly unsound foundations of separation based on opposition and judgement.

If we consider the movement of blame as a whole, why is this phenomenon within our societal fabric in the first place? Why is there a movement of blame, rather than actually working together to address situations as they present?

As one small example, what lies underneath the phrase, ‘I blame the parents’ when it is said sotto voce by a teacher? Whilst each case presents with its specific detail, there is an overall sense of this throwaway line being the culmination of a series of systemically thwarted, unresolved incidents that are then tossed aside as simply too difficult to resolve. In the absence of a clear path forward, all parties throw in the towel and withdraw to their respective corners to fester in the frustration, resentment and defence of their position. All true and authentic communication is (in)effectively headed off at the pass.

In spite of the fact that these combative situations arise from the type of systems we have collectively allowed as the foundation of our society, we turn and blame the ‘opposing’ party – the parents, the teachers, the kids. We then live in a world that has all of us opposing each other.

Why are we not asking, what is pulling everybody’s strings instead of resorting to a ‘case closed’ throwaway line that unfailingly delivers no more than a standoff and a stalemate?

Could we possibly allow ourselves to be bigger than this and agree to work together to address the situation of what is often a child presenting as a behavioural challenge or refusing to engage in the curriculum? Is it not preferable for both parties to embrace the responsibility of parenting this child, rather than engaging in the battlefields of reactive collusion?

The throwaway line of ‘I blame xyz’ is the finalising seal on the sabotage of both true relationship and truly responsive, responsible action.

All parties lose; no one wins. Seething condemnation abounds. All retreat to bathe their wounds into self-righteous indignation. These are not the building blocks of true communication, nor of relationship. They are a significant source of loss of vitality and ill health.

Get with the Programme

Could there be a more superior, undercutting, trivialising of another and their queries than this vicious throwaway line often delivered when someone asks a question that ‘everyone else’ already has the answer to?

In conjunction with the mindset of being ‘time poor’– that there is not enough time to do all that is required – it appears as the justification for writing off of the questioner as being either slack, or an also-ran in the race of the survival of the fittest! Its undertone carries intimidation and the imputing of a lack of competence. Behind all of this is the ever present threat of being perceived as underperforming and ultimately, of being on track to lose your job.

All of this is conveyed by one single line!

The Weaponisation of Language

This brings us to another unwholesome feature of throwaway lines and their ill-advised use in our lives. They are wielded as verbal weapons, transporters of the force-filled intent to undermine, belittle and even bring down another. We become trigger-happy vigilantes for the imposition of compliance with what ‘everybody knows,’ with an ever present threat to undermine any movement or expression that is potentially beyond the pale of that 'normality'.

Note, potentially beyond the pale – not even actually beyond the pale.

No wonder so many in education live ‘on their nerves’ or with a constant underlying, nagging anxiety when the climate is one of jumping on even a mildly possible threat that is yet to actually manifest into a tangible, graspable reality. It is akin to navigating one’s way through a war zone beset by the insubstantial potential for battle constantly surrounding us. Why would we waste our time with such shadowboxing when there are ample real life situations to address and equally to be blessed by?

A close intimate of get with the programme is…

Who’s Getting the Coffees?

I’ve often wondered if this throwaway line would ever get an airing if the situation of battle readiness described above were absent from our daily life. Who’s getting the coffees? is often the relief that bolsters the ubiquitous battle fatigue of free-to-air anxiety, alongside addressing the many complex challenges of working within any system, including education. Whilst the desire for relief is entirely understandable from one point of view, from a bigger, or even truer, picture do we not need to be questioning the source of the exhaustion in the first place and then addressing that? Our dogged persistence in the face of any such ongoing onslaught that undermines our innate vitality is what results in the need for relief. Why not just raise our hands and be honest about the deleterious impacts on our health and the need to unearth more insightful ways to address them?

Or is there a collective fear that such raw honesty would arouse the onslaught of further throwaway lines like --

If you don’t like the heat, stay out of the kitchen

Can’t hack the pace

Not up to the job

Past your use by date

simply, the ultimate condemnation...

Burnt out!!

Does not this handful of throwaway lines, out of the many thousands that are circulated in society and in education daily, give a sense of the extent of the dismissive harm that these phrases intent-fully inflict upon their targets? These targets are all of us. If it’s not your turn today, it will most assuredly be so on another day. The only way to arrest the circulation of these missiles of contempt is not to use them and to set standards of dialogue that are exempt from their usage.

Moreover, this article has presented only a small number of throwaway lines that apply mainly to adults. There are many that are applied to dismiss and neuter the expression of children in our care. The silencing, reducing and condemning of anyone, including children, to an imposed categorisation that forces them to take on constructs of being worthless, less than, and expendable is a heinous use of language that simply has no place in either true education or true society.

Arresting such verbal warfare starts with each of us.

We innately care deeply about each other and deserve this to be reflected in our caring use of language. We need not resort to the care-less, dismissive use of language. Arresting this starts with each of us. Building a collective arrest to this by setting standards based on true care among colleagues, students, friends and family would expedite the removal of this care-less level of harm - permanently!