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    Nun Fights Cussing with… Cussing…

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    “It got a little quiet in church,” Avery said.

    “Sometimes I think children don’t know what words to use, they use them because they’ve heard them from other people,” Avery said. “I think they knew that I drew the line.”

    The students told their parents about the lecture. And in the St. Clare community, known for being a bit conservative, some parents were shocked, but others applauded.

    “In a way you would think a nun would shy away from something like that, but she’s very open with the children, very clear in her messages,” said Margaret Roache, chairperson of the school commission, whose sixth-grade son was there when Avery read the list of banned words.

    “When I asked him to give me a sample of it, he said, ‘Oh, no, I can’t say it!’ ” Roache said. “I thought it was great.”

    Avery isn’t surprised that the students listened. She’d done the same thing in two previous schools, in Sioux City, Iowa, and Pikesville, Ky.

    “I’m not saying that it’s an easy thing to do, it’s just something that I thought was absolutely necessary,” said Avery, who also has banned the words stupid and boring. “I’m not saying we had a terrible language problem. It’s just that you start hearing words — and they’re offensive.”

    Source

    Middle school kids like to experiment, and occasionally they try out new words. Those words, the ones you can’t put in a newspaper, that sometimes crop up on playgrounds. Which is what happened at St. Clare of Montefalco Catholic School in Grosse Pointe Park. When the school’s new principal Sister Kathy Avery heard that there was some swearing on the playground, she decided to draw from her experience elsewhere to take a direct approach to stopping it. After mass late last month, she had the fifth- through eighth-graders stay in church a little longer. Then she informed them she had a zero-tolerance policy for swearing. And to make sure the kids knew exactly what she was talking about, Avery read a list of words and phrases that she was banning, including a few that would make many grown-ups blush...

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    1. Leonard on Mon, December 17, 2007

      Actually I applaud this nun for actually teaching people.  Sometimes people get a bit embarrassed at how they talk when they hear someone who is a pastor or nun use those words back to them.

    2. Peter Hamm on Mon, December 17, 2007

      GREAT idea!

    3. Camey on Mon, December 17, 2007

      I applaude her too! There is far more to teaching than just saying, “Don’t say that because I said so.” And far more to really loving others as well.

    4. Amy McCarthy on Wed, December 26, 2007

      Actually, I remember what it was like to be a kid, and then I only knew enough bad words to count on one hand.  I don’t know if I could’ve handled it if I asked around and was told the meaning of all the rest of them! 


      However, kids today in early elementary school today are doing things that I only heard about in my late teens. Generally, I see a lack of modesty anymore and much more uncouthness.  Everything under the sun is being exposed and we’re becoming so desensitized.  More and more, all is acceptable and considered just part of life’s experiences. 


      If a nun said it, even as instruction not to, then how offensive to God can it be, a child may rationalize.  Later on, he may deem such language only inappropriate as an adolescent, but okay when reaching adulthood. 


      Does it say in the Bible not to even whisper what the wicked do - or say?


      I believe we can still get the message across in a big way and yet do it more discreetly, especially when we stress God’s supreme holiness.

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