We must be careful, as educators, not to allow being 'politically correct' be interpreted as weakness.  In our business, neither strength nor bravery can be associated with demeaning or deriding others. Both in children and adults, labeling and name-calling allows the speaker to express hostility, vitriol, or mockery.  Name-calling is brutal and hurtful and inflammatory.  For some, the shell of defense may be so hard that the receiver does not note the expression as immediately hurtful, but the message resulting from the barbs dig in and their accumulation is damaging.  It is not cool to call someone 'stupid', or 'cheap', or 'one of those people'... to name just a few. Our sensitivity to how we express ourselves in private spills into our work with children. Read more...