Learning Curve: Teachers say ... what?

At home, we maintain a “cuss” jar that may eventually bankrupt my husband.

His offense is a frequently uttered, “Oh hell,” which in my house costs you a quarter.

What does a similar outburst cost a teacher in the classroom?

I have never been troubled by my children’s rare reports that a teacher slipped up and muttered a “damn” or slightly worse when a chair fell over or a finger got slammed in a drawer.

We’re all human. Children hear those expletives in so-called family movies now.

However, I was surprised when I overheard my 9-year-old and three of her pals chatter about how their exasperated teacher called one of them a “retard” for acting silly in class.

They weren’t tattling on their teacher. They had been talking quietly in the backseat until I interrupted and asked, “What did the teacher call you?”

Their child radar suddenly went on alert: Did their teacher do something really wrong? Was there going to be a miffed mom?

Not wanting to convey criticism of their teacher, I didn’t prolong my inquisition or reveal any judgment about the comment. Realizing that no fireworks were looming, they forgot the matter.

I didn’t. I was troubled because I find the term “retard” distasteful and hurtful, and I censure my own kids whenever they say it or anything similar.

When I shared the incident with a friend that night, she suggested that there might be mitigating circumstances.

The teacher, she said, might have been trying to talk to the children in their own vernacular. Maybe the teacher knew that kids used that term when a classmate acted goofy, so she was conveying her disapproval of the antics in a way they understand.

While my friend found the word repellent and would swoop down on one of her children for using it, she felt like the teacher deserved a pass.

But what are the rules on language in class? What about the argument that teachers have to fight to achieve relevance with students increasingly indifferent to school? Given the language used by many students today, teachers trying to relate through use of the vernacular would have to send expletives flying.

(One of the most sobering experiences is to see how teens write to one another on their Facebook pages. The obscenities that landed comic George Carlin in so much trouble now seems to be acceptable synonyms for “Wow,” or “You’re kidding me.”

I also wonder whether private schools are looser on language than public ones. One legendary Atlanta private school teacher was known for peppering his lectures to middle school students with expletives.

The parents paying $13,000-a-year tuition didn’t seem to mind; the teacher was inspiring and their children loved him and learned a great deal. So they overlooked what could well be a fireable offense in another setting and another school.

There’s little public discussion of teachers and off-color language, likely because most of them are too sensible to make the mistake. The consequences can be dire.

A Florida teacher, seeking to make a critical thinking lesson more appealing to her jaded high school students, lost her job over a “Keep Your Mind Clean” quiz that included such questions as: “What is a four-letter word that ends in K and means the same as intercourse? Hint: You do it all the time, especially when you shouldn’t, except when your parents ask what you did in school.”

The answer was “talk.”

The school system did not think the creativity of the quiz overshadowed the bad judgment of the teacher — a former teacher of the year — and fired her in 2005.

In class, it’s far more likely to be a student who crosses the lewdness line than a teacher. Civil discourse has coarsened in general, and teen society has become far more at ease and more conversational with the “seven words you can never say on television.” I warn my own teens that regular use of profanities can become a habit that is hard to break.