One day my class was reading a story about how dictionaries are updated. This concept was very interesting. According to this story, thousands of new words are added to the dictionary every year. Language is living and constantly changing. Editors of the dictionary write down new words on index cards along with the context that the word appeared in. Words that appear the most often are added to the dictionary. Every 10 years, the dictionary gets a total makeover. When discussing this story, I asked the students to think of new words that have recently been integrated into a dictionary or words that may appear soon. One of my students said we use the word "Swag" a lot. This is a great example of a word that has recently been brought into existence. Naturally, I ask my kids if I have swag. They didn't even know how to break it to me. They sat there for a moment, speechless probably trying to think of a way to put things nicely. One student started to speak, "Well....for a teacher..." I already knew what was coming, and it wasn't very good. The student continued on, "kind of." The proceeded to tell me that my swag could be increased if I changed they way I dressed.
A couple weeks later we had parent conferences. One of my parents brought up this very discussion. She said that her family was laughing so hard at the possibility of me having swag. You know you've made it as a teacher when you are the topic of discussion at the dinner table.
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