Terms of endearment

Sweet, but not a "sweetie."
During my most recent subbing events, I caught myself doing something that I thought I would never do: call my students "sweetie," "honey," or other such condescending terms.

Some people would say it's acceptable to call kids these things all the time. I never thought it was so. I've called my students:

-students
-ladies and gentlemen
-kid
-kiddo
-children
-young lady/man
-by their name/nicknames
-boys and girls (and only in a very business-like way, not the high pitched, squeaky way)

I actually made it a point to only call my students by these things. I never liked being called "sweetie" - still don't, thank you Mr. President - because it is slightly demeaning.

So it really surprised me when I heard myself using these terms on boy, girl, primary, and intermediate students. Probably because JL and the other upper grade teachers at EIB used them a lot. Come to think of it, KM used it a lot too, but it was less weird for her because she worked with primary and primary teacher tend to be high pitched like that.

It surprised me even more when the reactions to these terms were consistently positive. This week, more than one set of students were blatantly talking when I was explaining the lesson. The escalated through non-verbal, verbal, and moving to a different seat before they finally settled down. After the first verbal warning, there was some tension of ruffled feathers in the air. I called the kid "sweetie" when I told him to move, expecting some sort of lashing out (like I had with my 5th graders). He tensed up when I spoke to him at first, but relaxed and placidly moved and was a near model student for the rest of the lesson.

Here's another term I rarely use: WTF?! Kids actually LIKE being called sweetie? Cutie pie? Dear? Hon? Seriously?

I thought about it long and hard before my intellect found a logical reason for this phenomenon. Now, not all students reacted positively to it (although none reacted negatively to it either...). The trend was that nearly all my Hispanic students, at any grade level, gave a positive reaction. It kind of makes sense. Kind of. I'm a little apprehensive of writing this down too, and I'm the first person to admit that I'm totally not an expert on Hispanic culture. This is just my observation.

In Spanish, there are a variety of different terms of endearment for adults speaking to children. Chica and chico. Meija/meijo. Tierna/o. And then all the nicknames derived from their real names or some characteristic of the person. I also learned recently that if boy is named Guadalupe, it's much more soothing to the kid to call him "Lupe" for short. Because Guadalupe is actually a girl's name. Literally "Mary." As in the virgin.

So it makes sense (sort of) that students of Hispanic backgrounds would tend to respond positively when called "sweetie." Goes to show how important it is to KNOW YOUR STUDENTS. It would be disastrous to call a kid "dear" when they really, really dislike it and will react violently to it. Personally, I still find calling someone "sweetie" condescending. But that's just me.

The more I know, the more I feel like I know nothing.

P.S. Of course, there is the probability that I'm completely wrong either way.