Much of my time is taken up with playing with language with teenagers. When is it okay to use a particular word? Are there words you can never use? How do we talk to each other in respectful ways?

There’s formal language that’s necessary in many situations. Yet there’s also the joy of a well-running shop or kitchen or newspaper where the language is undoubtedly and some would say necessarily salty but never disrespectful.

I tried this game yesterday based on something a friend used to say to me. I called it “that’s the third dumbest conversation I’ve heard today.” Our inimitable board chair describes the origins of much of our work as “that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard…let’s do it.”

Here’s how it ran: a student would pitch their current project idea. Two students would explain why that was the dumbest idea they’d ever heard. Then three students had to defend the original idea from the criticisms.

I have done this more formally and if I taught like a champion I’d probably have a version trademarked with attached worksheets. But the rough language helped develop the projects. It also gave students a chance to be teenagers, to be less formal, while still moving the work along. It offered us a chance to laugh together without laughing at each other. And it provided another way for kids to improve their pitch skills.

For example, the first iteration led to the following criticisms:
*that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard: you need to be in college or have particular skills to do that.
*that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard because you’re too young to do that.
*that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard because that’s not a real world project.

(All critiques that any inventor or writer or creative human has faced at one point or another)