If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?

If I could ban any word from general usage, it would be any word with more than one /k/ sound as I find that sound particularly unpleasant. Words like cupcake, kooky, cookie, car key, cuckold, and kick. As well as khaki, caulk, and Kierkegaard.

I would however like to hear more words with -rgle, like gargle, burgle, and hamburglar. I also like words with /s/, /w/, and digraph /sh/, like in the word swashbuckler, which is nearly perfect, even though it does have /k/ in it, it only appears once and perfectly accents the other swishy sounds.

What makes a teacher great?

In this era of standardization and scripted curricula, why aren’t all teachers great? What does ‘great’ even mean in this context? Does great mean good test scores? Today that is the only measure that really matters, but if you ask any individual person about their favorite teacher or what teacher made the most difference in their life, their answers will not have anything to do with tools, or pedagogy, and everything to do with connection. Connection to students, connection to content, ability to connect students to the content. And the secret sauce to connection is love. This is not my video but it is one of my favorite videos of Fred Rogers, the greatest hero of my life. Enjoy ❤️