I used to think I was a good dancer. Not the “So You Think You Can Dance” kind but not horribly ungifted either. I could shake it without care, busting a move with the best of them, and carefree live my life. I used to think I could dance until I met my husband. Brandon is a natural, he moves, he shakes, he glides. Why he knows how to twirl around a dance floor I do not know, but next to him, I acquired two huge left feet.
At first, we laughed about how I was clumsy. Being tall, skinny, and with two large feet didn’t help me either. And yet, as we laughed and joked about it, I really did get worse at dancing. For every negative comment I started to believe a little more that perhaps, just perhaps, there was something to it. Perhaps I really was bad at dancing, perhaps those jokes and comments were truth and not just fun to be had. Now, I barely ever dance, mostly just around my house with my daughter, but I am no longer the first one on the floor and I definitely always looking around seeing if anyone notices just how uncoordinated I am.
I think of my students, of the little comments we make throughout our day. Of snappy lines other students make, often in jest, but oft repeated. I wonder how many of those lines, those comments, dig themselves in and burrow down deep until they latch themselves into their psyche rendering them useless at something. How often do they start out laughing along until they realize that it is just not that funny?
We must always carry a sense of humor about ourselves, but when does that humor become destructive rather than funny?
So those little words, those small actions, add up to more than we can ever know. And not just the negative ones, but the positive ones as well. How about laughing about how talented someone is rather than how inadequate? Perhaps if I had joked about how incredible of a dancer I was, I would believe it now. I know that words have power, but often I forget about the small words and how much power they gain when I add them up. It is time for me to give weight to the positive ones.
Pernille Ripp 
I totally agree with you. I did an activity once with a group of adults at a conference remembering little instances like these small ones in our lives when we teachers were students. It was crazy the number of teachers who remembered this tiny moment when a teacher had used kind words to make us feel good about something seemingly meaningless, but it had been so meaningful to us that we help onto the moment in our adult lives. We hold a lot of power as teachers to really "make" these kids rather than "break" them. It is wonderful to think of the difference we can make in a child's self worth, but also very intimidating if something unintentionally went wrong.
We have been talking about the power of words in my classroom as well. I was pleasantly surprised to find that teaching children the power of words is actually included in our curriculum. Perhaps I should not have been so surprised since we are a PYP school, which is rather value-driven. We focus a lot on attitudes like empathy and cooperation. Right now we are focusing on what it means to be an inquirer. But, we are also working through an emerging problem of competitiveness. How do support each other and take joy in our common thinking rather than complaining about "they're copying me." http://teachingmahollitz.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/non-competitive-inquirers/I just read "Thank you, Mr. Falker" by Patricia Polacco with my kids, which inspired a whole conversation about the power of words and what we can do as kids (and teachers) to use our power of words for good.