Words Matter: A Poem About Animal-Friendly Idioms

Every teacher knows that words matter. But in the English language, many of the phrases used in everyday conversation send the message that harming animals is acceptable. As educators, we must be mindful that our students are listening more closely to our words than we may realize—and sometimes picking up our bad habits along the way.

Read this fun poem with your class to encourage the use of animal-friendly language that can cultivate positive relationships with all sentient beings. Have students locate all the idioms in the poem and compare and contrast the original ones with the animal-friendly versions. They can also research the origin of the original expressions.

This poem cheerfully guides kids and adults alike as we redefine our speech to better reflect our values, from recognizing animals as individuals by referring to them using personal pronouns to replacing outdated and speciesist idioms with animal-friendly alternatives.

Brainstorm with your class and see if you can come up with any other harmful idioms or phrases that are in need of an animal-friendly upgrade!