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I was recently intrigued by a blog post on GOOD that posed the question: Is the Education Reform World Filled with Too Much Jargon? Being relatively new to the education world since joining Chalkboard two months ago, I could relate to the learning curve that is required to dive into edu-speak, as the author Liz Dwyer calls it.
Of course, any profession has a sort of shorthand code, an expert language that conveys the expertise of those who have studied the industry in-depth and live it everyday. Journalism (my world for the past seven years) is no better: we write heds and deks and balance ad/edit ratios and make sure folios are on every page. The trouble with jargon arises when the experts need to communicate with everyone else.
As teachers and administrators and other education reformers do the hard work to make real change, it makes sense to use among each other agreed upon terms like “benchmark” and “aligned instruction” and “inquiry-based learning.” But as more “regular folks” get interested in the education reform movement—and the movement involves more of the community as a whole—it’s important to make sure the actual meaning behind those words is clear. And sometimes simple is best. It would be a shame for people not to get more involved with education reform efforts because they are turned off by needlessly complicated terms.
The GOOD post was inspired by education reporter Jay Merrow’s riff on education jargon on his Learning Matters blog, and whether or not you agree with his (somewhat-playful) call for a moratorium on the overuse of such jargon, both posts offer an interesting perspective. It’s easy for us to use certain words and phrases so much that we forget what they really mean. If nothing else, we can all benefit from taking an extra moment to remember the real purpose behind all this jargon and always make sure we say what we mean.
What’s your favorite—or least favorite—piece of education jargon?
My least favorite two pieces of educational jargon are “achievement” (add the “gap” if you like) and “research shows”. Neither at first glance sounds like jargon. But “achievement” is left undescribed. Do we mean test scores (the usual meaning which is not really achievement), or grades, or improving in some educational topic? Hard to say, but it is always given a positive spin which is too bad since testing is not really an educational positive.
“Research shows” is a misnomer. No such thing as scientific educational research therefore it can’t show anything. The reason that educational research is so bad is that you can’t get control groups or control the variables. (You can make some inferences from statistical information, but that is about it.)
Oh, and coming up, the new “we know what works”. Sure. We might have an idea at what makes some sense, but actually knowing what works with any type of certainty is pretty rediculous. I favor the more positive, “we think this might help”.