Re: Heritage blaming teachers for edu-jargon!?!?

[kristina.pelletier@maine.edu]

It seems Benjamin Disraeli hasn't bothered to read the "systems" guidelines,
policies, and manadates that govern education. Teachers are forced to use
"ed-jargon, becuase the freaken government requires it. Its seems Disraeli and
others, are eager and quick to blame teachers. I am sick of it. 

Quoting Susan Allison <sueallison@comcast.net>:

> This one is really rich!!!   Check out this piece that uses the American
> Diploma project to blame teachers for edu-jargon?!?!?  Who do you think
> thought the jargon up to begin with!  Achieve Inc. and the standardista
> crowd!
> 
> http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20040305-081332-7409r.htm
> 
> The Washington Times
> www.washingtontimes.com
> 
>
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> 
> Flunking the jargon test
> By Ed Feulner
> Published March 6, 2004
> 
>
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> 
>     With words, we govern men. 
>     -- Benjamin Disraeli. 
>     A teacher's job is to educate. To enlighten. To inform. But that can't
> happen if students -- and their parents -- don't understand what the teacher
> is talking about. 
>     That's the problem with "edu-speak," a form of jargon taking over in our
> nation's schools. Teachers are called educators. They give the children
> "assessments," not tests. And students no longer simply "read." They engage
> in "sustained silent reading," or "SSR." 
>     Students in Virginia, to take but one example, need 22 "standard units of
> learning" to graduate, along with six "verified credits." When I was in
> school, we called those "classes" and "state exams." 
>     All this jargon is specifically designed to be confusing. "It reinforces
> the divide between schools and families," education consultant Anne Henderson
> told The Washington Post. "Parents are like, 'What in the world does all this
> mean?' " 
>     The children are probably wondering that, too. Consider the first graders
> in Maryland who were recently told a math lesson "was a good warm-up for
> showing our enduring understanding that a number represents a quantity." That
> seems to mean: "You should know that a number is an amount." Why not just say
> so -- and in terms the first grader might possibly understand? 
>     Of course, none of this confusion would matter if we were talking about
> something trivial. For example, if we want to call a garbage man a
> "sanitation engineer" and say he picks up "refuse" instead of trash, who
> cares? All that matters is that the garbage goes away. 
>     But educating our children is possibly the most important job there is.
> And faddish trends such as "edu-speak" are causing us to fail at it. 
>     A recently released international survey ranked American eighth-graders
> 19th in math and science. We badly trailed the Asian tigers Singapore, South
> Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan. And, since India and China weren't
> included in the survey, the reality is we're probably not even in the
> worldwide top 20. 
>     The news doesn't get any better for high schoolers. "For too many
> graduates, the American high school diploma signifies only a broken promise,"
> according to the American Diploma Project, a partnership of Achieve, the
> Education Trust and the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation. "Employers and
> postsecondary institutions know that it often serves as little more than a
> certificate of attendance." 
>     That's unacceptable. All high-school grads should be able to write and
> speak clearly. Every one of them should be able to solve advanced math and
> science problems. 
>     And it's achievable. But it won't happen unless teachers focus on
> instructing students, instead of confusing them. They'll also need to involve
> parents in their child's education, rather than alienate them with
> incomprehensible jargon. They need to really teach if we're going to improve
> our education system. 
>     But instead of learning how to manage a classroom and educate our
> children, as The Washington Post reported recently, our teachers are learning
> to "vertically articulate," "differentiate instruction," and "give authentic,
> outcome-based assessments." Whatever all that means. This has combined to
> make today's educational system a race to the bottom. 
>     As a nation, we spend about $454 billion on K-12 education -- an average
> of $9,458 per student. That's a lot of money. 
>     If we expect to see a return on that investment, all of us -- parents,
> teachers, students -- have to be able to understand what instructors are
> saying, and what they're teaching. 
>     It's time to shelve the "edu-speak." As Disraeli said, we use words to
> govern. We can't afford to make it all but impossible to understand what
> those words mean. 
>      
>     Ed Feulner is president of the Heritage Foundation. 
>      
>      
>      
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>     
> 
> 
> 
> Copyright © 2004 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
>