Sep 9, 2019

The Jargon-Infested World of Education Professors and Those Whom They Train


The introductory section of the most recent draft for the Minneapolis Public Schools Comprehensive Design acceptably focuses on a well-rounded education as phrased in the Every Student Succeeds Act.  Sections pertinent to career and technical education, special education, and world languages also read coherently and describe viable approaches to improving the quality of education at the Minneapolis Public Schools.

 

However, the phrasing for the main program of academic instruction is predictably laden with jargon endemic to those trained by education professors.

 

To understand how this vacuous verbiage over substance is so widely pervasive and parroted with such predictability by teachers and school administrators, review carefully the lexicon given below from the strange world of education professors and those whom they train.  You will first read an objective description, followed after this long presentation by my own comments that decode education- professor-speak.  

 

Accessing Skills

 

This refers to the use of websites and other forms of cyber-technology, along with traditional encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other forms of print to gain information needed at a certain time for a particular purpose.

 

At their own pace

 

The term of reference asserts that a child best learns at her or his own pace, rather than according to the dictates of a teacher or in the context of learning targets to be met by an entire group of students at the same time.

 

Authentic Assessment

 

This form of assessment is of the portfolio, project, demonstration type, allowing a student to show what she or he knows about a topic typically selected by the student herself or himself;  this form of assessment is counterpoised to measurement of student skill acquisition via multiple choice and other formats for providing definite answers in taking standardized tests. 

 

Break the Mold Schools

 

This is a term much in vogue from the 1980s forward, referring to schools inaugurated by parents, teachers, and community members who endeavored to utilize methods that could produce higher rates of learning or more satisfying learning opportunities for students;  the advent of charter schools in the early 1990s became a widely prevalent version of “break the mold” schools.

 

Child-Centered Schooling

 

This is a term first made popular by Harold Rugg in his 1928 book, The Child Centered School.  “Child-centered schooling” focuses on the interests and perceived needs of the individual child, in contrast to

the traditional schools, which transmits set bodies of knowledge to students.

 

Competition

 

“Progressive” educators have since the 1920s argued against pitting students against each other in attempting to achieve top grades and high scores on test.  

 

Constructivism

 

Proponents of this view assert that education should begin with the life experience of each individual child, so that all information is either sought by the student as an extension of personal experience or carefully introduced by the classroom facilitator so as to build on what the child already knows.

 

Cooperative Learning

 

This form of learning provides opportunities for students to pursue information on topics selected by the classroom facilitator in a group context, advocated by education professors as preferable to requiring students to study or seek information individually.

 

Critical Thinking Skills

 

Along with “lifelong learning,” this is one of the key emphases of education professors, who maintain that critical examination of topics of immediate interest is more important that learning a set body of knowledge.

 

Culturally Biased Curriculum

 

This is the notion that the key problem with curriculum as conventionally presented in K-12 classrooms has a bias toward the West, mainly Europe and the United States.

 

Culturally Biased Tests

 

This term refers to the cultural bias that education professors and their acolytes in the education establishment assert makes standardized tests unfair to students of color and to other populations who are unfamiliar with vocabulary and references that originate in the culture of European Americans who dominate in constructing the tests.

 

Developmentally Appropriate

 

Educators and other “progressive” educators maintain that introducing concepts before a child is ready can be demoralizing and psychologically harmful to the girl or boy;  the student should not be presented with information earlier than age ranges at which children typically encounter concepts.

 

Drill and Kill

 

“Drill and kill” is the moniker assigned by education professors and others in the education establishment to rote methods of learning and to the memorization of factual material, considered by those who use the term to destroy creativity and promote a distaste for school-based learning.

 

Exhibitions

 

This refers to presentations made by students, following group projects or from portfolios from which students select items to present to teachers, to other evaluators, or to an audience of parents and other interested observers.

 

Factory-Model Schools

 

This is a derogatory term applied by education professors and other “progressive” educators to the traditional high school, held to be a fossil from an industrial age when the function of schools was to train students as if working in lockstep on an assembly line in a factory on the floor of which a foreman did the bidding of those higher in the bureaucratic hierarchy.

 

Facts are inferior to understanding

 

Education professors assert that factual knowledge is unimportant, except as sought by the student herself or himself;  what is more important is a deep conceptual understanding of the concepts to which the facts are pertinent.

 

Facts are soon outdated.

 

Education professors hold that in this fast-changing world of technology, discreet facts are soon outdated, so that learning how to learn is more important that systematic acquisition of defined knowledge sets.

 

Hands-On Learning

 

In the view of education professors and the “progressive” educators that they train, real-world experience with tactile objects is preferable to book learning. 

 

Holistic Learning

 

This term refers to learning as natural engagement with the totality of one’s environment, featuring interconnection rather than segmention into artificially designated subject areas.

 

Individual Differences

 

As “progressive educators” sent forth by education professors, most K-12 teachers and administrators  emphasize the individuality of each student, understood to have significant differences in familial circumstances, ethnicity, learning styles, interests, and other characteristics that necessitate differentiated instruction and curriculum variance from student to student.

 

Individual Learning Styles

 

These follow from the conceptualization of multiple intelligences by the psychologist Howard Gardner, who maintains that there is no one kind of intelligence as in an intelligence quotient (I. Q.), but rather a least eight categories of intelligence:  musical, visual, verbal, mathematical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic;  education professors and the students whom they send forth as K-12 teachers and administrators believe that instruction should vary according to the modality in which each student learns best, depending on her or his dominant form of intelligence. 

 

Individual Differences

 

As “progressive educators” sent forth by education professors, most K-12 teachers and administrators  emphasize the individuality of each student, understood to have significant differences in familial circumstances, ethnicity, learning styles, interests, and other characteristics that necessitate differentiated instruction and curriculum variance from student to student.

 

Individual Learning Styles

 

These follow from the conceptualization of multiple intelligences by the psychologist Howard Gardner, who maintains that there is no one kind of intelligence as in an intelligence quotient (I. Q.), but rather a least eight categories of intelligence:  musical, visual, verbal, mathematical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic;  education professors and the students whom they send forth as K-12 teachers and administrators believe that instruction should vary according to the modality in which each student learns best, depending on her or his dominant form of intelligence. 

 

Learn to Learn

 

Education professors assert that mastery of a set body of knowledge is not important;  rather, the student should learn how to learn by developing skills in accessing information from multiple sources.

 

Metacognitive Skills

 

These skills involve student contemplation of what she or he is doing in any learning activity;  rather than just mastering a discrete skill, the student should ask questions as to why the skill is being learned and what process is being utilized in learning the current task.

 

Multi-Aged Classrooms

 

Preference for classrooms in which students vary in age is grounded in the education professor’s  contention that each student should learn at her or his own pace;  in this scheme, traditional grouping of students of like age at specific grade levels gives way to classrooms filled with students of different ages studying at their own pace and assisting each other in learning activities.

 

Open Classrooms

 

These were most in vogue from the 1970s into the early 1980s, during which many school buildings were constructed so as to feature classrooms without permanent walls, allowing students to move easily from class to multi-media room, auditorium, cafeteria and other rooms throughout the building, eliminating the physical and psychological obstruction of enclosure spaces.

 

Passive Listening

 

Education professors and their proteges deride the transmission method of learning via teacher lecture or direct instruction as encouraging passivity;  they favor active projects, personal investigations, and hands-on learning activities.

 

Performance-Based Assessment

 

This involves evaluation of student demonstration of learning by the classroom facilitator, who assesses the quality of a portfolio or presentation rather than giving conventional objective tests;  this is what education professors and their vocational progeny call “authentic assessment.”

 

Portfolio Assessment

 

This is one form of performance-based assessment, whereby in this specific case the classroom facilitator evaluates the academic and creative production selected by students for inclusion in portfolios, again as an alternative to conventional objective tests.

 

Problem-Solving Skills

 

This is another emphasis of the education professor, who maintains that mastering specific subject area knowledge is not important;  rather, the student should learn to exercise critical thinking to solve problems, thereby accessing the information and utilizing the skills actually necessary to a given

 

One Size Fits All

 

This is a term of disparagement for set curriculum delivered to all students, in the absence of consideration for individual differences, learning, styles, and interests. 

 

Project Method

 

William H. Kilpatrick first popularized this term among “progressive” educators in his 1918 book, The Project Method, in which he argued that students learn best when engaged in holistic, life-like projects in cooperation with others in groups.

 

Promise of Technology

 

One hears and reads in many places these days that computers will revolution education;  technology enthusiasts view computers and other instruments as having the capacity to provide individualized learning experiences based on the pace of learning and interests pertinent to each particular student, ensuring universal success.

 

Research has shown

 

This is a phrase used often by members of the education establishment (education professors and the administrators and teachers whom they train) to bolster claims made for favored approaches such as portfolios, cooperative learning, and differentiated instruction.

 

Rote Learning

 

This refers to learning facts through memorization and repetition, considered by education professors and their acolytes to be inferior to learning in holistic, life-like experiences, and through interaction with one’s fellows.

 

Self-Esteem

 

This became a key concern of education professors and those whom they trained from the 1970s forward, promoting favorable comments to students in an effort to build self-confidence and to make all young people feel good about themselves in the world.

 

Teaching to the Test

 

Education professors and other opponents of standardized testing frequently claim that the administration of standardized tests narrows the curriculum and diminishes teacher creativity as practice for looming standardized assessments limits the focus of teaching to the skills and material that will ensure good test scores.

 

 

Teach the child, not the subject

 

This is one those notions that has been around since the 1920s, when William Heard Kilpatrick, Harold Rugg, and education professors at Teachers College of Columbia University started their campaign advocating an approach to education for which they appropriated the appellation, “progressive”;  teaching the child rather than the subject focuses on the social and emotional needs of student rather than content conventionally associated with academic curriculum.

 

Teach the whole child

 

This was the third major component of the “progressivist” movement of the early 20th century, along with “child-centered schooling” and “teach the child, not the subject”;  teaching the whole child deemphasizes knowledge-based curriculum in favor of an approach that gives more weight to the social and emotional needs of the child, in the effort to produce a person of high self-esteem and confidence in the world.

 

Textbook Learning

 

Education professors deride learning via textbooks in particular, and books in general, favoring projects, demonstrations, and “hands-on” learning experiences.

 

Thematic Learning

 

This approach is counterpoised to focus on individual academic disciplines, favoring instead multi-disciplinary investigations of themes, topics, and subjects driven by student interest.

 

Transmission Theory of Schooling

 

This is a pejorative expression in opposition to the impartation of knowledge from teacher to student, counterpoised to active involvement of students in projects, demonstrations, and the compilation of porfolios.

 

Whole-Class Instruction

 

Conventional classroom presentations by a teacher to a whole class are anathema to education professors and their acolytes, who prefer cooperative learning, student investigations, and projects conducted while a classroom presence known as a “guide” or “facilitator” rather than a teacher assists student in their active learning experiences.

 

Whole-Language Instruction

 

This approach to the teaching of reading, emphasizing engaging reading experiences with literature in the absence of instruction in phonics and phonemic awareness, became a major mode of instruction in many schools of the 1950s and 1960s;  the assumption is that students will pick up principles of grammar and English usage naturally as the joy of reading whole words in engaging reading material animates and motivates the young reader.

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Accessing skills

 

are not efficiently utilized in the absence of strong bases of knowledge;  the absence of contextualizing information necessitates quick and typically shallow understanding, rather than the acquisition of knowledge inculcated and internalized over an extended time, to the point of automaticity.

 

At their own pace

 

is by no means satisfactory for acquiring the enormous body of knowledge at the core of an excellent education;  students should be the recipients of knowledge and skill sets possessed by teachers who are themselves broadly and deeply knowledgeable, with a strong sense of the pace at which information is best acquired.

 

Authentic Assessment

 

Is a supplementary rather than primary format for the demonstration of student knowledge and skill;  well-constructed standardized tests are the fairest, most objective means to measure student achievement in mathematics, reading, and all subject matter.

 

Break the Mold Schools

 

Well-trained scholars operating at the level of the locally centralized school are better positioned than most parents and community members to inaugurate and manage schools;  the perceived need to launch “break the mold schools” is a testimony to the terrible training that administrators and teachers receive in departments, colleges, and schools of education.

 

Child-Centered Schooling

 

Adult educators should nurture young people as village elders and responsible adults have always imparted knowledge and wisdom to those who shall carry forth and innovate upon their cultural inheritance.

 

Competition

 

Numerous scholarly investigations demonstrate that tests and grades are powerful motivators for the acquisition of specified knowledge and skill sets;  an excellent teacher conveys an excitement about the pursuit of knowledge for the intrinsic satisfaction of learning while establishing instruments for measuring student achievement.

 

Constructivism

 

Especially for students whose families have had limited opportunities for education, travel, and experiences with the world, the intentional introduction of knowledge and skill sets to be mastered by a broadly and deeply knowledgeable teacher is vital to an excellent education;  all children should be understood in the context of their life circumstances, but such circumstances are neither the basis for the starting point of study or the foundation for curriculum.

 

Cooperative Learning

 

Group study must be adroitly overseen by a highly killed teacher as a supplementary rather than prime mode of learning;  vital student learning proceeds best on the basis of individual assignments, group discussions, and individually demonstrated acquisition of knowledge and skill sets on objective assessments.

 

Critical Thinking Skills

 

Astute thought can only occur on the strength of a strong body of knowledge pertinent to the matter being analyzed.

 

Culturally Biased Curriculum

 

The real problem in K-12 education is the absence of any systematically presented curriculum, especially at K-5, which if properly constructed would reflect the human cultural inheritance across all cultures of the world.

 

Culturally Biased Tests

 

Great attention has been paid over the course of that last twenty years by those who construct standardized tests to present examples from a variety of cultural contexts that resonate with students of diverse cultures;  especially with regard to mathematics, though, there is not much cultural bias embedded in the four basic operations, fractions, decimals, percentages, ratios, proportions;  and concepts from algebra, geometry, trigonometry, statistics, and calculus.

 

Developmentally Appropriate

 

No preconceived notion of when a child can learn a given skill or knowledge set should proscribe what the precocious or highly motivated learner seeks to know or is able to learn under the sensitive guidance of a master teacher. 

 

Drill and Kill

 

Athletes and musicians practice certain motions, learned from the best practitioners, to the point of automaticity, all the better preparing them for individualistic creative expression as their knowledge and skill level increases;  K-12 students should do the same. 

 

Exhibitions

 

These are adjunct ways of demonstrating what a student knows;  objective tests and standardized, assessments more accurately and fairly indicate what a student knows across a broad and deep range of knowledge.

 

Factory-Model Schools

 

Conventional schools provide classroom settings conducive to efficient learning;  when conducted by a master teacher, lectures and classroom discussions abet the accumulation of a multiplicity of knowledge and skill sets in an engaging and intellectually challenging learning environment. 

 

Facts are inferior to understanding

 

Factual knowledge is a necessary prerequisite for deep contemplation and full understanding.

 

Facts are soon outdated.

 

The preponderance of facts accumulated over centuries of experience by scientists, mathematicians, historians, and other scholars are permanent fixtures in the architecture of the major academic disciplines;  mastery of time-tested facts and concepts is necessary to evaluate information in contemporary contexts and to engage in processes that produce new knowledge sets.

 

Hands-On Learning

 

Reading books or cybernetic print sources  and listening to lectures are the most efficient ways to accumulate vast stores of factual knowledge;  hands-on learning is an engaging way to apply and experiment with what one has learned from lectures and reading.

 

Holistic Learning

 

Mastery of knowledge and skill sets in the discreet academic disciplines abets holistic learning.

 

Individual Differences

 

The master teacher should always be aware of a student’s particular life circumstances and special talents;  but students at given ages have much in common and all have a need to learn the same body of knowledge and the array of skills necessary to academic success.

 

Individual Learning Styles

 

These are magnified for emphasis way out of proportion to their validity and applicability;  the master teacher should always be aware of talents possessed by her or his students, but all students respond to well-crafted lectures, direct instruction, and classroom discussions.

 

Learn to Learn

 

Learning how to learn should occur in the process of mastering well-defined, logically sequenced knowledge and skill sets, delivered in grade by grade sequence throughout the K-12 years.

 

Metacognitive Skills

 

Education professors as a rule lack the intellectual ability to engage in this sort of deep think at the upper grade levels, so they pretend that they are grand philosophers working their wonders with children at grades K-5;  students at grades K-5 would be much better off learning to read well, master basic mathematical operations, and practicing good principles of English usage and composition.

 

Multi-Aged Classrooms

 

Children and adolescents are much better off being matched with their peers, who have very similar intellectual and social propensities.

 

Open Classrooms

 

These proved to present irritating distractions;  classrooms enveloped by walls are quieter, more comforting places, conducive to learning challenging knowledge and skill sets.

 

Passive Listening


The master teacher provides scope for active learning but also encourages her or his students to become good listeners, adept at deriving information from lectures and classroom discussions.

 

Performance-Base Asessment

 

This form of assessment should be supplementary to objective and standardized tests, which are fairer and more dependable forms of assessment.

 

Portfolio Assessment

 

As with performance-based assessments, this form of assessment should be supplementary to objective and standardized tests, which are fairer and more dependable forms of assessment.

 

Problem-Solving Skills

 

Students should learn to analyze material and solve problems while mastering challenging curricula comprised of well-defined knowledge and skill sets;  these latter make possible more efficient and well-informed investigation into current events and matters of immediate interest.

 

Project Method

 

This is an adjunct, secondary mode of learning, supplementary to more efficient methods such as reading challenging material across the liberal, vocational, and technological arts;  listening to teachers delivering lectures and to fellow students in class discussions;  and engaging in individual research on serious academic subjects.

 

Promise of Technology

 

Advances in computer and other digital technologies have given students rapid access to information on a wide variety of subjects;  but technology is not a substitute for engagement with teachers and classmates, must be used wisely in the quest for quality information, and more than ever makes an abundance of knowledge and skill sets vital for evaluation of sources and dependability of information.

 

Research has shown

 

Educational research varies widely as to quality, too often conducted with small sample sizes with accompanying extrapolations that are scientifically dubious;  educational research should be compared to findings in scientifically rigorous studies in fields such as psychology and sociology that are published in refereed journals scrutinized by academic experts.  

 

Rote Learning

 

Memorization of factual material to the point of automaticity makes learning more efficient, embedding great quantities of information in the long-term memory so that new information may be acquired more quickly and securely;  memorized and inculcated facts are important for critical analysis and encourage creative inferences and extrapolations.   

 

Self-Esteem

 

Teacher comments intended to raise a student’s self-esteem should be genuine expressions of admiration;  in the school setting, such comments should most often be rendered for the accomplishment of an academic feat.

 

Teaching to the Test

 

All teachers should impart the knowledge and skill sets that will be covered in well-constructed objective and standardized tests that measure what students should know at a given grade level;  this expands rather than narrows the curriculum. 

 

One Size Fits All

 

One size should indeed fit all, in the sense that all students should be taught the same abundance of  knowledge and skill sets in a well-defined, logically sequenced, grade by grade curriculum throughout the K-12 years;  and just as the quantity and content of what is learned should be the same, the quality of instruction provided to all students should also be uniform.

 

Project Method

 

This is an adjunct, secondary mode of learning, supplementary to more efficient methods such as reading challenging material across the liberal, vocational, and technological arts;  listening to teachers delivering lectures and to fellow students in class discussions;  and engaging in individual research on serious academic subjects.

 

Promise of Technology

 

Advances in computer and other digital technologies have given students rapid access to information on a wide variety of subjects;  but technology is not a substitute for engagement with teachers and classmates, must be used wisely in the quest for quality information, and more than ever makes an abundance of knowledge and skill sets vital for evaluation of sources and dependability of information.

 

Research has shown

 

Educational research varies widely as to quality, too often conducted with small sample sizes with accompanying extrapolations that are scientifically dubious;  educational research should be compared to findings in scientifically rigorous studies in fields such as psychology and sociology that are published in refereed journals scrutinized by academic experts.  

 

Rote Learning

 

Memorization of factual material to the point of automaticity makes learning more efficient, embedding great quantities of information in the long-term memory so that new information may be acquired more quickly and securely;  memorized and inculcated facts are important for critical analysis and encourage creative inferences and extrapolations.    

 

Self-Esteem

 

Teacher comments intended to raise a student’s self-esteem should be genuine expressions of admiration;  in the school setting, such comments should most often be rendered for the accomplishment of an academic feat.

 

Teaching to the Test

 

All teachers should impart the knowledge and skill sets that will be covered in well-constructed objective and standardized tests that measure what students should know at a given grade level;  this expands rather than narrows the curriculum. 

 

Teach the child, not the subject

 

Teaching the child in a school setting is primarily about the impartation of knowledge from teacher to student;  the excellent teacher is a professional of broad and deep knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to all students, necessitating sensitivity to a child’s social and emotional needs.

 

Teach the whole child

 

The teacher’s prime professional responsibility is to ensure that a student learns important knowledge and skill sets pertinent to the subject matter of her or his class;  in doing this, the master teacher is keenly aware of the multiplicity of needs that a young person has as she or he develops and grows in the school setting and beyond.

 

Textbook Learning

 

Wide reading of material spanning the liberal, vocational, and technological arts is central to the school experience;  textbooks, other books, and direct instruction by the teacher provide the most efficient means of accumulating vast stores of knowledge and skill sets at the core of an excellent education.

 

Thematic Learning

 

Themes are meaningfully explored only on the basis of strong knowledge sets that provide the factual underpinning for contemplation, reflection, and discussion of the variety of topics considered in an education of excellence.

 

Transmission Theory of Schooling

 

Teachers should be professionals of broad and deep knowledge with the prime role of imparting that knowledge to students of all demographic descriptors;  transmission of knowledge and wisdom is as central to the teacher’s responsibility as to the role of elders across the world who pass on the cultural inheritance to young people under their guidance.

 

Whole-Class Instruction

 

Teachers of those nations (Finland, japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore) whose students record highest achievement on the Program of International Student Assessment operate primarily in the mode of whole-class instruction, the most efficient and effective pedagogical method;  all other classroom actitivities are secondary to the prime method of whole-class instruction.

 

Whole-Language Instruction

 

Students become excellent readers only when they grasp the fundamentals of phonics, phonemic awareness, and the many conventions of English and other languages;  going forth to wide reading in classic world and ethnic-specific literature should then be a given.

 

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