Article #2:
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 resort to vacuous verbiage over substance, 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 portfolios.
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.
Analysis of
the Education Profedssor’s Lexicon
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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