Consider the following scene:
You wake up in the middle of the night with severe chest pains and abdominal cramps. Your spouse/SO either takes you to the Emergency Room, or calls an ambulance, and a team of doctors and Emergency Specialists sees to you. You're already upset and worried, and, through this fog, a flurry of professional acronyms and vocabulary flys over and around you. How does this make you feel? Like a person, or like an object?
We all appreciate the need for efficiency and have developed vocabularies within our various professions to make communications more effective among pros in the field. Indeed, there are some places like the Emergency Room where that kind of communication could mean the difference between life and death. But is such shorthand needed for all professions?
Now think back to your last staff meeting. Were you familiar with all the acronyms and buzzwords/terms being used? If you weren't, how did it make you feel? Did you feel connected, part of the team, a professional?
Now translate that feeling to your students.
Complexity is a matter of reality, for certain. The Universe around us is so complex and there are so many interwoven connections that nobody, not even Steven Hawking, let alone Einstein, can keep things straight. We as humans, while a little simpler, but still a complex mingling of Biology and Energy (read: "mind"). Misunderstandings among us have lead to catastrophes throughout history. Simplifying communication, and teaching broader vocabulary, goes a long way to promoting understanding. And it used to be that in Education communication was plain, straightforward, and understandable. Let's see an example between then and now.
(Staff meeting ca. 1990)
"Good afternoon, folks. All new teachers should meet with your 1st year coach after the meeting to see how things are going this week for you, and there's an orientation session for you tomorrow. I understand that the 6th grade teachers have been working together to connect their lessons and designing activities for National Poetry Week. Let's all remember our goal is the top levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, and that frequent checks for understanding will help you spot problems early, before unit tests. The assistant principal will give a short talk on consistency in the behavior section of the student handbook. It's important for all to understand."
(Staff meeting ca. 2012)
"'Afternoon, all. All provisionals need to meet with mentors asap to correlate PDP with current situations, and there's onboarding with HR tomorrow. The PLC6 group has been collaborating on PBL for NPW and coordinating LPs and unpacking for maximum outcomes. We need to be mindful of rigor, aiming for the D Zone, and keep your FAs in line with CC so that your CAs are on target for SI goals. The AP for Discipline will give a report on implementing PBIS. We all need to buy into this."
If you were new to the profession, or a visiting parent, which would you understand better?
This complexity of language is not only accepted, now, it's expected. When we don't 'get' what's being said to us, or spoken around us, it decreases our connection and increases our anxiety. We get the message that we don't belong, that our input is too uninformed, and that we're not part of the 'in crowd' so our views are discounted. Yet we speak like this in meetings with parents and students. I ask: how has the adoption and continued expansion of 'Eduspeak' helped decrease anxiety and apathy? How has adopting these acronyms, words and terms promoted anything but increasing uniformity and decreasing diversity?
It's not just the language that's getting complex. If your state has archived data compare the standards for your subject area from the earliest available record to the new Common Core standards. Which set is most understandable, has room for student creativity, and promotes scaffolding? (I know-I just used a buzzword, there, but it's one that actually makes sense-the building of concept upon concept.) Compare the more usable one to the overly complex one in terms of language, organization, wordiness, page count, and any other effective writing standard. How has loading more precise objectives really helped? Are students best served with the disorganized, overblown gumbo of inharmonious concepts that 'experts' have decreed as well done and essential? Did anyone ask you prior to publication?
Complexity has worked its way into the structure as well. (Curmudgeon Alert!)
When I was a kid I attended a suburban school system in a typical industrial midwest area. As I recall, the organization chart was very simple: Board-Superintendent-Accounting/Personnel/Physical Plant-Principals-Teachers/Counsellors It worked because it followed the KISS principle, and all recognized their roles on the overall team. Those who put themselves before the mission didn't last long.
Today an organization chart might look like this: Board-Superintendent-Deputy Superintendents for Curriculum/Grade Level/School Improvement/Public Relations/Business/Physical Plant/HR/Compliance-Principal-Asst. Principals for Grade Level/Discipline/Academics-Curriculum Officer-Counsellors-Teachers. See the difference? Are there more opportunities to abdicate responsibility? More slots in the organization to practice self-serving behaviors? In fact, doesn't this remind you more of a corporation's structure? How do we serve our kids well by dedicating so much of the budget to the upper tiers?
Is it any wonder that our kids and teachers become apathetic?
Kids are not widgets, teachers are not line workers, and schools are not assembly lines
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