Edubabble

“What does a lessin look like? Lessin.

Sounds small and slimy.

They keep them in the glassrooms.

Whole rooms made out of glass. Imagine.”

This is an extract from the wonderful poem, First Day at School by Roger McGough, illustrating a child’s confusion regarding school vocabulary. I was reminded of it during a heated discussion recently on the choice of a particularly difficult word used daily in our curriculum which one colleague in the group felt was far beyond the comprehension of children. The word was, ‘transdisciplinary’ which is at the root of the International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme. Though me and my colleagues staunchly defended the use of the word during the discussion, I did begin to reflect afterwards on exactly how much of the curriculum jargon our students actually understand and to what depth.

Further to that, during a student focus group session for a school-wide research project, our PYP students were asked to explain what a ‘line of inquiry’ is (another word used daily in our programme) and disappointingly, they could not give any answer. Our curriculum prides itself on focusing on real-life connections and meaningful engagement but I’m wondering whether we might have just replaced one set of limited and potentially outdated knowledge with a new set of arcane, ‘school’ language.

With most IB international schools attended by children of diverse language backgrounds and competencies, there might be a large number of students who are also struggling with the curriculum jargon and the curriculum concepts. Time needs to be spent on explicitly teaching what the elements are and how they help in the learning processes. Whereas in traditional education systems knowledge was organised into subject disciplines each with their attendant lexicons, modern educations systems favour the blurring of subject boundaries, bigger concepts transcending subjects and extending into real life. This is definitely to be applauded but much of this curriculum terminology is actually non-existent outside of school life and will no doubt be supplanted in a few decades by another glossary of edubabble. 

To avoid my students drowning in a sea of school-speak I am paying extra attention to ensuring that my students are fully understanding the classroom language and vocabulary and linking this to the ‘why’ of the learning engagement.  I am very conscious of the above in regard to new students and will endeavour to pace explanations of the essential terminology and not overwhelm them with jargon. Then there are new teachers and parents to bear in mind... Maybe the K.I.S.S. principle can be applied here: Keep it simple, stupid.