Those who try and describe what is happening the classroom or those who want to “reform” the classroom are most guilty of using words and phrases that have lost meaning. For example, the word “portfolio” began as a wonderful way of a showing student “growth” with powerful “assessment” possibilities. Each of those words had, in their original “label” deep and powerful meaning, but as those labels were picked up by mainstream educational journals and educational product advertisements, the words were labels that became buzzwords.

Today, let’s toss in “accountability” and “reflection” and “standards.” In fact, if I see another mention (like I did today as dropped my son off at a science exploration camp) mention of the phrase “Best Practice” I will seriously hurt someone seriously. Why? Because the book the originally presented the phrase (Best Practice: Today’s Standards for Teaching and Learning in America’s Schools) was an incredible, inspirational call of clear thinking and practice across the grade levels and curriculum; now, it’s a buzzword that is tacked on to advertisements and mission statements.

Besides “21st Century Skills” (which I’ve mentioned a time or two already in this blog), the up and coming buzzword is “…that Works” (borrowed from an educational report and later popularized by Marzano et al [Data-Driven specialists]). Edutopia now has as their tagline a variation: “What Works in Public Education” and you can read the editor’s passionate call for change here (more about that publication another time).

Part of bashingED is clear thinking about learning and technology. Whenever you see these overused “educational” words, labels or phrases, you’ll probably getting some good old fashioned rhetoric which should be saved for the politicians and advertisers.