Common Education Terms That Need to Change

In one of the publications of ASCD, it discussed about what are the common education terms that need to be changed.

With all the common education terms being used, teachers would have taken these common terms as normal but we can use better terms since our words can affect both mindset and behaviours of both our teachers and students.

ASCD took the initiative to ask educators about popular words or phrases that they think should be replaced.

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I have selected from the article some of the popular education terms mentioned below and hopefully it gets you thinking about them in a reflective manner.

There is a need to stop using ‘Urban Education’ which refers to teaching Black and Brown students. Regardless of race, everyone should be treated equally even in words. All governments encourage racial harmony and educators should do the same even in words.

We can change the use of the term 'Special Needs' to 'Exceptional Learners' so that it becomes more positive rather than highlight the need of additional need for attention when we use the term 'Special Needs'.

There is a discomfort in using words like ‘racism’, ‘race bias’ etc so educators can use ‘racial stamina’ to signal sustained uncomfortable engagement.

The term of 'Classroom Management' can be changed to 'Classroom Culture' since we want to nurture good classroom culture and it is not just about managing students’ behaviours.

In Singapore, we used to catergorise students as high ability, middle ability and low ability. It was changed to high progress, middle progress and low progress.

There could be better terms but we do our best to use the best possible terms to ensure we can provide a better environment and culture for learning.

Reference:
http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/education-update/aug19/vol61/num08/What-Common-Education-Terms-Need-to-Go%C2%A2.aspx

Disclaimer: This is my personal reflection and I am not in any position to instruct anyone what they should do. I am not responsible for any action taken as a result of this post. My post can only be a reference for your further research and growth. By reading this post, you acknowledge and accept that. All images and pictures were taken from google images that are free from copyright under labelled for reuse.

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : http://fun2learn.steemblogs.club/2019/10/04/common-education-terms-that-need-to-change/

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