Debunking Edu-Babble

Hurray to the Times for covering a report that is scornful of the bollocks that passes for so much of the pedagogical claptrap in secondary education. Mercifully I work in a school where teachers are teachers rather than curriculum delivers. And where we are free of so much of the soul-destroying, energy sapping, creativity-inhibiting paperwork that gets in the way of what we are paid to do. Educational professionals are in danger of getting as immersed in meaningless pseudo-academic claptrap as sociologists.

WHAT THE DICTIONARY SAYS

Articulated progression
A clearly defined route through the qualification system that enables pupils to choose the next step in education towards their goal

Big Brother syndrome
A growing tendency among younger learners to voice an ambition for celebrity without notable achievement

Dialogic teaching
Teaching through dialogue between teachers and pupils, and between pupils themselves, which places an emphasis on speaking and listening

Level descriptor
A definition of the outcomes that a learner should have reached

Performativity
A relatively recent term coined to convey the emphasis that monitoring by government agencies and Ofsted places on the achievement of targets

Source: Truncated definitions from the Oxford Dictionary of Education

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