This Washington Post article begins with the statement,
How do you translate “authentic assessment” into Urdu? “Stakeholders” into Spanish? “Paradigm shift” into Cambodian?
I have an idea. Let’s drop these trite phrases altogether. Yet, this idea seems to be lost on everyone interviewed in the article. Take this statement for example,
“There is so much educationese out there that even an English speaker doesn’t have total understanding,” said Cindy Kerr, president of the Montgomery County Council of Parent Teacher Associations, which has pressed for improved translation services in the county, where the number of non-English-speaking students increased 83 percent from 1995 to 2005.
I give up. To get a sense of how much “educationese” there is, follow this link for general education and this link for jargon used in gifted education. This link will take you to the “Jargon Generator”.
