EduSpeak Dictionary: N-Z

The original EduSpeak Dictionary page was getting too long.  (Imagine that!)  So I split it into two parts.  Here is A-M.

perceptual learning -

phonics - a logical method for learning to read based on the way the English language is constructed

PLC (Professional Learning Community) - a bunch of teachers talking shop, typically works better when not mandated by administrators and when accompanied by a variety of adult beverages

professional development - being locked in a room without pay to listen to an administrator or educator talk about something they have no actual knowledge of

progressive - 

proficient - actually being able to do the work required

program improvement - replacing the idiotic ideas of administrators with the idiotic ideas of education professors and politicians

project based learning - 

Reader's Workshop - a method by which students do not learn to read, but do learn to detest all books ever written.  In the words of one second grader, "It's boring and stupid."

real-life - see "authentic"

reform - fire all the teachers, but retain all the administrators

reform math - 

relevant - see "authentic"

resilience - what a teacher needs to get through professional development

Responsive Classroom - a system of edicts designed to denigrate academics and justify incompetence

Rousseau, Jean Jacques - the other guy who created this mess

sage on the stage - teacher

scaffolding - 

SEL (Social Emotional Learning) - teaching others how to be civilized, used to be the responsibility of the family, now another way schools can avoid teaching academics

self-esteem - feeling good about yourself regardless of your incompetence

social curriculum 

social justice teaching - indoctrinating all students in the believe that white men are the root of all evil in the world

social studies - history but without the facts, dates, locations, or stories

spiral curriculum -  Teaching sequential content out of sequence like you’re wielding a paintball gun. Each time a student runs by, hit her with more random information until the entire curriculum is more or less covered. Ex: Electricity, then two years later, structure of the atom.

standards - what students should know and be able to do, according to a group of professors and educators who know very little and can do even less

synthetic phonics -

teacher talk -

technology - computers

tracking - sorting large numbers of students into groups based on their abilities, see also "homogeneous grouping"

well rounded education - having art, music, PE, science, history and/or library time for 20 minutes per week

whole brain teaching - boot camp in the K-12 classroom, sanitized for whiny upper-class parents

whole child - a phrase commonly used when a school wants to hide the fact it has watered down its academic standards, or has no academic standards to being with

whole language - learning to read by memorizing all the words in the English language

Writer's Workshop - a method by which students do not learn to write but do develop extreme narcissism