Education, Literacy, and Culture

June 06, 2005
Michael Maiello
Forbes

A few weeks ago, I received an e-mail from a technology company that claimed to have developed a &lqt;future-proof&lqt; product. They must have meant it wouldn't be squashed by some new innovation down the line. But the words &lqt;future-proof&lqt; are misleading (nothing can stop the future) and worse, they are ugly.

Or consider this bit of bad writing from another recent e-mail I received. A self-described business tycoon wanted to sell me on his idea of &lqt;stretching,&lqt; which seems to mean nothing more than &lqt;trying harder.&lqt; The e-mailer wrote: &lqt;Stretch goals inspire and capture people's imaginations. They require that you think out of the box and often take an entirely different approach to solving a problem.&lqt;

Spare me, please.

Also spare Don Watson, author of Death Sentences (Gotham, $20) from all of these weasely, wishy-washy, and worst of all, ugly bits of management-speak that have drifted out of consulting sessions and into the social realm. Students are now considered customers. Recipients of welfare or social services are now clients. Everybody is a stakeholder. Even the Central Intelligence Agency, in its mission statement, refers to having &lqt;customers&lqt; as opposed to having an obligation to the elected representatives it serves. By adopting management-speak, we're now using a language that makes every relationship a commercial one. The day seems to be looming when romance will give way to a search for synergies. ...

In an economy dominated by goofy consultants, who have shoved their buzzwords down the throat of just about anyone who works in an office, Watson seems to be fighting a losing battle. But read Death Sentences, and when you hear somebody talking about &lqt;out of the box&lqt; thinking or calling everything a &lqt;paradigm,&lqt; at least roll your eyes. With a little scorn, and Death Sentences on our shelves, we might be able to shame folks into speaking plain English.

Full Story: www.forbes.com/lifestyle/vehicles/2005/06/06/cz_mm_0606bookreview.html
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May 29, 2005
Richard Nilsen
The Arizona Republic

The sign on the gallery wall says the video &lqt;comments on politics, gender and sexuality in Irish culture.&lqt;

The video shows a naked woman floating in a sea of undulating jellyfish.

Haunting? Discomfiting? Yes. But Politics? Irish culture? I don't think so.

Dorothy Cross' Jellyfish Lake is one of several exceptionally beautiful videos in &lqt;Water, Water Everywhere,&lqt; one of the best shows of the season at the Scottsdale Center for Contemporary Art. It is a fascinating and hypnotic video with emotional and intellectual resonances, but the throat-stopping jargon that artists and art professionals use when discussing such art obfuscates rather than illuminates.

It is a problem everywhere in the art world, and the artists are just as guilty as the critics and curators: They seem to believe that if they don't speak in a gobbledygook of cant phrases, they won't be taken seriously in the profession. This is a shame, because there is little that turns off the art going public than brain-freezing jargon. ...

Full Story: www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/ae/articles/0529water0529.html#
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February 06, 2005
Steve Fetbrandt
The Press-Enterprise (Southern California)

California's academics standards, adopted by the State Board of Education in English/language arts, math, science and social science/history, define the specific content and skills students should know by the end of each grade level. Following is an example of the state's expectation for fifth-graders:

&lqt;Literary Response and Analysis, 3.6–Evaluate the meaning of archetypal patterns and symbols that are found in myth and tradition by using literature from different eras and cultures. ... &lqt;

Here is Beaumont Unified School District's &lqt;kidified&lqt; translation:

&lqt;I can evaluate all kinds of writing from diverse cultures using different types of symbolism.&lqt;

Full Story: www.pe.com/localnews/pass/stories/PE_News_Local_pfriendly06.a1074.html#
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February 06, 2005
Steve Fetbrandt
The Press-Enterprise (Southern California)

BEAUMONT - Fill a room with public-school teachers and administrators, give them an education topic to discuss and hunker down for the jargon fest that follows.

In Beaumont, however, school officials are doing their part to curb educationese¿jargon-laced education-speak. They've gone so far as to translate California's educational &lqt;frameworks&lqt; into &lqt;Kid Friendly Standards&lqt; so students know exactly what is expected of them academically each year.

Leading the effort was Karen Poppen, Beaumont Unified School District's assistant superintendent of instructional support services, who spent 30 hours painstakingly translating California Department of Education code language into simple English. For example, Poppen has translated Sacramento's &lqt;Phonemic Awareness&lqt; standard, as officially adopted by the state Board of Education in 1999, to mean:

I know the difference between sounds.

I can change a sound in a word to make a different word.

I can blend sounds into words.

I can rhyme.

I know the beginning and ending sounds of words. I can count syllables

&lqt;We're terrible when it comes to using jargon,&lqt; Poppen said. &lqt;The standards are written in adult language, not kid language. So our real dilemma was how to help kids become familiar with them.&lqt; ...

Full Story: www.pe.com/localnews/pass/stories/PE_News_Local_pfriendly06.a1074.html#
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