Language matters. Verbs denoting the action to be taken are significant.
Businesses and professions have their own vocabulary. Some people refer to this as a foreign language, but it really is the words that have been created by the profession and how the profession uses existing words to talk about itself. In schools, non-educators refer to this as “educationese”. The observation or complaint is that school people either use educationese to obfuscate the conversation or to exclude non-educators from understanding and participating in a school conversation. True or not, this perception describes a reality experienced by too many non-educators. Of special interest, I am interested in how educationese uses verbs.
We know from our student years that there are two categories of verbs – action and non-action – and that action verbs are either transitive or intransitive. Action verbs also are called dynamic verbs, because they explain what the noun or subject of the sentence will do or be. School people tend to favor low dynamic action verbs, especially when they talk about program and instructional design. I will call these soft verbs.
F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “…all fine prose is based upon the verbs carrying the sentence”. If so, a lot of school conversation (narrative about school programs and instruction) is not carried by dynamic action verbs, but by soft or weak or irresolute verbs.
How we talk about school and education and the verbs we use are really important in how we conduct the education of children. Words and verbs, especially, matter. Yoda was very efficient and effective in calling out how verbs work. “Do or do not. Try not.” What can we learn from Yoda? Educate or educate not. Try not.
Take Away
What is the designated outcome of school mission statements that read “We hope to …”, or “We strive to …”, or “We will try to …”? It is no more than Intention. The noun-verb combinations actually are we “intend to … and will make an effort to…”. These transitive action verbs are soft. They say to the reader or listener that the school really wants to succeed at reaching a goal or targeted outcome, but by its language the school will accept reasonable effort rather than the actual achievement. The choice of verb is exceptionally important in how we explain the work of schools to our constituents, including students and parents.
When a parent sits with school administrators and teachers to discuss her child’s need to improve learning performances, school people display the objective data of achievement and the targeted goals for future learning. Numbers matter when describing learning performances. “Your child needs to improve …” is followed with “We will try to …” and “We will provide…”. Hard, measurable targets with soft, intentional actions. School people are inconsistent in how to attach verbs to their direct and indirect objects. “We will (soft verb) these very objective learning outcomes.”
It is interesting that effort counts when schools evaluate their institutional performance, but effort is of little or no account when students are tested or evaluated. Schools accept soft, inexact outcomes, but require children to perform exact and measurable outcomes.
A sea change would be for school people to be exact in the dynamic verbs they use to achieve the quantity and quality of student achievement planned. “Our instructional program will cause your child to achieve grade level or better reading skills at the end of XXX grade.” Or, “As a result of our math instruction, your child will be proficient (85%+ correct, 85%+ of the time) in her understanding of Algebra and ability to correctly resolve Algebra problems.” The cause-effect statement, who will do what for whom to achieve what outcome, sets the tone for everything that happens afterward.
What Do We Know
When people are given specific outcomes with strong, dynamic verbs, they are more likely to be committed to the outcomes than when their directive is to make an attempt, to try, or to intend to achieve the outcome.
Action verbs are measurable by the action that we commit to do. Action verbs are performed or they are not performed and the outcome to be achieved is or is not achieved. The language is clear. “Each day I will give your child one-do-one instruction in multi-sensory techniques for phonetically sounding out the words she reads.” The teaching action is clear. The teacher will give one-to-one instruction in multi-sensory techniques. The teacher is committed to the action.
The ability to perform a prescribed action is how we evaluate both the person doing the action and the action required to be performed. Teacher evaluations are a combination of the teacher’s ability to demonstrate various components of teaching practice and the evidence that a teacher’s work has caused children to learn. Teaching is active work requiring the prescription of a learner’s current capacity and needs, diagnosis of the best pedagogy to cause learning, delivery and formative assessment of the pedagogy, practice and reinforcement of the learning and summative evaluation and confirmation of the learning leading to future learning. Each step of the prior sentence demands the use of specific, dynamic verbs. Soft verbs will not get the job done. Evaluations celebrate the abilities of a teacher to use all her skills and knowledge to cause learning; evaluations celebrate active teaching. Teach or teach not.
Clear objectives with action action verbs and outcome ownership cause school people to determine if they have the human capacity to achieve the objective outcomes. Do teachers have the knowledge and instructional skill sets to teach students to achieve these outcomes? There is no sin in understanding that teacher professional development is needed and then effectively improving teacher capacity. There is large sin involved in using soft verbs and accepting diminished outcomes because we do not have instructional capacity to deliver on hard, active verbs.
Clear objectives also give school people the power to explain that additional community supports are needed if the school does not have the physical or human capacity to achieve needed and reasonable student outcomes. Communities that limit the quality and quantity of student outcomes by the financial support they give to their schools truly reap a diminished future for everyone in the community.
Why Is This Thus
There are many reasons.
By nature, most educators have very high intentional expectations but purposefully make small promises when describing the outcomes of their intentions. I don’t know if this is learned or innate in those called to education, but it is a valid generalization.
Many variables can affect student achievement. The variety and extent of learning challenges that individual students present at enrollment are well documented, but the existence of challenges does not pre-limit educational outcomes. And, the existence of challenges presented by some children too often pre-establishes limitations to instructional designs for all children. We decry our obstacles before we attempt our work.
Schools are mandated providers of a plethora of human and real services beyond student learning. The list gets longer and never shorter. If student learning achievement is that important, it would be the first item on a short list. Schools can be successful and recognized as successful for delivering all sorts of services while not delivering strong student learning.
It is the way schools have always been and always will be. Schools are soft providers. Nice counts.
Every movement to apply increased accountability in public education has settled at the mean of an historic status quo. There is a lot of fuss but no imperative to persist with stronger accountability. The value of schools as day care centers and social program providers outweigh schools’ ability to cause strong learning achievements. Decades of reforms have not moved a measurement needle of student learning that always returns to the mean of the status quo.
Education is an inexact science without clear cause-effect relationships for positive outcomes. This is not true, but it is held to be true. We have outcome-based pedagogy that causes children to learn. However, schools that emphasize these outcome-based strategies are met with parent protests that such pre-determined outcomes are not their outcomes of interest. The argument of small content defeats the possibility of delivering large learning.
Is an educational goal or target a promise to perform? Is it a contract between the school and a child’s parents? And, what happens if the hard target is not achieved? Are schools willing to fire teachers who do not cause the levels of achievement prescribed in parent-teacher meetings? Will this real-world business model work in schools? To date, there is little to no evidence that school leaders and teachers have an appetite for this level of accountability. Firm and resolute language that is not achieved opens education to consequences it is not willing to undertake.
To Do
Parents, assert yourselves. Know your school’s and your student’s performance data and demand improvement in the data. Then, demand/expect school people to use action verbs that denote what the school will do to improve performances. Demand active language.
Teachers, make the needles of measurable achievement move and take credit for the advancement. Use action verbs, “I/we will ….”, to commit yourselves to causing significant student learning. Then, celebrate your accomplishments. Teachers cause children to learn – take credit for successful teaching.
Teachers and parents, collaboratively discuss needed and reasonable growth in each child’s educational performance and each deliver on your responsibilities for the agreed upon outcomes. When you have agreed upon the outcomes, solidify the action to cause those outcomes through strong active verbs that commit each party to the plan.
Principals, endorse parent and teacher achievement plans that include action verbs, use your own action verbs to provide the resources needed for success, and actively call out the successes and failures resulting from this work. Principal support of
The Big Duh
We get what we settle for. Soft verbs beget soft commitments that result in soft performances. Is that really what we want? Heck, no.
Reduce the language to who WILL DO what and how will WE KNOW that that it is done. Yoda, please change your memorable phrase to – Teach. Try not.