How Teachers Should Communicate [View all]

I'm doing some research on Jonathan Kozol ( about whom I am embarrassingly ignorant, btw) and came across this little gem.


>>>Q: How do you advise teachers to communicate?

>>>A: I encourage teachers to speak in their own voices. Don't use the gibberish of the standards writers. The official language of the state is loaded with bad English. You can't say use, you have to say utilize; you don't copy, you replicate; you don't start, you initiate; you don't just do it, you implement it. This comes from the world of mediocre semi-intellectuals who write state standards, who cover their insecurity by using polysyllables. All my work comes from a literary background and, at Harvard, I was blessed to spend two years as a disciple to Archibald MacLeish. He kind of adopted me. Like many young Harvard undergraduates, I became incredibly pretentious by my sophomore year. That's an illness not unique to the Ivy League but it is particularly prevalent in Harvard. MacLeish said that whenever you find yourself using big, fancy words in order to convey a term that can be conveyed in simple words, be suspicious of your motives. Good advice.>>>

http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2007/10/21/the_advocate_of_teaching_over_testing/?page=full