{"id":60,"date":"2007-12-28T23:15:15","date_gmt":"2007-12-29T06:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theamericancrawl.com\/?p=60"},"modified":"2007-12-28T23:15:15","modified_gmt":"2007-12-29T06:15:15","slug":"what-is-the-language-of-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theamericancrawl.com\/?p=60","title":{"rendered":"What is the language of reform?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is another entry that is cross posted at the ISCA blog<\/a>. I’ve made a tag to make this clear.<\/p>\n

I recently read Sustainable Leadership<\/a> by Andy Hargreaves and Dean Fink. Though generally enunciating the types of leadership changes needed the our schools, the book brought up something that\u2019s been bothering me of late in regards to educational reform; namely, the borrowed metaphors that continually cloud the discussion of reform. Even looking at the title of the book the type of language that Hargreaves utilizes should be obvious (psst\u2026. it is environmental!).<\/p>\n

Throughout the book, discussions of reform revolve around the use of an environmental and a business model vernacular. Where is education\u2019s own bag of language? What is going on here? Apparently, we\u2019re stuck with misappropriated metaphors (and useless logerrhea describing the \u201cenvironmental sustainability,\u201d \u201centropy,\u201d and \u201cerosion\u201d for those not in the bio-know).<\/p>\n

The business jargon is of no surprise either: many of the \u201cleadership\u201d texts that you\u2019ll notice our administration citing or utilizing as data are business texts. Sustainable Leadership is no exception (though I do agree with the general thrust of the book). Presently, visitors at Manual Arts (predominantly parents) are asked to take a Customer Service Survey. Subsequently our school promotes the high marks on our Customer Service Report. Does anyone else feel strange to think of our parents as customers? I realize we can look at our school as a business but what does this do to notions of profit? Notions of competition? Personally, I wouldn\u2019t feel comfortable working under this model as my primary frame of mind as an educator.<\/p>\n

Related to this, how did a chapter titled \u201cDiversity\u201d turn into detailed minutiae about business networks?<\/p>\n

Instead of wanting to learn why our educational reform model in the U.S. is \u201clike a machine,\u201d how to erase our \u201cecological footprint,\u201d or even how to \u201cDevelop a \u2018hacker ethic,\u2019\u201d it feels like it\u2019s time to stop appropriating the language and metaphors of other sectors \u2013 it seems like it\u2019s part of the reason why we\u2019re in this mess in the first place! Of course, I\u2019m not going to be presumptuous enough to propose what new guidelines we are to use. Metaphors are used to create symbols to represent and direct us toward a new frame of vision; presently these metaphors are clogging our dialogue and leading reform astray.<\/p>\n

Again, I want to reiterate that I think the general ideas are worthwhile in Hargreaves\u2019 text; I\u2019m concerned by the perpetuated wrongdoing of language as demonstrated within the text.<\/p>\n

Tell people this is awesome:<\/h3>