By nature, I am a reflective person, and this fits well with the IB learner profile attribute. Developing in my students the reflective ATL skills is a priority for me. As a result, I think about often the lessons that I have learned throughout my life. I remember having a conversation with Craig Boyce in which he stated that he took exception to the word impact. We use that word often in education, and the connotations of violence never seem to be implied, but he believed they are and we should choose something different.
I felt it a bit ridiculous at the time, however, it put me down the path of changing the language in our environment to more accurately represent what we are doing or what we want to achieve. Upon this realization, one of the first instances was to change our heads of department, and all that implies to subject group leaders. Autocratic versus democratic, just by changing the language and then the belief structure surrounding that.
Is it time to change our language regarding what we do as teachers? Does the word coach more accurately represent what we do in our classrooms, in our schools, in our universities?
More to come on this.
