What's wrong with calling kids "students"?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
Anonymous
+1 Worse, not handing back graded work or tests “in order to protect the self image of poorly performing students” led to ALL students lacking coping methods for dealing with things wrong on later tests or graded work. Lying and cheating increased, as did student anxiety. Plus no DIRECT feedback loop for correctly what was wrong and learning the correct way. Teachers would just see what question was incorrect the most and go over that, students would tune out thinking surely they didn’t do it wrong- who knows, nothing is graded, and voila No Learning. |
Anonymous
Lol Safe because if they label themselves something, they’re magically it! No work or trial and error or homework required. Just say the word, and you are it. |
Anonymous
So ELA and math proficiency scores went up? Finally! |
Anonymous
In Europe and Asia scholar means someone who is past university, top of class, specialist in one’s major. How to the little kids define it? Just skip over the connotation and redefine it entirely as “kid in school in America k-5.” Scholar. |
Anonymous
Be sure to teach actual stats too if your pushing this lgbtqia agenda on kids age 6. |
Anonymous
OK, trumpie. |
Anonymous
| Scholar in training. |
Anonymous
| It's a stupid pretension that students are public school students and that private school scholars are superior to the public school students. Ridiculous snobbery. |
Anonymous
|
Elementary teacher here. I unapologetically use the terms students, kids, y’all, boys, girls.
I refuse to ever use scholars, friends, or anything else. |
Anonymous
Give them time. This sounds like just the kind of stupid that fcps would go for. I mean, we have to call them "authors" during language arts class, and talk about "publishing" their "pieces," so scholars isn't that much of a stretch. |
Anonymous
|
"Our zealots adopt what are in effect class markers. Recently I saw a woman correct a man in public - an older man whom she did not know well - for a remark of his she chose to interpret as ethnocentric. What he said could easily have been defended, but he accepted the rebuke and was saddened and embarrassed. This was not a scene from some guerrilla war against unenlightened thinking. The woman had simply made a demonstration of the fact that her education was more recent, more fashionable and more extensive than his, with the implication, which he seemed to accept, that right thinking was a property or attainment of hers in a way it never could be of his. To be able to defend magnanimity while asserting class advantage! And with an audience already entirely persuaded of the evils of ethnocentricity, therefore more than ready to admire! This is why the true prig so often has a spring in his step. Morality could never offer such heady satisfactions.
The woman's objection was a quibble, of course. In six months the language she provided in place of his will no doubt be objectionable - no doubt in certain quarters it is already. And that is the genius of it. In six months she will know the new language, while he is still reminding himself to use the words she told him he must prefer. To insist that thinking worthy of respect can be transmitted in a special verbal code only is to claim it for the class that can concern itself with inventing and acquiring these codes and is so situated in life as to be able or compelled to learn them..." --Marilynne Robinson, "Of Puritans and Prigs" |
Anonymous
DP. Not sure if this is the reasoning for everyone, but there are some that believe that "teachers" and "students" creates a power imbalance and the students do not feel that they have any control or ability to decline anything that makes them feel unsafe. If the teacher is enforcing behavior that makes the student feel unsafe, they feel that they have no ability to object or refuse. When you call them scholars, they feel that they are less controlled and have more power to object or refuse an order or instruction that makes them feel unsafe. I don't agree with the thought process, but this was what was said to me by one proponent of the term scholar. I think it's ridiculous, but I wasn't asked, only told. |
Anonymous
|
I was reading Stuart Little to my kid last night and in the chapter where Stuart is a substitute teacher for a classroom, he calls the children scholars. However, Stuart is also super pretentious and later fakes a British accent to try and impress a woman he likes, so actually this tracks.
Anyway, sharing because I assumed this was a recent phenomenon based on education consultant BS, but turns out that there's at least one example of it being used over 70 years ago to describe elementary school kids. |
Anonymous
I'm the PP who asked and thank you for explaining, I never would have gotten there on my own. The thing is, I actually strongly agree with the idea of addressing major power imbalances that historically have led to abuse. I have worked in advocacy for sexual assault survivors for over a decade and that idea is very much in keeping with the "culture of consent" that we advocate for. The idea that everyone should have the right to speak up, advocate for themselves, say no, explain that they are uncomfortable, etc. I know people roll their eyes at this, but I've seen firsthand how working with people to empower themselves in this way can totally change dynamics and make it far less likely that people will be victimized. But I'm skeptical about just changing terminology being effective. You can call kids "scholars" but if it's in a school environment where they are often punished for speaking up, where their physical activity is tightly policed (reprimanded for being wiggly or strict limitations on when they can get a drink of water or use the bathroom, for instance), then what you call them won't matter. The word "scholars" will just come to mean the same thing "students" means in the same environment -- someone who must do what they are told no matter what or face consequences. It would be better to educate teachers and administrators on how you can have empowered children and still have authority when you need it. It means establishing authority in authentic ways (by showing the kids the benefits to everyone of listening and following the mutually agreed upon rules, being respectful of each other, etc.) rather than simply ordering them to obey and never being accountable to them in any way. It takes a perspective shift. "Scholars" isn't a perspective shift, in my opinion. |