Are there any sayings that drive you up a wall?

I just was reminded of 1 that I survived a few years. It was " Fidelity to the program."
It was a scripted program and everyone was supposed to follow it word for word.
I felt like a robot for awhile. Then I tweaked it to where I could cope for a few years until it went away. Almost everyone chanted those words even though I knew they were not following it exactly. ( I couldn't bring myself to ever say it. The saying reminded me of brainwashed zombies.)
In counseling, many say that they are eclectic. They don't pigeon hole themselves to 1 philosophy, but take the things that work for them from what they learn over the years.
More schools should give teachers the freedom to choose what works best for them. There were a couple of things from the scripted program that I continued to do after it was gone because they worked.
Since not all kids learn the same way, why do districts buy recycled programs and insist everyone use them with fidelity? Those are words I never care to hear chanted again.

 

My guess is for love of data. It's easy to track how well a program works if it's nice and scripted and everyone is going with it. We have several scripted programs and apparently the old way was the fidelity, but it seems to be going to the wayside slowly but surely. I don't mind the programs in and of themselves, and in their way they can weed out who isn't learning under them for further help, but in that same breath, strict scripted programs clearly then don't work for all students and teachers are left with little choice.

My own personal hated buzz phrase: Best Practices. I don't think people use the term correctly anymore and it's getting thrown out just because someone wants to defend a choice.

 

Yeah, that scripted program had a lot of data that went with it. I never thought of that as a reason until now. Everything makes its way up here late. We hear don't hear,
"Best Practices " much here yet. When I first started teaching whenever we asked to do anything really different we'd hear, " Is it in the best interest of the kids?" If it was, we could usually do it. I miss that saying!

 

I'm starting to hate the phrase "trauma-informed". I used to hate the word "rigor" but don't hear it much anymore.

 

Lucky you. It's still popular around here.

 

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I hate with a passion "boys will be boys" because it's almost infallibly said to excuse something that should have consequences. Personally I prefer "boys will be accountable" if it's got to be. Better yet "you are always accountable for your actions, regardless of your feelings ".

 

So many
Flipped classroom?
Growth mindset?
learning walk?
Thinking hats?
Assessment for learning?
Drill down?

and one exclusive to England...Mocksted

 

Or from the kids right now.... chicken nuggets.

 

I also hate those.

Tell me more of this Mocksted.

 

OK I am curious...what does this mean? The kids here have some sayings that I never heard of and do not know their meanings. A friend showed me the "urban dictionary" and some of the words have really bad meanings! I was shocked. We do not work in an urban area, but they must learn the words from TV or computers.

 

OK...I am curious of Mocksted too ! Please tell!
Flipped classrooms went over like lead balloons here. I think the whole push ended after 1 yr. There was no way kids or parents were going to work like that at home....lol

 

It is so hard to believe, but this is still used where I live too. One that goes along with it is :" It is what it is....." The meaning is: We have no chance of changing something that doesn't work or helping a kid change their very bad behavior.

 

Yeah, I am really getting sick of that one ( trauma informed) too. It is fairly new here, but I knew it was coming when PBIS flew out the window. ( I get my "heads up" on what's coming online usually yrs in advance.... Rigor never bothered me, but I remember seeing a funny cartoon on it.

 

You may have already seen this, but it is funny! When "differentiation and rigor" were being pushed, someone sent me this.

 

In England we had a school inspection regime. It is called OFSTED (OFfice for Standards in EDucation). A team of inspectors come into a school and trash it. OFSTED also set the standards that have to be reached and move the goalposts on these regularly. They are universally hated by teachers. Some school managements are so scared of these inspections that they put their staff through mock inspections often carried out by real inspectors working independently. They are just as stressful and are called Mocksteds!

 

Urban Dictionary has been my new "go to" for the last six years. Whenever something kind of sets my spidey sense tingling, I do a search. It's usually the tone of voice, the way it is delivered that sounds as if the other person should be insulted, but they have the look of the cat that swallowed the canary, with a certain "pleased" look as they glance at the adults to see if anyone seems the wiser. I don't know how to describe it better than that, but once students learn that you not only know about Urban Dictionary, but you will use it against them, they become much more careful about what they share in the classroom that can be understood. Truth is, though, that if that is how they think and speak away from school, they almost always mess up. I am particularly concerned about the terms that imply violence and sexual innuendo.

 

Wow! That does not sound fun at all! I feel like we are in the times George Orwell wrote about. Big Brother is always watching. We have cameras everywhere in our school.

 

Certainly not fun. Some teachers and headteachers (principals) have been driven to suicide by inspections. Tens of thousands of teachers have quit the job because of them.

 

Vickilyn, Exactly! I sometimes wonder where these kids hear the stuff they do because we are not an urban area. I pick up on it too when there is a little smirk that goes along w/it. Last yr, I had 3 boys who kept a triangle of this garbage rotating. I was looking it up as fast as I could w/ my friend.
I never could directly confront them because I didn't want to say what the terms meant, but I'd give them some looks that usually put an end to that saying. They came up w/ new ones though throughout the yr. though.

 

Wow! That is horrible! I am so sorry. At 1x, I remember high stakes testing was putting enormous pressure on teachers and admin where I worked. Many teachers quit. I remember 1x hearing about a teacher on the radio who could not pass the state test herself. After her 3rd time taking it, she killed herself. It was so sad. She taught kindergarten. I heard she was nice and good with the children. At that time, it did not matter what grade level you taught. Grades K-8 all took the same teacher tests. English was a 2nd language for her. Why would she have had to have known 8th grade math when teaching K? So sad!

 

Oh trust me, I believe it. Had a teacher tell me that on Friday. So one of our eight grader boys on the football team was picking on a 7th grade boy. I broke it up and told the 8th grader to go to my office so we could talk about it. Then this teacher gets involved and goes "Oh don't you think they were just playing? You know boys will be boys." I said nope boys will be held accountable for their actions and walked off towards my office.

 

Good for you! I don't understand the teachers who make excuses like that! Do we say, " Girls will be girls?" Nope!

 

Since much of what they share is violent/threatens violence against certain types/sex/groups, sexually inappropriate, or, at times, borders on hate mongering, I simply told my superiors what I found, printed it off, and kicked it upstairs. They were amazingly good about handing out appropriate punishments and the word got around that staff was on to them, which really shut it down. I was grateful, because I did feel like this needed to be handled by admin - this was above my pay grade. Some of the teachers figured the talk was bad, but they were afraid that it would be left to them to police and punish. I like my admin, but sometimes they need to bring the wrath - they don't have to listen to what I have heard, and trust me, no one should be subjected to that.

 

Yeah, it is fortunate for you that have admin like that! Ours would probably sweep it under the rug, or believe the kid innocently used the words cus some words do sound innocent enough! That way he would not have to deal w/ it. My teacher look has to do it here....

 

RIGOR irks me. LOL I think of stiff, dead bodies sitting in class.

TRAUMA-INFORMED. How did we all survive before TI? We are all lucky to be alive and have an education.

 

Oh, my pet peeve is people in FB groups being snotty and correcting those who use the term "autistic"... PERSON-FIRST - person with autism. Well, the majority of the autistic population has spoken and professors need to stop shoving PF when it comes to being autistic. https://autisticadvocacy.org/

Don't get me wrong. I TOTALLY get person-first language but that phrase drives me nuts with it comes to the autistic population being told how to refer to themselves.

 

We had a PD on Trauma informed care and the whole time the clinician was reading from a powerpoint and not really knowing what she was reading. It would have been funny if 2 hours of my life weren't wasted on it.

 

You think rigor is bad. Ours is called rigour, that's 20% longer!

 

Yes, I always mentally tag on Mortis LOL

 

Trauma informed care does kind of drive me bonkers, but it could just be the person who was leaning towards bonkers who did a full day workshop that I attended (mandatory). When asked the nuts and bolts questions about how to incorporate that information into a classroom already dealing, first hand, with a class full of traumatized students who traumatized other staff and students, all that came back was a blank stare. Who knows, it was getting late in the day by then, so maybe the presenter was just worn out.

 

That's funny. It's like we had the same bonkers workshop leader LOL

 

Same here. We had a presentation full of information last year. It was all about how we needed to change our thinking about students (instead of asking "what's wrong with you?", start asking "what happened to you?"), but there was no information about how to practically work with those students in the classroom setting.

 

Don't tell me about the problem (which I was aware of) without giving guidance on practical methods to deal with these students. I had read the IEP's - I knew about the trauma. That doesn't mean I couldn't use some real tips on what to do.

 

Exactly. I could have read the powerpoint presentation myself instead of her reading it to me. Such a waste of time. When people did ask her questions she had no answers.

 

OK The trauma Informed school is starting to scare me because it is on its way! I have heard so much about it. Since PBIS flopped, we get something worse, I think.
The rigor is so funny! It never lasted here very long. People want their kids to be happy here, so we would not want to be too rigorous. It was a buzz word here for awhile, but I was never told to be more rigorous! So it doesn't get to me.

 

My issue with "rigor" is a lack of agreement on what it means.

I've been in three situations where I was told it means three distinctly different things.

 

In the schools where I heard the word all the time, we were taught to use the official rigor/relevance framework (you can google it if unfamiliar). It did help to define it, but who has time to look at something like that for every lesson?

 

Backroads, That is part of what the above cartoon makes fun of! Making it easier, harder, or more accessible.

 

“Actively monitoring” irritates me, and “professional responsibility.” Not that those are terrible things, per se, but they typically come up in conversations where teachers are getting scolded in one way or another at my campus. Often the conversation applies to only one person but gets said to the entire staff instead of dealing with the problem directly.