A Newspeak to seduce and colonise the school

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Santiago García Tirado

Consider this: you will be told that exercises are not the same as tasks, that you must focus on “knowledges” rather than impose content, and that you should help pupils construct their own learning. Yet beware of anything too theoretical — pupils must consolidate competencies, which are, of course, to be demonstrated through practical application. Every bit of your planning must be framed within the DUA (Universal Design for Learning); you must ensure your practices are sufficiently inclusive, that the attention you give is personalised, and that no one is left behind — not those diagnosed with TEA (Autism Spectrum Disorder), TDAH (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), Asperger’s, or dyslexia. But by all means, raise such cases in your CCP (Teaching Coordination Committee), or consider revising the ROFs, if you’re from the Basque Country; the NOFCs in Catalonia or the NOCs, in Madrid (Rules on Organisation and Coexistence). Always employ “friendly” forms of teaching, such as socio-affective mathematics, and above all, remember: your strategies, your lesson planning, your hours invested in project-based learning, and every other methodology will only make sense if they are appropriately aligned with a particular learner exit profile.

Think on all this. Reread the paragraph as many times as you need. Underline it, then try reciting it aloud. Use the appropriate intonation, enunciate clearly. If, after this little ritual, you haven’t blushed — if you’re still able to assign it any semblance of coherent meaning, and even believe that what you’ve just read is Spanish — then we regret to inform you that you are mistaken. What has happened is that you have internalised a form of Newspeak, accepted it — perhaps without even realising — and in the realm of education, that is no cause for celebration.

In little more than three decades, an artificial lexicon has been imposed upon teachers — one that has nothing to do with the vocabulary of our mother tongue. In truth, it is a parasitic lexicon: it takes control and subordinates the rest of the language to its service. It has even been endowed with a set of organising rules — in other words, a grammar. The result is a Newspeak now flooding legislation, school documentation, and even the empty rhetoric of politicians and opinion-makers.

As with all things that claim to come from the future, this pedagogical Newspeak plays its trump card: seduction and rupture. It is a sophisticated, pseudo-scientific language, though we must not forget that, above all, it is artificial. It has been manufactured — and not by friendly hands. To naturalise expressions from this invading language in our everyday speech — terms like “exit profile” (an OECD requirement) — is neither intelligent nor respectful of our concept of education as a space for equality. The same goes for abstruse phrases such as “placing the pupil at the centre”, “socio-affective content”, or the insufferable “learning to learn”. They sound cute, they suggest innovation, but they conceal a worldview that does not align with that of our natural language. Their worldview is one designed within neoliberal spheres, where the model citizen is docile labour — a seamless part of the great consumer mass that keeps the cycle running at peak performance.

Once the faculties of Education had been colonised, this pedagogical Newspeak established itself what it is today: a lingua franca. Uncontested, assimilated by politicians, propagated by pedagogues, accepted by union negotiators, and in recent years, inoculated into the many thousands of teachers — in what has been a modern process of re-education. Thousands of well-meaning teachers have made every effort to internalise this language, and now it is firmly entrenched: short-circuiting any appeal to sensibility or common sense, and undermining what should, quite simply, be the teaching of a subject.

Günther Anders spoke of intellectuals who tend to armour themselves with opaque language: seductive figures whose knowledge is presented as esoteric — the problem being that it is often devoid of content. These are not sages, nor educators, but mistagogues — guides who would lead us by the hand into mystery. And in the case of pedagogical Newspeak, that “mystery” is the brutal replacement of a democratic educational system by another whose aims are perverse. The only possible brake on this onslaught is our intelligence. Against this prefabricated, toxic language, we must demand to be addressed in natural language. Against mystifications and scams, we must deploy reason. It will take time to explain this to some — especially in these days when the faculties of Education have already been colonised — but we care deeply, and we are more than prepared to give everything we have to the task.

Source: educational EVIDENCE

Rights: Creative Commons