Professional Pedagogue Offers Didactic Dictum
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Re “ ‘Edspeak’ Is in a Class by Itself,” Aug. 16: How would parents feel if pediatricians decided that they would only use “understandable language” to explain procedures and illnesses? One might hear, “I’m sorry, I have to take out the little dangling thing at the end of the smaller squiggly tube in your son’s tummy.” Wouldn’t a parent prefer to hear the technical term “appendectomy”?
No one seems to feel that doctors use specialized terms simply to exclude those outside the medical field. The public expects professionals to use specialized terminology. So why deride teachers for their use of Edspeak?
By suggesting that teachers do not need to use technical language in their work you are implying that teaching is not the complicated matter that it most certainly is. I agree that teachers have an obligation to communicate to parents and laypeople in terms they will understand, just as professionals in other fields must do.
Tricia Brandon
Categorical Program Advisor
Burbank Blvd. Elementary
LAUSD
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