What A Difference A Word Can Make

Like many people, I was very interested in the meme that Scott McLeod had started and was spreading through the internet.  It was the “We have to stop pretending“ premise and it generated so many good thoughts from so many good people.  I was proud to be part of it and I made it a significant part of my “This Week in Ontario Edublogs” post.  There were so many good thoughts from folks from all over the province and I included the ones that I could find in the post.  They’re all good reads and I’d encourage anyone to take a look at them, particularly in the Ontario context.

• Brandon Grasley – We have to stop pretending… #MakeSchoolDifferent
• Donna Fry – #makeschooldifferent: My Five Things We Need To Stop Pretending
• Sue Dunlop – #makeschooldifferent – Five Things
• Aviva Dunsiger – #MakeSchoolDifferent: What We Need To Stop Pretending
• Patrick Miller –The Ed Delusion
• Greg Pearson – We Have to Stop Pretending – My 5 Things
• Anita Brooks Kirkland – Stop Pretending… #MakeSchoolDifferent
• Kristi Keeri Bishop – Make School Different
• Adele Stanfield – #makeschooldifferent
• Tina Zita – #makeschooldifferent: My Five (or close to it)
• Erin Little – We Need to Stop Pretending…#makeschooldifferent
• Michelle Cordy – Make School Different: Five Things to Stop Pretending
• Jonathan So – #MakeSchoolDifferent: Five things we have to stop pretending
• Heather Theijsmeijer – Make School Different: Five things to stop pretending
• Colleen Rose – #MakeSchoolDifferent: 5 Things to Stop Pretending

You’ll notice that Colleen Rose’ post is at the bottom.  Like most of my blog posts, I wrote this on Thursday morning, scheduled for going live on Friday morning.  There’s always a danger when you do these things to omit someone and so when I caught Colleen’s post from the corner of my eye while watching the hockey game, I read it and then went in adding her link to make sure that she was included and the list was as complete as I could make it.  At this point, I’ll apologize for any that I missed and I should have caught.

As Jaimie and I were discussing this as we walked this morning, he made an interesting observation.  He’s so insightful between mailboxes.  For many, writing the post was probably fairly easy.  It was a way to get an opinion off your chest.  Jaimie really dug deeply when he noted that all of us wrote with the “royal we“.  The points made were foisted on teachers by a system built on years and years of best attempts to try to define/redefine itself.  Most are just accepted as the way business is done in the classrooms and in schools.  By identifying these, we’re really looking at practices that are beyond our control.  So, they’re fairly easy to identify and put in list form.

He then raised an interesting point.

“What if everyone changed one word?  Change the “royal we” to I. 

The question now becomes one of “I Have to Stop Pretending…”

I stopped and looked at him.  He’s wise beyond his years.  It’s not the sort of thing that would go viral though.  The finger gets pointed back at you instead of everywhere else.  And yet, the answer could make the biggest change ever in your classroom or practice.  It’s not the sort of thing that you sit back and flail away at the keyboard for the world to see.  It’s internal and probably nobody else’s business.

It’s amazing what a difference one word could make.