Watch Your Mouth: The Virus of 'Versus'.

How we talk about changing elementary and secondary education may be almost as important as what we talk about.

Examine the conversations of educators and policy-makers--at conferences and meetings, in educational periodicals, with journalists and television reporters--and you find that much of the discussion is framed in adversarial language, the language of "us versus them.''

Those committed to reform challenge those who are not. Those who support pedagogical change challenge those who do not. Teachers challenge the influence of administrators and policy-makers. Proponents of academic curricula challenge those who favor vocational curricula. Advocates for school privatization challenge defenders of public schools.

This adversarial language in the national conversation about school change is counterproductive. It must be modified if we are to get on with the job of building the kind of education system we say is essential in our society.

Look at these expressions frequently found in the literature of school improvement:

* The entire school change enterprise is usually called "school reform." Reform has a positive connotation, implying that those who disagree are opposed to something that is needed, good, and right. Using school reform to describe school change makes the advocates heroes and those in opposition villains. Why not call it an "agenda for change" rather than "school reform"?

* A highly prized element of school change, "student-centered" learning, is described frequently in opposition to "teacher-centered" learning. But what goes on in most classrooms is a combination of processes. Could we talk about student learning, acknowledging that this involves both student and teacher?

* We talk about "empowering teachers" in opposition to (versus) school administrators. Much school change discussion focuses (correctly, in my view) on the need for classroom teachers to be reasonably free of bureaucracy and standardization. But empowering teachers typically implies overcoming the power of administrators or public officials, as if teachers were always the virtuous victims of wicked administrative oppressors. Surely any school, to be successful, needs the creative energy of both teachers and administrators. What if, instead of empowering, we talk about redefining teacher responsibility or recasting the teaching role?

* Discussions of the academic curriculum almost always are framed in contrast to the vocational curriculum. Embracing this either/4r dichotomy is to deny that all students, regardless of postsecondary intent, must share some common educational experiences, that we must educate the person first and then consider the practical skills he or she may need. Why not build a curriculum based on our best judgments about the cognitive capacities and skills students need, no matter what they do after high school?

* Conversations about privatizing some or all school functions often begin by debating the merits of education as a private enterprise versus education as a public enterprise. What if we could get the opposing parties to talk about how schools might benefit from an exploration of the best that private management and public oversight offer?

The language of school change has created a culture of adversarial thinking that distracts us from the important work of actually improving education. Talking about school reform makes adversaries of those who disagree about various change initiatives and hampers creative problem-solving. Talking about empowering teachers at the expense of administrators gets in the way of teacher and administrators working together to improve schools.

Talking about academic and vocational education as if they exist at each other's expense has diminished the intellectual scope of the secondary school. Talking about private oversight of education at the expense of public oversight inhibits potential public-private partnerships in education.

The virus of versus prevents us from working together and precludes the development of a rich body of thought and action that is essential if we are to build a successful education enterprise.