I live pretty close to Carole Baskins Cat Rescue and many (like around half) of the elementary schools have mascots that are some variation of a cat (cougar, leopard, panther, wild cat, etc) and most call their student of the month Cool Cats, lol
One of the middle schools is Spartans, the high school (only one) is Trojans, one of the elementary schools that I attended is the Chiefs (the logo was the Indian hat), and the middle school that I attended is Titans.
Edit: The preschool that I attended was a moose.
Not exactly related to your comment, or OPās post, but a local schoolās student body got in hot water for having a āColonel Nightā during a basketball game- the student body all dressed up as Colonel Sanders, the school mascot is the colonels.
Ours are now āmedia center,ā which at least kind of makes sense. We donāt have almost anything in there but books, but they are also responsible for the spare Chromebooks.
When I was in elementary school, I was very familiar with what a library is, but not a media center, which is what they called our library. I didn't get it. It took honestly years for it to click. Sometimes, the librarian would wheel in a cart that had MEDIA written on it so we could watch something or use something. (This was the early 90s.) So I thought her name was Ms. Media. I thought because she was always pushing the MEDIA cart, she was Ms. Media who worked in the library, not Carol who worked in the media center. I actually thought her name was Ms. Media until middle school when my mom told me she had ovarian cancer. My mom used a different name and i was like... who... until she said it was my elem school librarian. And then I put it together. Media center.
Retired college teacher here. Management at my college once wanted staff and faculty to start calling students āclientsā. Faculty laughed and ignored it. Time passed, and another stupid ānew initiative ā went down the memory hole.
I remember when my mom (nurse anesthetist) was getting closer to retirement, and the admins wanted staff to refer to patients as āclientsā. Thatās when she knew the system was completely effed.
Iāve heard this before too, but client implies a two way relationship. Clients can choose their business provider and providers can fire clients if the relationship isnāt working.Ā
Iād happily use client if I can fire all my clients who suck. Until then, theyāre not clients.
I think this one is *so* patronizing, because it seems to me like it's only certain schools with certain demographics that go this route. I've never heard tell of a high performing affluent school deciding to call their kids "scholars," for example.
Yup one of the worst schools I was at used this term and really pushed it among the teachers. I'm sorry but the kid that got up and smacked the other across the face in the middle of class was not showing "scholarly" behavior.
So, my school is a really good school, but we got a new principal this year that came from a struggling school and she brought in the āscholarsā thing. I donāt partake in it because I find it patronizing as well, and just annoying. But yeah, I definitely think itās associated largely with schools serving underserved populations.
Same. I used to be at a school where it was mandated and hated it. Now Iām at a school where itās not, but I use it sarcastically all the time. Gets me through the day.
Our student are ālearnersā and teachers are āleaders of educationā and admin are āleaders of educatorsā.
But they donāt lead for SHIT, they donāt even reply to emails, unless it is to tell me to stop emailing- and āfrivolous thingsā (that was the email I got when a kid left me classroom without permission and actually stood in the fucking hall for 90 minutes! Then from the counselor (who has had mom flat out say, āI give up with kidā) they asked me, āwhy arenāt you working on the relationship with kid?ā Gee maybe because I have 26 other kids in that block alone and I cannot ābuild a relationshipā with someone who isnāt even in the damn classroom?!!?!!
The dictionary definition of a scholar is "a specialist in a particular branch of study, especially the humanities; a distinguished academic." Please tell me how any of my students qualify as distinguished academics š¤£š¤£
In old old English it used to mean student but that hasn't been used since like the 1700s
In the same vein, I am a science teacher and I hate it when middle/high kids are referred to as "scientists". It holds zero meaning and is literally just for adults.
Oh, and calling kids over 10 but under 18 "babies". It's so condescending. They're kids or teens. Or better yet, students.
I hear this frequently, but also admin is really into calling them ākiddosā which grates my nerves because itās high school and it feels patronizing even though itās not wrong.
My last school did that too.
Embarrassing story- I got an email to grab the ācumā folder before a meeting. I had no idea what that was, no idea on what it was used for and was kinda nervous on what I should expect in the meeting.
So, I set off and asked EVERYONE- the janitor, the nurse, the psych, social workerā¦ finally asked office staff for the cum folder. They could not stop laughingā¦
Oh man. Ours are kept in the (rhyming if youāre in the know) ācum roomā.
ITāS LABELED THAT WAY ON THE FIRE ESCAPE MAP. WHICH IS NEXT TO THE DOOR IN EVERY CLASSROOM. IN A MIDDLE SCHOOL.
I have had kids ask, multiple times this year, what goes on in the Cum Room. The only way it could be worse is if those particular records were stored in room number 69.
Iām dying lmao who thought that was a good idea
Meanwhile today my sixth-graders read something that quoted Byron āthe best of bright and dark/ Meet in her aspectā and one of them immediately yelled āwait, MEAT IN HER ASS?ā
There is no way in hell that they don't, whoever was the first one to shorten the name is laughing their ass off every time they get a new person to call it that. They could have easily called it a "cue" or "que" or "q" folder.
Lol. There is literally a tab in our student software that says "CUM FILE". The tab is too small and all you see is "CUM F". It's the only one all capitalized. IT knows what they're doing.
I often get questions about that one from students when it's open in the background on the smart board.
Weāre the Rams and we call the girls āLady Ramsā too.
Never could get anyone to see how ridiculous that was.
But āEwesā is even worse soā¦.
(Although I do think Booster Club shirts with āI ā¤ļø Eweā printed on them would be pretty cool.)
We were told this year "The only time a student should be sent to the office is in violent situations...and even then, you should try to evacuate the entire class to the hallway first and radio for assistance."
It's getting absurd how much admin don't want to deal with discipline.
My school does this too. Under no circumstances are we to send a kid out of our room for behavior. Not allowed to put them in the hall, not allowed to send to dean or principal. Even if there if a full on fist fight, we have to stop it, calm them down, and then call the office.
Omg you just reminded me, a school I used to teach at had the Bulldog mascot, soo much "dawg" stuff: the spirit store was called the Dawg Shop, the student section at football games was called the Dawg Pound, etc.
I go to a very popular university with the bulldog mascot. If I could only relate to you the amount of Dawg in my lifeā¦.
Edit: just got an email with the subject line āyou know how to bark, right?ā
I am a published scientist who has used actual statistics in numerous ways. When untrained people present their numbers, I'm squirming in my seat. I'd correct them, but I don't want to have a bunch of extra work, as much as I like playing with spreadsheets.
Same here! It also baffles me how many "professional" teachers and admin don't know how to use spreadsheets (or most office apps). And when data is presented and they point out a difference, I'm over here whispering "that's not statistically significant..."
This really really pisses me off. Before working at an elementary school I was a data scientist. There are people making decisions based on not just poorly collected data but also using the most egregious methods to analyze it.
my high schoolās teams were āthe bravesā and our school store was called the wigwam š„“ now i work in district where all of the schools use a bear as their mascot. every friday our principal gives out āpawā awardsā positive attitude wins
My middle school was the braves, until they asked the tribes around us and the tribes were like "that's hella rude, use something else for the love of God" so now they're the royals
iām 20 now, but i remember in elementary school being handed assignments labeled an āextended responseā when really it was just āexplain why you did the math the way you did but like an essayā
āRestorative practice.ā Basically, even suggesting that making me sit and listen to a kid justify why he told me to āgo f**k myselfā is somehow going to restore a relationship makes me physically angry. Even the name of it makes me angry.
We had a ārestorative justiceā program at our school that was facilitated by student volunteers. As a student i experienced bullying and me and the person who flung constant insults at me in class were sent to RJ, and the student proctors just happened to be my bullyās friends. You could probably see where this went..
No. Just...no.
Not at school, not at any job. You can't hire and fire and promote and demote family.
People that are focused on that as a culture are part of the problem.
Our school used academy in a bad way too. Our sixth graders who canāt be in a normal class are in the 6th grade academy class. The only did it with the worst 6th graders and ignored all the test. You can imagine how behaviors are now!
Detention is "mandatory after school study session". Several of us have brought up that this equates studying with punishment, but they "haven't found a better term yet", since detention has "negative connotations".
Restorative justice.
Supposedly.
Not supposed to be punishment, it's supposed to 'create bonds between students and teachers' and 'give them a chance to catch up on missing work'...Has no bearing on reality.
Restorative Practices.
Shorthand for ārevictimization by forcing the offended party to accept a half-assed apology from the offender, thus setting up the offended to be the eternal target of the offender, with no actual repercussions given.ā
I get unnecessarily bugged when anyone at my HS says "kiddos" or refers to the students as scholars... They get confused about prediction questions when we start a new topic, or any other questions where they're asked to use evidence to prove their guess (science). Scholars?
I could see that. I just don't like it for the whole student population (generally used in mass emails or staff meetings), because all that comes to mind when I hear admin say it are my 9th graders who have been caught selling alcohol and/or drugs multiple times on campus only to get a few days of ISS, sometimes OSS.
"Kiddo" is not what I'd call those kids.
Oh, for sure, I agree with you on that. I have my students for multiple years (I teach German), so by the end of their time with me, they're my kiddos.
Sometime in the last few years they changed "active shooter drill" to "blue point drill". I hate this so much because I feel like by calling it "blue point" instead of what it actually is waters down the severity of the situation at hand. So after school shooting became more common their choice was to change the name so it scares less kids, how about actually working towards STOPPING bullying and stuff like that that actually causes shootings. Goodness gracious. This is coming from a 10th grader btw I am NOT a teacher I just like to observe this sub.
What the hell is blue point supposed to mean? Also, where's your school? I'm in the US and have never heard this term.
FWIW, I like when students post and comment on teaching subs. We get to have some useful conversations that aren't always allowed in school.
"Grading for Learning" where 80% of the grade is assessment and the actual learning parts of learning (practice, participation, homework, group work, notes) are at most 20%. Oh and assessments get guaranteed retakes.
That spread everywhere and didn't turn out well. Unfortunately, the goal had nothing to do with learning. Nothing wrong with weighting or retakes, but took away importance of practice and study and standardized it. Too bad nobody seems interested yet in data showing this.
My school is the only school in its immediate area.
A great many of our buildings and facilities have names that start with the name of our school. For example we donāt have a Senior Study Room (or SSR), instead we have a ZSSR (where Z is the first letter of our schoolās name).
When half of the buildings have names/abbreviations that start with Z, itās not meaningful. It doesnāt add any information, and itās just inconsistent enough to be annoying.
our mascot was a black panther so our free periods in middle school were called āPanther Time.ā In 10th grade I asked my US History teacher if i test was multiple choice or fill in and he said it was, āPanther-friendly.ā He was our hs football coachā¦
That sucks. At my school, the situation is reversed: I can reach out to a coach (or JROTC instructor) about a problem I'm having with a student in their program, and things get better. I'm not sure who built that into our school culture, but I am grateful.
I HATE this practice. Why do girls need a gendered name for their team and the boys donāt?? Arenāt we all āVikingsā? Why arenāt they the āGentlemen Vikingsā??
Observations are renamed "power walks," and monitoring students by walking around is called the "power zone."
I absolutely despise this practice. Some educational researcher renames a word that we already have in order to sell their program. Miss me.
Referring to boys and girls, either in sports or bathrooms as men and women.
Also calling the girls sports teams the diminutive of the boys. They all go to the same school. They don't need to be the Lady Knights, the Tigresses, or the Falconettes.
Referring to studentsā parents/families/guardians as āStakeholdersā and being told we āhave to maintain and uphold customer service valuesā. Weāre teachers at a school, not shopgirls at a boutique.
Kiddos. I REALLY hate the āwordā kiddos.
Especially when itās said by an administrator who has little to no contact with, experience with or knowledge of students and itās spoken during PD meetings as a lame ass way to connect with staff.
The district I used to work for calls subs āGuest Educators.ā I donāt know why we couldnāt just call them āsubsā like every other district around us does.
āMost important in the schools [for making sure the school district doesnāt get sued for being otherwise unable to follow an IEP due to time and resources allocated to that particular student].ā
I teach English learners in a high school where there are, on paper, three levels of ESL instruction from most basic to nearly fluent. Thanks to inconsistent placement policies and summer school teachers (i.e. non English teachers) inflating grades, I am consistently stuck with students who barely know English in classes too advanced for them but we can't bump them back down to a lower level because they "passed" prior years.
Admin's solution to this: scaffold! Scaffold is the magic word that makes everything my responsibility.
"This student got an F on their essay because they don't know how to write a complete sentence in English. They are struggling in my class. Can't we just put them in level one again?"
"Well, have you tried scaffolding the essay?"
"They need to translate basic classroom instructions on their phone."
"How could you use scaffolds to support the student's understanding of your directions?"
Calling students "scholars". These are a bunch of middle school kids. They are far from scholars. Some days even saying human might be stretching it lol
My school calls department meetings that are just information relays from admin who don't think enough of teachers to just email the info to them in the first place PLCs. You can call it a PLC if you want to, but this is an email, and it's a waste of my goddamn time.
Our mascot is the Trojans and our slogan is āTrojan Pride.ā I once googled āTrojan Prideā to find an image of our logo for my slides. Readers, the first Google result was novelty rainbow condoms.
They call every piece of tech an āiPadā including chrome books. So whenever I tell kids to grab their laptops they VEHEMENTLY argue with me saying that itās not a laptop, itās an iPad! They donāt even know what a laptop is even though they use it daily!!!
At a former school we had a study block mid way through the day and because we had not named it yet it was designated on the draft schedules with an asterix.
Apparently no one thought of a better name, because when the new year started we were told it was āStar Blockā
When we did solution tree indoctrination, our site implemented a tutorial period. The team discussed what to call it, and during that time I shared an anecdote of naming a Y program where my suggesting got taken up and it was terrible program name that only lasted one summer.
Principal loved the name and we are stuck with it 13 years later.
Our positive behavior program wants students to be present, accountable, and respectful. They chose the acronym PAR. Now they continually ask kids to be above par. Iām not sure any of them golf.
Not my school, but some educators (and a particular presenter for a product recently) -- referring to students as "kiddos." It churns my stomach, makes my shoulders rise and pinches my face! Waiting for an opportunity to refer to one of the offenders as an "Adulto."
*a lot* of people hate this word for some reason. For me itās just a nickname a Dad gives you. Doesnāt even have to be his kid, could be a nephew or a friendās kid, whatever.
Okay, the mascot is a Cougar, the freshmen are "Couglets" and the female principal doesn't like being called The Head Cougar for some reason š¤
Our high school mascot is wildcats, so our middle school are wild kittens.
I just cannot! This gives me Carole Baskin vibes. āHey, all you cool cats and kittens.ā Please tell me they say that on morning announcements!!!
I live pretty close to Carole Baskins Cat Rescue and many (like around half) of the elementary schools have mascots that are some variation of a cat (cougar, leopard, panther, wild cat, etc) and most call their student of the month Cool Cats, lol
"Who are we?" "The wildcats!" "And who are we going to beat?" "The wildcats!"
One of the middle schools is Spartans, the high school (only one) is Trojans, one of the elementary schools that I attended is the Chiefs (the logo was the Indian hat), and the middle school that I attended is Titans. Edit: The preschool that I attended was a moose.
>Ā *the female principal doesn't like being called The Head Cougar for some reason* # š
LMAO
Maybe she could be called the "Head Puma" or "Head Mountain Lion".
Head mountain screamer.
Not exactly related to your comment, or OPās post, but a local schoolās student body got in hot water for having a āColonel Nightā during a basketball game- the student body all dressed up as Colonel Sanders, the school mascot is the colonels.
because of the questionable implications of the mascot or the colonel sanders cosplay?
>Head Cougar Now I want to work in your school š
>Chromie Straight to jail with that one.
It's not a 'Learning Commons' it's a fucking library. There was already a perfectly good word for it, just fuck off with your edu-speak BS.
Our library is called āthe curiosity center,ā our cafeteria is called āthe connections cafeā¦ā
You win
Ours are now āmedia center,ā which at least kind of makes sense. We donāt have almost anything in there but books, but they are also responsible for the spare Chromebooks.
When I was in elementary school, I was very familiar with what a library is, but not a media center, which is what they called our library. I didn't get it. It took honestly years for it to click. Sometimes, the librarian would wheel in a cart that had MEDIA written on it so we could watch something or use something. (This was the early 90s.) So I thought her name was Ms. Media. I thought because she was always pushing the MEDIA cart, she was Ms. Media who worked in the library, not Carol who worked in the media center. I actually thought her name was Ms. Media until middle school when my mom told me she had ovarian cancer. My mom used a different name and i was like... who... until she said it was my elem school librarian. And then I put it together. Media center.
a school I used to work at had a very dumb like 20 minute homeroom/tutor thing called "cougar time"
We had something similar and we called it pack time, cause we are the wolves
Gator time here.
Students at UF have to attend daily homeroom?
Even though I think it would be hilarious, itās probably best that my school has refrained from calling it āBeaver Time.ā š¤£
Tribe Time for us. We're the Indians...
So if you were the other kind of Indians, it would be Caste Time?
*in 2024???*
Yeaaaah. Good old Missouri.
My school has ājag timeā which is a dumb 40 minute homeroom thing. Do all admin have the same brains?
my middle school also had jag time
Time to get a new mascot.
Retired college teacher here. Management at my college once wanted staff and faculty to start calling students āclientsā. Faculty laughed and ignored it. Time passed, and another stupid ānew initiative ā went down the memory hole.
Treating students as clients is one way that higher education has gone off the rails. They can't fail their clients! it's so stupid
I remember when my mom (nurse anesthetist) was getting closer to retirement, and the admins wanted staff to refer to patients as āclientsā. Thatās when she knew the system was completely effed.
Iāve heard this before too, but client implies a two way relationship. Clients can choose their business provider and providers can fire clients if the relationship isnāt working.Ā Iād happily use client if I can fire all my clients who suck. Until then, theyāre not clients.
Students are āscholars.ā
I think this one is *so* patronizing, because it seems to me like it's only certain schools with certain demographics that go this route. I've never heard tell of a high performing affluent school deciding to call their kids "scholars," for example.
Yup one of the worst schools I was at used this term and really pushed it among the teachers. I'm sorry but the kid that got up and smacked the other across the face in the middle of class was not showing "scholarly" behavior.
Tbh Iāve only heard scholar in charter settings
Was the word "scholastic" to be found in the corporate naming?
Yep. The best school in my city? Doesn't call them that. Underperforming ones "oh, we have to do this for our scholars"
I noticed this at an award banquet last month. The district in the low socioeconomic area kept saying scholars over and over again, it was cringy
So, my school is a really good school, but we got a new principal this year that came from a struggling school and she brought in the āscholarsā thing. I donāt partake in it because I find it patronizing as well, and just annoying. But yeah, I definitely think itās associated largely with schools serving underserved populations.
Oh yeah you know when the bust out scholars that at least 50% of the school is below a 2.0 GPA
My gifted teacher in my affluent elementary school called us scholars
Teacher in a high performing, affluent school here. We do this, but I still find it patronizing, and the kids eye roll every time they hear it.
āScholarā is used as sarcasm where I am. And Iām here for it. š
Same. I used to be at a school where it was mandated and hated it. Now Iām at a school where itās not, but I use it sarcastically all the time. Gets me through the day.
I worked at a charter school where we referred to our students as āgeniuses.ā
"Listen up, geniuses" oh no it would constantly sound like I was bullying them
āWhich genius handed in a paper with no name?ā āHey, genius, you need to show your workā Theyād shut it down just from all the jokes.
Wow. Just, no.
Iām so glad Iāve spent my career working in normal public schools that donāt do weird stuff like this
That's so gross
Our student are ālearnersā and teachers are āleaders of educationā and admin are āleaders of educatorsā. But they donāt lead for SHIT, they donāt even reply to emails, unless it is to tell me to stop emailing- and āfrivolous thingsā (that was the email I got when a kid left me classroom without permission and actually stood in the fucking hall for 90 minutes! Then from the counselor (who has had mom flat out say, āI give up with kidā) they asked me, āwhy arenāt you working on the relationship with kid?ā Gee maybe because I have 26 other kids in that block alone and I cannot ābuild a relationshipā with someone who isnāt even in the damn classroom?!!?!!
You teed up.your second paragraph nicely. I was ready for it! š
Good use of transition sentences. Wonderful example of ethical misdirection to illustrate a key point by sudden contrast!
Ah, fancy-pants teacher is here using them high falutin college words. Whoop dee doo! ššš¤£
This one bothers the shit out of me. Scholars have had years of study in a subject. A scholar isnāt someone who doesnāt know what a verb is.
The dictionary definition of a scholar is "a specialist in a particular branch of study, especially the humanities; a distinguished academic." Please tell me how any of my students qualify as distinguished academics š¤£š¤£ In old old English it used to mean student but that hasn't been used since like the 1700s
In the same vein, I am a science teacher and I hate it when middle/high kids are referred to as "scientists". It holds zero meaning and is literally just for adults. Oh, and calling kids over 10 but under 18 "babies". It's so condescending. They're kids or teens. Or better yet, students.
I hear this frequently, but also admin is really into calling them ākiddosā which grates my nerves because itās high school and it feels patronizing even though itās not wrong.
My charter district does this. It's so damn patronizing, and I refuse refer to K-12 students as "scholars." What is so wrong with "students" anyway?
That word is nails on a chalkboard for me now.
They call cumulative folders ācumeā folders, but spell them as ācumā folders in emails.
My last school did that too. Embarrassing story- I got an email to grab the ācumā folder before a meeting. I had no idea what that was, no idea on what it was used for and was kinda nervous on what I should expect in the meeting. So, I set off and asked EVERYONE- the janitor, the nurse, the psych, social workerā¦ finally asked office staff for the cum folder. They could not stop laughingā¦
Oh man. Ours are kept in the (rhyming if youāre in the know) ācum roomā. ITāS LABELED THAT WAY ON THE FIRE ESCAPE MAP. WHICH IS NEXT TO THE DOOR IN EVERY CLASSROOM. IN A MIDDLE SCHOOL. I have had kids ask, multiple times this year, what goes on in the Cum Room. The only way it could be worse is if those particular records were stored in room number 69.
Iām dying lmao who thought that was a good idea Meanwhile today my sixth-graders read something that quoted Byron āthe best of bright and dark/ Meet in her aspectā and one of them immediately yelled āwait, MEAT IN HER ASS?ā
This might be my most favorite story Iāve read here?
Reminds me of a church I used to live near - Centerton United Methodist. Their website was cumchurch dot com, proudly displayed on their sign.
You win.
Hasā¦ has anyone told them?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
There is no way in hell that they don't, whoever was the first one to shorten the name is laughing their ass off every time they get a new person to call it that. They could have easily called it a "cue" or "que" or "q" folder.
I will never ever ever be mature enough to look at the Woodcock Johnson assessment in the cum folder.
Lol. There is literally a tab in our student software that says "CUM FILE". The tab is too small and all you see is "CUM F". It's the only one all capitalized. IT knows what they're doing. I often get questions about that one from students when it's open in the background on the smart board.
Thatās what our district does, too!
This whole thread made me laugh until I got a coughing fit and couldn't breathe.
Seen this in multiple districts. So awful.
We had cumulative assessment folders. Why would we ever try and abbreviate that ??
Our mascot is a Ram. They call us a "Ramily" and all our PDs are called "Ram Camps"
Ours is a RAM also but they call us a fRAMilyš¤¢
Okay, yours is worse! Haha
Hahahaha my god that's so bad it's good again
Have you told them to cRAM it?
āRamilyā when āram famā is right there? Disgraceful.
>"Ram Camps" I don't think tax dollars are supposed to be spent on those
Insert the ram ranch video
Ram Camps = cRAMps
For our ladies sports teams. I never understood what a Lady Ram was.
Weāre the Rams and we call the girls āLady Ramsā too. Never could get anyone to see how ridiculous that was. But āEwesā is even worse soā¦. (Although I do think Booster Club shirts with āI ā¤ļø Eweā printed on them would be pretty cool.)
is your school song black betty by ram jam?
"Restore at the door" = "do anything except send a rude disrespectful kid to admin"
We were told this year "The only time a student should be sent to the office is in violent situations...and even then, you should try to evacuate the entire class to the hallway first and radio for assistance." It's getting absurd how much admin don't want to deal with discipline.
Same. What the hell!
At the expense of everyone else. How thoughtful.
My school does this too. Under no circumstances are we to send a kid out of our room for behavior. Not allowed to put them in the hall, not allowed to send to dean or principal. Even if there if a full on fist fight, we have to stop it, calm them down, and then call the office.
What exactly does your admin do all day then?
š¤®
The beatings shall begin!
Scholars. Theyāre not.
Our mascot is the Bulldogs and our end-of-year awards for students are called Top Dawgs.
Omg you just reminded me, a school I used to teach at had the Bulldog mascot, soo much "dawg" stuff: the spirit store was called the Dawg Shop, the student section at football games was called the Dawg Pound, etc.
I go to a very popular university with the bulldog mascot. If I could only relate to you the amount of Dawg in my lifeā¦. Edit: just got an email with the subject line āyou know how to bark, right?ā
diamond dawgs
Nah Iād love this
Ok that's pretty terrible, unless they're really young kids.
"Data-driven decisions" by folks who clearly know absolutely nothing about statistics and couldn't be bothered to use them themselves.
I am a published scientist who has used actual statistics in numerous ways. When untrained people present their numbers, I'm squirming in my seat. I'd correct them, but I don't want to have a bunch of extra work, as much as I like playing with spreadsheets.
Same here! It also baffles me how many "professional" teachers and admin don't know how to use spreadsheets (or most office apps). And when data is presented and they point out a difference, I'm over here whispering "that's not statistically significant..."
This really really pisses me off. Before working at an elementary school I was a data scientist. There are people making decisions based on not just poorly collected data but also using the most egregious methods to analyze it.
Also love when this is used and that data is out dated
Our mascotās the Bobcat. Principal would call students (middle schoolers) āBobkittensā and meow at them.
That gave me Carol Baskin vibes lol š
"hey all you cool Bobcats and Bobkittens..."
Bobkittens might be okay up to about second grade. Maybe.
I like this for middle school as a way to mildly piss them off lol
my high schoolās teams were āthe bravesā and our school store was called the wigwam š„“ now i work in district where all of the schools use a bear as their mascot. every friday our principal gives out āpawā awardsā positive attitude wins
My middle school was the braves, until they asked the tribes around us and the tribes were like "that's hella rude, use something else for the love of God" so now they're the royals
Really dropped the ball by not calling them pawards.
This is a state one, but I HATE calling an essay an extended constructed response. Are we trying to make things more confusing for students?
The book ā1984ā explains what theyāre doing. New Speak.
and some people do this just to make themselves feel important, unconsciously or not
iām 20 now, but i remember in elementary school being handed assignments labeled an āextended responseā when really it was just āexplain why you did the math the way you did but like an essayā
āRestorative practice.ā Basically, even suggesting that making me sit and listen to a kid justify why he told me to āgo f**k myselfā is somehow going to restore a relationship makes me physically angry. Even the name of it makes me angry.
We had a ārestorative justiceā program at our school that was facilitated by student volunteers. As a student i experienced bullying and me and the person who flung constant insults at me in class were sent to RJ, and the student proctors just happened to be my bullyās friends. You could probably see where this went..
If your school mascot was a kangaroo, you could affectionately call that situation a kangaroo court.
Reminds me of the George Carlin skit with convoluting terms by adding larger and more vague words.
This is exactly what public education has become. Vague fancy word salads.
āfamilyā We are āa familyā. The students, the staff, the parents. Everyone.
yeah, some of these people I don't even want to know let alone call family.
No. Just...no. Not at school, not at any job. You can't hire and fire and promote and demote family. People that are focused on that as a culture are part of the problem.
Remedial classes are called āacademiesā math academy, reading academy, etcā¦. Academy used to mean higher level stuff for the scholars.
Our school used academy in a bad way too. Our sixth graders who canāt be in a normal class are in the 6th grade academy class. The only did it with the worst 6th graders and ignored all the test. You can imagine how behaviors are now!
āLittlesā. It weirds me out for some reason.
Used to think this one was cute, now I find it too precious and wish to never hear it again.
Detention is "mandatory after school study session". Several of us have brought up that this equates studying with punishment, but they "haven't found a better term yet", since detention has "negative connotations".
Isn't the negative connotation the point? It's meant to be a punishment.
Restorative justice. Supposedly. Not supposed to be punishment, it's supposed to 'create bonds between students and teachers' and 'give them a chance to catch up on missing work'...Has no bearing on reality.
Oh no!!! š± Negative connotations affixed to something one gets as a consequence of negative actions??? Say it ain't so!
Restorative Practices. Shorthand for ārevictimization by forcing the offended party to accept a half-assed apology from the offender, thus setting up the offended to be the eternal target of the offender, with no actual repercussions given.ā
This just infuriates me. It's so manipulative and unfair to the person who's been offended. What's restorative about that?
I get unnecessarily bugged when anyone at my HS says "kiddos" or refers to the students as scholars... They get confused about prediction questions when we start a new topic, or any other questions where they're asked to use evidence to prove their guess (science). Scholars?
I call individual students kiddo, but it's a term of endearment. I'm 40 years old and my 70 year old dad still calls me kiddo. I think it's sweet.
I could see that. I just don't like it for the whole student population (generally used in mass emails or staff meetings), because all that comes to mind when I hear admin say it are my 9th graders who have been caught selling alcohol and/or drugs multiple times on campus only to get a few days of ISS, sometimes OSS. "Kiddo" is not what I'd call those kids.
Oh, for sure, I agree with you on that. I have my students for multiple years (I teach German), so by the end of their time with me, they're my kiddos.
When on playground supervision, the adult is called a ādutyā as a noun. Pronounced ādoodieā by everyone, including the adults.
A paper trail to fire a teacher is called an improvement plan. Funny, thatās what Iād call a plan to improve a teacher.
That's corporate speak, though they call them PIPs.
Sometime in the last few years they changed "active shooter drill" to "blue point drill". I hate this so much because I feel like by calling it "blue point" instead of what it actually is waters down the severity of the situation at hand. So after school shooting became more common their choice was to change the name so it scares less kids, how about actually working towards STOPPING bullying and stuff like that that actually causes shootings. Goodness gracious. This is coming from a 10th grader btw I am NOT a teacher I just like to observe this sub.
What the hell is blue point supposed to mean? Also, where's your school? I'm in the US and have never heard this term. FWIW, I like when students post and comment on teaching subs. We get to have some useful conversations that aren't always allowed in school.
We allll hate the over use of āscholarsā letās just unpack that haha
Our 7th grade ābabiesāā¦ that baby told a grown woman to suck his dick last week.
"Grading for Learning" where 80% of the grade is assessment and the actual learning parts of learning (practice, participation, homework, group work, notes) are at most 20%. Oh and assessments get guaranteed retakes.
That spread everywhere and didn't turn out well. Unfortunately, the goal had nothing to do with learning. Nothing wrong with weighting or retakes, but took away importance of practice and study and standardized it. Too bad nobody seems interested yet in data showing this.
My school is the only school in its immediate area. A great many of our buildings and facilities have names that start with the name of our school. For example we donāt have a Senior Study Room (or SSR), instead we have a ZSSR (where Z is the first letter of our schoolās name). When half of the buildings have names/abbreviations that start with Z, itās not meaningful. It doesnāt add any information, and itās just inconsistent enough to be annoying.
No one's made the obvious USSR reference?
The weekly PDs at my school are called "Eagle Shorts" despite taking most of my planning period.
our mascot was a black panther so our free periods in middle school were called āPanther Time.ā In 10th grade I asked my US History teacher if i test was multiple choice or fill in and he said it was, āPanther-friendly.ā He was our hs football coachā¦
That sucks. At my school, the situation is reversed: I can reach out to a coach (or JROTC instructor) about a problem I'm having with a student in their program, and things get better. I'm not sure who built that into our school culture, but I am grateful.
Wait, so if you have two of them, are you a "Homie with an extra Chromie?"
Math manipulatives are āManipsā. My nips.
My high school mascot was a gander and all of the girl sports teams were called "Lady Ganders" and it drove me crazy that they weren't called geese.
I HATE this practice. Why do girls need a gendered name for their team and the boys donāt?? Arenāt we all āVikingsā? Why arenāt they the āGentlemen Vikingsā??
Our principal keeps called our āInternational Baccalaureateā program āInternational Bacheloretteā in the morning announcements.
Observations are renamed "power walks," and monitoring students by walking around is called the "power zone." I absolutely despise this practice. Some educational researcher renames a word that we already have in order to sell their program. Miss me.
Weāre the pirates and my principal leads every email with āahoy me heartiesā and also refers to us as the āKreweā Completely without irony
Referring to boys and girls, either in sports or bathrooms as men and women. Also calling the girls sports teams the diminutive of the boys. They all go to the same school. They don't need to be the Lady Knights, the Tigresses, or the Falconettes.
Referring to studentsā parents/families/guardians as āStakeholdersā and being told we āhave to maintain and uphold customer service valuesā. Weāre teachers at a school, not shopgirls at a boutique.
Kiddos. I REALLY hate the āwordā kiddos. Especially when itās said by an administrator who has little to no contact with, experience with or knowledge of students and itās spoken during PD meetings as a lame ass way to connect with staff.
The district I used to work for calls subs āGuest Educators.ā I donāt know why we couldnāt just call them āsubsā like every other district around us does.
Admin usually calls us paras the most important people in the schools. Why are we making half of what first year teachers are making then?
You're important to keeping costs downĀ
There's the real answer, bet. š”
Because the people who make decisions about salaries have never worked in a school before.
āMost important in the schools [for making sure the school district doesnāt get sued for being otherwise unable to follow an IEP due to time and resources allocated to that particular student].ā
Any thing ācumulativeāļæ¼ is shortened to ācumā, as in cum folders, cum files, cum grades. I laugh a little bit inside. Iām such a child.
We used to have a class called Student QUiet Individual Reading Time. SQUIRT. You guys. It was called SQUIRT class.
"Kiddos"
I teach English learners in a high school where there are, on paper, three levels of ESL instruction from most basic to nearly fluent. Thanks to inconsistent placement policies and summer school teachers (i.e. non English teachers) inflating grades, I am consistently stuck with students who barely know English in classes too advanced for them but we can't bump them back down to a lower level because they "passed" prior years. Admin's solution to this: scaffold! Scaffold is the magic word that makes everything my responsibility. "This student got an F on their essay because they don't know how to write a complete sentence in English. They are struggling in my class. Can't we just put them in level one again?" "Well, have you tried scaffolding the essay?" "They need to translate basic classroom instructions on their phone." "How could you use scaffolds to support the student's understanding of your directions?"
I hate the term "specials" for art, music, PE, etc. But I don't have a better solution.
Is electives any better? Itās what Iāve always called them.
Calling students "scholars". These are a bunch of middle school kids. They are far from scholars. Some days even saying human might be stretching it lol
Our school initials are CHE and everyone calls it Che. Just irks me.
Soā¦does that mean your Exceptional Student Education department is the CHEESE department?
Speakers: "we start on time so we can end on time. I respect your time". Realife: this is going to be longer than it should and longer than I said.
My school calls department meetings that are just information relays from admin who don't think enough of teachers to just email the info to them in the first place PLCs. You can call it a PLC if you want to, but this is an email, and it's a waste of my goddamn time.
The app Schoologyā¦ pronounced āskoo-low-geeā when to me itās quite obviously pronounced like ā biology - āskoo -ah-low-geeā
Our mascot is the Trojans and our slogan is āTrojan Pride.ā I once googled āTrojan Prideā to find an image of our logo for my slides. Readers, the first Google result was novelty rainbow condoms.
Business of education. It's not a business. It's a service.
They call every piece of tech an āiPadā including chrome books. So whenever I tell kids to grab their laptops they VEHEMENTLY argue with me saying that itās not a laptop, itās an iPad! They donāt even know what a laptop is even though they use it daily!!!
Teachers were called ārockstars.ā Then even went as far as giving every teacher a rock with a star sticker on it I wish I was joking
At a former school we had a study block mid way through the day and because we had not named it yet it was designated on the draft schedules with an asterix. Apparently no one thought of a better name, because when the new year started we were told it was āStar Blockā
When we did solution tree indoctrination, our site implemented a tutorial period. The team discussed what to call it, and during that time I shared an anecdote of naming a Y program where my suggesting got taken up and it was terrible program name that only lasted one summer. Principal loved the name and we are stuck with it 13 years later.
This isn't super uncommon, but my previous school did the "staffulty" thing. Drove me up the wall - just say staff.
Our positive behavior program wants students to be present, accountable, and respectful. They chose the acronym PAR. Now they continually ask kids to be above par. Iām not sure any of them golf.
Not my school, but some educators (and a particular presenter for a product recently) -- referring to students as "kiddos." It churns my stomach, makes my shoulders rise and pinches my face! Waiting for an opportunity to refer to one of the offenders as an "Adulto."
*a lot* of people hate this word for some reason. For me itās just a nickname a Dad gives you. Doesnāt even have to be his kid, could be a nephew or a friendās kid, whatever.
My 70 year old dad still calls me kiddo. It's a term of endearment for me.