Schooliness

Something I found interesting from the blog page on Change.com called “On the Evils of Schooliness”

So what is “schooliness”?

I have no idea. But that’s not a problem: I’m a teacher. I’m quite comfortable speaking with confidence on subjects I know dangerously little about. That’s why I don’t believe in computers in my classroom. My students have me. I’m the teacher. And they have the textbook. What more could they need? Pluto’s a planet, the Soviet Union still exists. The textbooks say so in text and maps, and that settles it. Next question?

Fans of Stephen Colbert will note that “schooliness” riffs on Colbert’s “truthiness,” which won the Word of the Year awards from the American Dialect Society in 2005, and from Merriam-Webster in 2006.

Colbert, in a serious interview as himself, instead of as his Bill O’Reilly satire persona, had this to say about “truthiness”:

“Truthiness is tearing apart our country, and I don’t mean the argument over who came up with the word…”

I think “schooliness” is tearing something apart too: our students’ – and some teachers’ – attitudes toward school. Something about the hell of school at its worst does violence to the heaven of learning at its best.

I know it’s not actually news… But interesting nonetheless