Yesterday, the College Board announced that the SAT would be redesigned. I’m not completely sure how this redesign is going to be applied in real life or if I even believe it is going to make a difference in the educational outcomes of American children. I’ll reserve my thoughts about the complete overhaul for another time.
For the moment, I simply want to address the shift to what the College Board calls Relevant Words in Context. According to the College Board, instead of requiring students to “memorize obscure words” that are rarely spoken, students instead will be asked to focus on learning and understanding “relevant words”.
No More Flashcards
I’ve got to be honest, reading that there would no longer be a requirement to use flash cards is a frightening thought. I mean this proclamation from the College Board is downright terrifying. When I first heard about this part of the redesign, I felt like Christina hearing Mommy Dearest shriek “no more wire hangers!” – scared and confused. Really no more obscure words and no more flash cards?
In the words of Marvin Gaye, “what’s going on?” What does the College Board mean when they say “No longer will students use flashcards to memorize obscure words…”? If obscure words are no longer going to be required, why does the College Board use the word ‘obscure’ in the literature describing the SAT’s redesign rather than simply using a more common, easier word like ‘unknown’?
Scared and Confused
I don’t know about you but I really am scared and confused. I’m unclear about the type of student we are attempting to produce as we move from learning obscure (diverse) words to concentrating on obvious (ordinary) words. Is this a move about learning or is it about something else? I always thought the point of learning was enlightenment. I never realized that learning was synonymous with easy and simple.
There are so many questions to be answered. Who decides what is obscure and what is relevant? How can we be an enlightened nation and raise future informed leaders when we dim educational prospects – in this case – vocabulary expectations? Don’t we want our leaders to have a mastery of language? Don’t we want those who will represent us – at every level – to be well versed in the vocabulary of our language so that they may write and speak with great elegance?
Hopes And Dreams
According to the ASCD, “academic vocabulary is one of the strongest indicators of how well students will learn subject area content when they come to school”. Students like me benefitted greatly from being assigned “obscure words” when we arrived at school. Each day being assigned a new word, asked to learn the word’s origin, learning to spell the word and then being able to use the word in a sentence helped many people like me do things that would otherwise not have been possible.
Children today already suffer from living in a 140 character, instant message, text crazed, and acronym abbreviation society. I don’t know about you but I’m concerned that as we limit vocabulary we also reduce children’s expectations. If a child has only good or bad as vocabulary options, how can the child aspire for greatness? Raising children who don’t understand the context of the word prodigious is like trying to imagine Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech without obscure words.
When we shrink expectations not only do we diminish outcomes but we end up producing a nation of children who have no language to vividly describe their hopes and no evocative words that inspire them to dream. In words that the redesigned SAT would no doubt consider relevant context, children living in a world with diminished expectations and children bereft of a lexis to inspire hopes and dreams is sad.
How does your interaction with your child enrich or degrade their vocabulary? Share your thoughts with me about the SAT changes below.