Republicans have been master wordsmiths for quite some time. Those of us who believe in a human-friendly future for our children have fallen by the wayside when it comes to capturing the language and using it for our (humanizing/transformative) ends. Along these lines I spend a great deal of energy and time, both within and beyond the classroom walls, re-imagining or retooling certain words and phrases. My goal is to reinvigorate our movement to become something more through the evoloution of our language. This often puts me into advesarial positions with other people who believe women and men don't have the right or ability to transform the status quo.
Specifically, I recently have been getting into "trouble" with my fellow university students and my fellow teachers for using a certain word: educand instead of learner. I know that it seems silly, but it makes sense to many who hear my explanation. So in the interest of thinking I'm MUCH smarter than I really am, here's my proposition: That we add educand to our teacher vocabulary in order to foster some amount of transformative change within and beyond our classrooms.
Follow me thoughts below ye fold.
My use of the word "educand" is based upon my personal experiences learning from Brazilian and Mexican master educators (particularly those familiar with the work of Paulo Freire and his devotees). These educators use the word educando, which literally means "pupil." I use its cognate, educand. As I understand it, educand is used instead of learner/pupil/student/child in order to weaken the chasm that sometimes divides our perceptions of a teacher and our perception of a student. It also asks that we re-examine the relationship(s) those perceptions imply. It is an intentionally politicizing linguistic shift, intent on highlighting the philosophical standpoint that "teachers" are teacher-learners and "students" are learner-teachers.
I wish to make clear that I do not suggest these two are equal. I suggest they exist in a dialectic- two parts of the same construct that are inseparable and symbiotic. The existence of either is impossible without the existence of the "other". And if such a thing is possible, then I believe the viability of either is severely diminished in the absence of the "other" part. Just as we cannot separate the form and function of our heart from the form and function of our lungs and the tissues that connect them, we cannot separate educator and educand. They need one another to be and to become something more. They need one another to survive, to transcend, to evolve.
Etymologically, the verb to educate has two parts. To educe is to lead or draw forth, bring out, develop from a latent condition. The suffix –ate denotes an action or a state of being. Therefore, for me, to educate denotes the act of drawing forth, bringing out, and developing all those involved in the act of educating/learning from a latent condition.
In the interest of further clarity, I do not wish to suggest that educators nor educands ever begin their co-relational dance from dormant positions within their own experiences. We cannot separate lived experiences from individuals just as we individually cannot break away from the groups by which we come to define ourselves (I would say this explains how we define ourselves culturally). Equally so, we cannot detach our individual selves nor our group membership(s) from the ways in which we are defined by other individuals and other groups (I would say this explains how we are defined societally). Still further, we cannot isolate these facets of our experiences from how the dominant/dominating society views and constructs/deconstructs these facets. Put another way, there are series of interconnected and symbiotic identities, perceptions, and experiences at work within and beyond each individual, group, and society that metaphysically (and physically) moves and is moved by women and men. This movement itself is always capable of transforming, reconfiguring, dare I say evolving our experiences as women and men into something beyond the realm of what today is considered impossible. In short, and to revisit my main point, educands and educators never arrive at their dance from places of rest. They arrive full of dynamic, sometimes tragic, sometimes blissful experiences we must together uncover in order to collectively become something more.
So this is why I hesitate to use the word "learner" and, in its place, choose to substitute "educand." This change in thinking has transformed my perceptions to the point of changing my entire way of being. It has brought about a profound change in how I choose to carry myself as a human being- one intent on becoming something more through the (r)evolutionary act of loving unconditionally.
Republicans have been master wordsmiths for quite a while. Let's take back our damn language. Let us evolve it into something better than "No Child Left Behind."