If you couldn’t already tell, I’m going to be picking up my blog again and ranting about English vocabulary.
Oh, vocab. The weird thing is that I’ve always enjoyed vocabulary. A lot. I get good grades on tests with nominal amounts of studying and I’ve often found that the words on our assigned “Honors” list are ones that I use commonly in conversation and articles.
I think this is because of my love of old books and classics. You find a lot of fun words in those big books, like “flummoxed” or “hooligan.” And for some reason, these words always stick in my head.
This random library of words has helped me ace most of the vocab tests I’ve ever encountered. I never minded, because I relished learning new meanings and even the occasional new word.
This year, however, I was rather put-off when my English teacher announced that we would be repeating last year’s vocab words. It was because of a curriculum change- probably something with Common Core- and it meant that I didn’t have to study at all.
I started to get rather annoyed as the year progressed.
The purpose of school is to learn, right? Then why would any curriculum change prevent the majority of the student body from learning new vocabulary? It didn’t make sense to me that we had to spend time every day reviewing words that my freshman teacher had taught me the year before.
I don’t blame my teachers at all, or even the administrators. I know that they’re always striving to make our education better, and in the long run, I’m sure it will work out. But right now, I feel like everyone’s time is being wasted- mine, my teacher’s, my classmates’.
By the time I’m graduated, perhaps the system will have worked itself out. Or perhaps we’ll simply be adjusting to yet another new way to learn. Whatever we’re doing, I hope that we don’t have another change we did this year.
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