What Do We Mean by That?

“We all know that writing a book blurb requires one to say positive things about said book. Just to be clear, that is NOT what’s going on in this endorsement. In What Do We Mean by That?, Laura Rychly has collected a jewel box of short essays, each of which troubles a common phrase in education discourse. Every one is a gem, glittering with provocative insights that refract new light on familiar expressions: community, friend, self-care, happiness, etc. To cite just one example, Sadie Gray’s chapter explains that 'doing it for the kids' as teaching’s main reward actually commodifies and dehumanizes young people even as it justifies inadequate compensation for educators. All the essays sparked cognitive dissonance, changing the way I understand conversations about schools. Honestly, I’m feeling a bit tongue-tied.”

Isabel Nuñez, Dean and Professor, School of Education, Purdue University Fort Wayne

“In this exhilarating volume, Laura Rychly, an amazing arising young scholar in the U.S. South, and a group of courageous and invigorating thinkers and practitioner scholars illuminate their power of refusing oppressive mandates and exercising creative agencies and languages, which compel authors and readers to enact meaningful and just change in schools, neighborhoods, and communities with their shared purposes and efforts to make impossible possible in an increasingly contested and vulnerable world.”

Ming Fang He, Professor of Curriculum Studies, Georgia Southern University

“Rychly’s edited collection, What Do We Mean By That? Interrogating Familiar Expressions in Education, offers a critical examination of those ideas and expressions that we often utilize when talking about our students, education, and schooling. Wide reaching and comprehensive, this collection of chapters provides a unique opportunity to examine how agency can be divulged through our use of language and the ways in which we might explore this awareness of power and positioning in our teaching. Focusing on a myriad of educational settings and disciplines, Rychly’s text offers readers much to contemplate with regard to our words and dialogue. In short, this collection reminds us that words, in fact, do matter.”

Rebecca G. Harper, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Literacy, Augusta University

“An insightful and revolutionary reading that makes a call to action for a truly inclusive education system that challenges the very foundation upon which educational policies and practices have been built offering a compelling vision for the future of education that prioritizes creativity as a cornerstone of learning and empowers students to realize their full potential as innovative thinkers and agents of change. It empowers educators to break free from the shackles of self-doubt and embrace a new paradigm of possibility. It offers insight and inspiration for building a more equitable and empowering educational landscape.”

Yaimara Diaz Vazquez, Former student of Dr. Rychly, High School Spanish Teacher, Ed.S. Student, Augusta University

“This work is an important intervention that accessibly illustrates the complex and multi-faceted relationship between language and power. Each chapter offers compelling insight into the ways that terms and phrases frequently used in educational settings can reinforce social hierarchies and existing power structures, particularly when they are taken for granted. This collection is a great resource for engaging current and future teachers in critically examining familiar educational expressions and understanding how much words really do matter.”

Julie C. Garlen (she/her), Ed.D., Director, Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies Professor, Childhood and Youth Studies

Acknowledgments

Introduction

ONE: Academic Language and Historic Linguicism
Leah Panther and Katherine A. Perrotta

TWO: Prior Knowledge
Linda Hogg

THREE: “Just Be Creative!”
Jeff McLaughlin

FOUR: What Do We Truly Mean by Learning Loss?
Samantha Harrienger and Kevin Cataldo

FIVE: My Kids Can’t Do That!
Janel Janiczek Smith and Robyn Ovrick

SIX: “The Community.” What Is It Exactly?
Racheal M. Banda Rothrock

SEVEN: Are We Really Friends? Examining Early Childhood Education’s (ECE’s) (Mis)Use of the Term
Charlene Montaño Nolan, Carolyn Brennan, and Kira Reklai

EIGHT: What Do We Mean by “Parent Involvement”? Rethinking Home-School Connections
Anne Valauri

NINE: The Right and the Responsibility: The Paradox of “Self-Care” for Teachers and Educators
Jennifer Lawson and Mary-Elizabeth Vaquer

TEN: Apparently, “Good Teachers” Are Superhuman: Decoding Rhetoric That Perpetuates the “Good Teacher” Ideology
Toni Bailey

ELEVEN: Do It for the Kids: A Philosophy of Celebration and Coercion
Sadie Gray

TWELVE: On Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: What Do You Mean by That?
Julia A. Lynch, Amy Swain, and Monisha Atkinson

THIRTEEN: I Don’t See Color. I Just See My Students.
Megan Paulk

FOURTEEN: A Sticker Does Not A “Safe Space” Make, But You Can Affirm LGBTQ+ People Through Action
Peggy Shannon-Baker

FIFTEEN: Interrogating the Digital Divide – Panacea or Panic in the Classroom?
Andrea Arce-Trigatti, Dorota Silber-Furman, S. Luke Anderson, and Hannah Willis

SIXTEEN: “I Just Want My Child To Be Happy”: Examining What We Really Mean by That in the Field of Education Using a Simple Framework for Identifying and Dismantling White Supremacist Patriarchal (WSP) Ideology in Schools and Society
Jeanine M. Staples-Dixon

About the Authors

Index

Laura Rychly

Laura Rychly (Ed.D., Georgia Southern University in Curriculum Studies) is an Associate Professor of Curriculum Studies at Augusta University in Augusta, Georgia. Her research interests revolve around ways to improve life in classrooms for teachers and students. This has taken the form of theorizing about teacher and learner agency, accountability to language, and improvisational theater in middle schools. A former middle school language arts teacher, she is especially committed to studying and sharing ways young adolescents interpret their schooling experiences and what they internalize as a result of the interactions they share with peers and adults in these contexts.