I think we have a bad habit of stripping the fun/soul/grit/funkiness out of cool ideas as we transform them into “education-ese.” For example: Many, many, many teachers, schools and districts use “performance labels” for rubrics and report cards. Even the term “performance labels” is darn unsexy and antiseptic, but I want to focus on the labels themselves.

In my district, 4 level rubrics are common, and the elementary school report card uses four grade levels (side note: I love our elementary school report card in general, and some day, we will wise up and implement a similar report card in middle and high school).

1 = “beginning” or “does not meet district standards”

2 = “emerging” or “approaches but does not yet meet district standards”

3 = “proficient” or “meets district standards”

4 = “advanced” or “exceeds district standards”

Can’t you just hear the students now? “Oh Hooray! I’m … proficient? Seriously? I worked THAT hard, and the best you can come up with to describe me is ‘proficient’?”

Compare those labels with this poster (from @Meffscience on Twitter)

You’re not “proficient” kids – you’re a Jedi!

or this one:

(side note #2: I think I’d like to change the above example and really go for the “medieval” theme – maybe “Novice, Apprectice, Journeyman, Teacher”?)

Why not use “fun” terms with students? When else can we do this? What other “edu-babble” terms could we throw out in favor of some terms with some more life in them?