Foreign Mother Tongue

I went to an "in-service" today on special education policy. In-service is term that educators use to cover a variety of sins: meetings, training, lectures, workshops, grab-ass. This one was in a cracker barrel format, which means there were four tables and four speakers. After twenty minutes the speakers rotated to different tables. So, instead of all of us listening together to each speaker (and playing with our Treo's or whatnot), we had "intimate" conversations with people from such exciting places as the Department of Education. Don't get me wrong, I love DOE people. They are very sincere and they are always looking for suggestions. At least in our state, they are not your typical bureaucrats.

However, as much as I love these people, I must say they can sling the hash when they want to. I sat in on one twenty minute conversation on what's coming down the legal pike regarding special eduation policy and law and, I swear to you, they were speaking English. However, I only understood maybe 10% of the content of the conversation. At one point I stopped listening for understanding and just basked in what it felt like to listen to English as if it were a foriegn language. I got to hear the cadence and the tones, completely devoid of meaning. I could tell by reading his body language that the speaker was desperate to get a point across. What that point was, I have no idea; it was drowned in jargon and acronyms.

If you ever get the opportunity, I highly recommend sitting in on a meeting of special education professionals and hear your language as foreigners do. Then pretend, for a moment, you are a parent of a special needs child. I'll bet you'd be scared to death and mad as hell.