Again, let’s look at it from a medical standpoint.
Suppose you are a doctor and you have a patient coming in who is obese, smokes two packs a day, has a family genetic history of cancer and various hereditary diseases, has an A1C of 6.5, and drinks heavily…but policies say that* “You should not refer to such patients as being ‘at-risk’ for cancer, diabetes or heart disease, because we have found that patients who are labeled ‘at-risk’ tend to develop such health conditions quite rapidly after being given that label. You need to say that such a patient is ‘at-promise’ for a healthy body and healthy life.” *
Wouldn’t you say this is putting the cart before the horse, and also, that soft-pedaling the danger of the medical situation is itself dangerous?
O won’t worry about not understanding you since you’re not interested in writing clearly or disambiguating. Your false dichotomy between “opinion” and “something that can be established absolutely” is ridiculous.
Well, this is kind of interesting (although I agree it’s not a great analogy). I want to highlight one part of your hypothetical: “we have found that patients patients who are labeled ‘at-risk’ tend to develop such health conditions quite rapidly after being given that label”.
It seems obvious to me that if we did a double-blind test in which the only difference between two sets of patients was that one group were addressed using a particular term, and the use of that term in fact caused an increase in health conditions compared to the group not called that term, that we would stop using the term. Right?
Obviously there is no known medical way this could happen, but if the data told us it was in fact happening wouldn’t we change the words doctors used? Wouldn’t it be negligent of us not to? And if we have social science data showing a particular terminology is harmful compared to either not using any grouping terms or using less negatively colored ones, what does your analogy tell us we should do?
I think the more apt analogy (if you really need to use this one) is:
A kid walks into a hospital and you tell him he has type two diabetes and “at-risk” for a heart attack before his 30th birthday. THEN the data tells you that kids with type two diabetes are dying at an alarming rate before their 30th birthday, due to heart attack…
He must simply be “at-promise” for that heart attack
Except it’s really not more accurate. You are positing that the “true cause” of the heart attack is the Diabetes (which in a medical setting it probably is).
But the “true cause” of kid’s failing in school is myriad. And we have some evidence that one of those causes can be them being labelled as “at-risk” just because they come from a home where a parent, for example, lost a job. Or got divorced. Or any of the other categories that fall under “at-risk” so helpfully pointed out by Manda JO.
I think that is the primary source of confusion here. You hear “at-risk” and you think that there is something innate to the kid that makes them more likely to fail (like the disease in the medical analogy). But there is some evidence that, at least for some categories that full under the “at-risk” label (ESL, in particular), grouping kids under a label that carries a not-inconsiderable amount of stigma (see some of that in this thread, where some seem to think that at-risk only applies to gang bangers).
Are you suggesting that the self-esteem of the patient has as large a consequence for his health outcomes as the self-esteem of students does for educational outcomes?
Yes, kids are sometimes told they are at risk. Other kids can become aware of the grouping as well. And of course educators and administrators know.
Whether it is an administrative title depends on district policy. Some districts likely only use it to apply for state funding (i.e. they may identify “at-risk” students when applying for state money but wouldn’t use it in the school itself). Or perhaps for mandatory demographic reports to state education organizations. Others may use it for special programs access.
The effect of the terminology on the student is only part of the issue as well. Teachers react differently to students they have been told are “at risk”, and that reaction has an impact. Administrators may treat “at risk” kids differently when dealing with discipline issues.
In the end I believe euphemisms can be dangerous, or at best unhelpful. What does “at-risk” tell us if it is combining things like poverty with ESL? Wouldn’t it be preferable to tailor our programs to specific students, treating them all as potential learners that have unique situations that need to be addressed? How is “at-risk student” better than “student that speaks Spanish at home”? How is “at-risk student” better than “student with paraplegia”?
Which is why ultimately I don’t really support the bill in question because it just replaces one euphemism with another one. My hope is that the replacement euphemism is so unwieldy and awkward that nobody uses it other than as required for getting grant money and we can just call students students.
You are right of course, “at-risk” was a shorthand version to put all pegs into the same hole, regardless of shape ….
Why?
I can hazard a guess. It came with increased funding, and who demanded that? If the answer is administration, or politicians, then this is even more stupid and takes me right back to where I started. PC 1 is mad at PC 2.
"At-risk" isn’t a euphemism. It’s a literal description. It was the result of studies determining which factors contributed to students being at-risk of not graduating from high school. Full stop. That’s what it means. The intent was to identify them early and provide targeted support. It’s like a business figuring out which factors make a customer unlikely to return, so they can target them for marketing. The goal is getting them to graduation.
People who think only “problem” kids drop out have basically retroactively turned this very objective, boring term into something with negative connotations–they are assuming that “at-risk” kids are “bad” kids, everyone knows this, and bleeding heart educators are the ones who refused to just state the obvious. But it never meant that.
I feel it’s a moot point, since most people, if they’re hearing they’re at high-risk for something, are going to want to stop doing those associated destructive behaviors. Probably most won’t ACTUALLY make changes, but I feel more people would make changes, even slight ones, rather than get all huffy about being called ‘at risk’ that they get substantially worse.
I know we live in a time where a lot of people want to take offense at things as mundane as a doctor saying they’re obese, but I still feel MOST people aren’t going to get all pissy about it.
You used “I feel” three times in two paragraphs. I’m not sure what the basis is for your feelings.
To the extent that you’re talking about the thread, you’re suggesting that children will engage in fewer risky behaviors upon hearing that the adults around them consider them at risk for non-graduation. To say the least, I feel quite the opposite.
You are right. But it is being used as a euphemism. It is being used as shorthand or a milder term (even in this thread) for “bad kids”. And that is what has been internalized into the students, and even some faculty.
Agreed. So what do you do when a “boring” term has become a label? I guess you could try to return the term to its original meaning, but that seems impossible with the way language works. Another approach is to try to replace the term with something else (like this law is doing). But that just leads to the “euphemism treadmill”.
I honestly don’t know what the answer is, but it seems to me that if using a term is causing harm we should try to find a way to correct it.
I agree with what you are saying. My point is just that the people that are upset about this term don’t even understand what it was ever intended to mean, so lecturing professionals about how they are “condescending” to students if they refuse to use it is a bit rich.
I mean, the problem is the underlying fundamental attribution error. Unsuccessful kids are inherently different, and nothing will change that–so any term that isn’t an outright slur is euphemistic.
I dunno if this happens at older grades, but I sometimes have students who will proudly declare, “It’s not cold outside!” when it’s below freezing, or “The lines look parallel to me!” when we’re looking at an optical illusion, as though they’re so tough/clear-eyed that cold weather and optical illusions HAVE NO EFFECT ON THEM.
When someone claims that they’re unaffected by the expectations of others, they sound a bit like children claiming they’re unaffected by optical illusions.