The Words We Use for "Schoolchildren"

So already, recently I have noticed several educators and elected officials using the word "scholars" instead of "students" when talking about the children they teach or set policy for in their schools and districts. 

Last Monday morning, the Boston Globe published a coronavirus-related opinion piece co-written by several members of local school committees.* It persuasively and constructively critiqued Massachusetts' not-yet-final plans for the re-opening of its public schools in September, while acknowledging the educational and social-emotional costs of keeping school doors closed, especially for some student groups. As a former Cambridge Rindge and Latin School teacher, I read the piece with special interest and enthusiasm because of my great respect and affection for two of its authors, one a CRLS graduate and the other a current CRLS history teacher.

I thought this group of school committee members got it just right and summarized it elegantly and forcefully in their concluding paragraph:  

"Our school communities deserve better than compromise in search of normalcy. They deserve real leadership and robust action in place of vague directives and abdication of responsibility. They deserve a plan that carries its own weight instead of setting it on the shoulders of underfunded, overworked school districts. Until that plan exists, we will speak — as educators and as elected officials — in defense of the students and staff in our schools."**

But what momentarily--just momentarily--distracted me from their arguments was a word in the following sentence: "We also lack what we need to plan for the educational attainment of our scholars, especially those with disabilities, those who are learning English, and those who live in poverty."** 

Several questions occurred to me as I realized "scholars" was being used as a synonym for "students":

• Had a special subset of students in our schools been designated as scholars according to some set of criteria? 
• Could and should first graders be called scholars? 
• What do we, adult educators and officials, mean by the term "scholars"--and do we have a common understanding of it? 
• How do the students in our schools understand the word "scholars," especially when hearing it applied to themselves?
• Is the term "scholars" considered preferable to the term "students" for some reason? (This might be a question I'd have the answer to if I were still teaching.)

Students? Scholars? Both?

I know: it may sound like I'm overthinking this. But just to say that when I see the term "scholars" used to describe schoolchildren ranging in age from 4 to 18, I have to wonder if it's more an aspirational term than a descriptive one. I worry when when we educators label children as something that they are not yet in order to motivate them to become that thing: in the absence of our contextualizing and discussing our deliberate use of a particular label and our transparently shepherding students toward the goal designated by it, we may inadvertently cause them to think they've already achieved that goal. More about this important topic later, since our students are all entitled to educations that make it possible for them to become scholars.

My questions sent me first to the Oxford Online Dictionary*** to understand the difference between "student" and "scholar." One Oxford archaic definition of "scholar" was "A person who is highly educated or has an aptitude for study"; another was "A student or pupil."*** Since these two definitions didn't quite overlap from my perspective, I now had some new questions:

• Are "student" and "scholar" synonyms?
• What does it mean "to study"? What kinds of learning come from studying and what kinds do not? Can scholars learn from something other than studying--for example, from playing, as many little children do?
• Are "pupil" and "student" synonyms? And therefore, by extension is "pupil" a synonym for "scholar"? Have these words become synonyms, or were they always?

At this point, I realized I better start consulting the Online Etymological Dictionary****--and I wished I'd studied Latin as well as French. But there was that word "studied" again: I had to think back to all those times I'd planted myself in front of a book or something else and tried to fill my brain with certain facts and constructs in hopes of being able to apply them in the service of knowing and doing later. Surely that wasn't the only way to learn, but it was one of the ways to learn.

So here's what I found out about "student," "scholar," and "pupil":

Scholar:  

'Old English scolere "student," from Medieval Latin scholaris, noun use of Late Latin scholaris "of a school," from Latin schola (see school (n.1)). Greek scholastes meant "one who lives at ease." The Medieval Latin word was widely borrowed (Old French escoler, French écolier, Old High German scuolari, German Schüler). The modern English word might be a Middle English reborrowing from French. Fowler points out that in British English it typically has been restricted to those who attend a school on a scholarship.'****

Student: 

'late 14c., from Old French estudiant "student, scholar, one who is studying" (Modern French étudiant), noun use of past participle of estudiier, from Medieval Latin studiare "to study," from Latin studium (see study (v.)). An Old English word for it was leorningcild "student, disciple." Student-teacher of a teacher in training working in a classroom is from 1851, American English.'****

Pupil:

'"student," late 14c., originally "orphan child, ward," from Old French pupille (14c.) and directly from Latin pupillus (fem. pupilla) "orphan child, ward, minor," diminutive of pupus "boy" (fem. pupa "girl"), probably related to puer "child," probably from a suffixed form of PIE root *pau- (1) "few, little." Meaning "disciple, student" first recorded 1560s. Related: Pupillary.'****

The following thoughts arose for me from these etymologies:

The 2016 Kimbrough Scholars

• If "scholars" is a word we choose to use simply to mean "children of all ages learning in schools," our decision can be justified by the above etymologies. However, if we choose to use it only as a synonym for "students," we may undervalue its potential to motivate students to become scholars--and we do want them to become novice or apprentice scholars as a result of their K-12 journeys. 

That means we too need "real leadership and robust action in place of vague directives." And if those are already there, please let me know. Only with the support of parents and the community, and with strong curricular leadership in place, will K-12 educators be able to support all students in developing the inquiry, literacy, and performance skills; the senses of self; the habits of mind; the work ethic and commitment; the interpersonal communication skills; and the flexible knowledge that purposeful scholarship requires. Furthermore, the district will have to ensure that students have sufficient and varied authentic opportunities to further develop as scholars. The CRLS Kimbrough Scholars Program provided such an opportunity for a group of students for several years.

• Given the "leorningcild" part of the etymology of "student," there's a sense that those who are students can learn from others who already have the knowledge and skill they are in the process of developing. So there is a place for listening and learning from adults. Though much classroom education has rightfully empowered and encouraged students to express themselves, to make their voices and truths heard, the students in those classrooms, in the name of scholarship and mutual understanding, must engage others' perspectives, voices, and truths.
  

• The "'orphan child, ward" part of the the etymology of "pupil," took me aback.***** From it, I grasped the feeling of expulsion from home that might accompany the home-to-school transition of our youngest schoolchildren--and understood that learners definitively become "pupils" when school is the place they do their learning, under the supervision of people who aren't family members. Several of my elementary teacher colleagues refer to their students as "my babies"--I'm guessing this comforts their very young students who are much experiencing themselves as "pupils"--hopefully in far more cheerful classrooms than the one depicted here.

So what should we call schoolchildren when we aren't calling them "schoolchildren"? I'm going to recommend we call them "students", not "scholars." Aspiration is terribly important for both teachers and students. But aspiration without teeth--aspirations without plans and methods for realizing aspiration--won't amount to scholarship. Students always know when the emperor isn't wearing any clothes.

So what can we do to help our students merit being called "scholars"? 

First, we can move away from curriculum that emphasizes student skills at the expense of other educational areas. The framework offered by Gholdy Muhammad in Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy ******  focuses on four areas:

• "Identity Development—Helping youth to make sense of themselves and others
• Skill Development— Developing proficiencies across the academic disciplines
• Intellectual Development—Gaining knowledge and becoming smarter
• Criticality—Learning and developing the ability to read texts (including print and social contexts) to understand power, equity, and anti-oppression"*******

Please note that skills development is only one component of this framework that also insists that students be supported

• to explore and understand the self-of-the-moment each of them brings to any kind of inquiry into themselves, others, the worlds closest to them, and the worlds farthest from them; 
• to recognize, develop, and pursue the knowledge that's important, meaningful, and interesting to them; and
• to sharpen their capacities to recognize forces, behaviors, and dynamics that do or could threaten their and others' abilities to live free, empowered, and respected--so they can respond effectively for the sakes of themselves and others.

Skills may be essential for scholarship, but they're not sufficient for scholarship.

Second, we can create assessment tools and opportunities that encourage and reward student persistence, growth, inquiry, reflection, performance, and risk. One possibility might be student portfolios built over students' secondary careers in which they represent those moments and experiences that they and their parents, teachers, and mentors recognize and associate with their successful development of their scholarly capacities.

So yes, let's call our students "scholars"--but only when they understand that their learning behaviors have earned them that designation. It's a perilous moment for sure as we wait to see how much of our students' learning lives will need to be online. And, of course, I know there's much more important stuff to worry about than the distinctions that I'm drawing here. Still, however the school year plays out, we owe it to our students to be as honest with them as we are encouraging and optimistic.

I have a friend who always introduces me as a "singer" because I've sung in choral groups throughout my life. I am a very respectable amateur singer, but I always correct her, explaining to those present,"I sing, but I'm really not a singer." Frankly, I don't work hard enough at singing in an ongoing, disciplined way to call myself a singer--which isn't to say that I don't work at it at all. I want to reserve terms like "singer" and "scholar" for those who really do the hard, dedicated work I associate with both, and with the wonderful results I also associate with both. When we educators call our students scholars, I want them to glow with a sense of achievement and growth that both they and we recognize and applaud.

* Screen shot of web page version of Wilson, A., Read, L., Lipsett, A., Foss, C., Young, R., & Mosca, L. (2020, July 20). The plan to reopen Mass. schools compromises too much and provides too little. Boston Globe. Retrieved from https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/07/20/opinion/plan-reopen-mass-schools-compromises-too-much-provides-too-little/
** Wilson, A., Read, L., Lipsett, A., Foss, C., Young, R., & Mosca, L. (2020, July 20). The plan to reopen Mass. schools compromises too much and provides too little. Boston Globe. Retrieved from https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/07/20/opinion/plan-reopen-mass-schools-compromises-too-much-provides-too-little/
*** Oxford lexicographers. (2020). Definitions, meanings, synonyms, and grammar by Oxford dictionary on Lexico.com. Retrieved July 26, 2020, from https://www.lexico.com/

**** Harper, D. (2020). Online etymology dictionary: ORIGIN, history and meaning of English words. Retrieved July 26, 2020, from https://www.etymonline.com/ 
***** Photo from the New York Public Library included in the following blog:

McCarthy, E. (2016, January 7). 11 Ways School Was Different in the 1800s [Web log post]. Retrieved July 26, 2020, from https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/58705/11-ways-school-was-different-1800s  

****** You can listen to her Muhammad discuss this framework in this video entitled "Abolitionist Teaching and the Future of Our Schools."
******* These words are quoted directly from the Amazon web site.