Squabbles about semantics

Well… I attended that meeting to help review the curriculum for one of the projects of a big NGO. Leaving a little heavier, with much more sugar consumption.

The sugar coatings of the day: let’s see, I made sure my phone was fully charged and loaded on some data and paid the social media tax for the day. That was a bonus! I sent a lot of messages…

What else? Laptop was also fully charged (topped it up at lunch) and I was able to do some university reading whilst hiding behind my laptop; as well as respond to some emails.

Of course these lovely NGO’s look after you with snacks, sodas and a buffet lunch, wouldn’t expect anything else from this NGO culture of the north…

Then what was the thorn of the day? Well… I had already read the curriculum and discovered some pretty big gaps in the literacy component, large sections missing, particularly about the foundations of teaching reading and writing. But what did the discussions centre around?

Deliberations about semantics. Should it be the word objective or competence? Should it be phrased ‘why is communication important’ or ‘the importance of communication?’ What was supposed to be a curriculum review, to discuss how to improve a curriculum, became a 9-hour discussion about insignificant styles of presentation. Ahhhhh!

I occasionally shared my point of view, which was soon lost on a parenthesis, or the word ‘objective’ appearing again. The content was overshadowed by the small details.

Shame. But at least I got some uni study done…