Professional Jargon and Education

Although I am confident that there were a number of monumental experiences in my K-12 formal and non-formal education I can not remember any instances related to literacy and language that were important to me. However, I can recall an awakening I had in my undergraduate experiences in relation to language and literacy. As a psychology major, an important emphasis was placed on language, in terms of the profession and grammatical/structural standardization. This was the first time that I realized why individuals were truly called professionals and what it means to “speak the language.” As a professional in any field, including education, which some individuals discredit, there is an extensive related vocabulary that provided exclusivity to that profession. When individuals can fluently “speak the language” or a profession using the terms provided in the discipline and communicate with other professionals then, and sometimes only then, will you be considered a professional in that field. Once seeing this, I have made it a point to work hard to not only learn content but to make it my priority to learn the language of my intended profession and I am still working to achieve professional status as an educator.