I was looking at some of the comments here from a few days ago. The following anecdote from Alisa kind of blew my mind:
…I actually had the former head of curriculum say to me, when I brought to her attention that language acquisition isn’t conceptual like math or social studies and cannot be measured the same way – non-linear, unconscious and all that, and she said, “If you love it, you can measure it.” To which I responded, “How much do you love your children? What are the metrics on that?”
She just smiled back….
The fact is that acquiring a language is an unconscious process that we cannot measure and yet I would venture to guess that well over 90% of administrators don’t know this. They don’t know the research! So, along with all the other stuff we have to do each day, we also have what I might call a professional obligation, when we see an administrator in the hallway or during a professional meeting, etc. to make that point every chance we get.