Delivery

Why has this word achieved such tenacious success in education? Otherwise intelligent and sensible teachers tell me with a straight face that they have developed a scheme of work on such-and-such and plan to 'deliver it' next term, or whenever. When challenged they usually say yes, it is a bit of a silly word, but it's become such standard usage now that they don't notice it. I used to forbid the word in my department at the BFI, except when applied to milk or stationery. I suppose it's a bit like 'workshop' - an almost equally ridiculous term when you think about what usually goes on in them. I use it often myself, despite Alexei Sayle's observation that 'anyone who uses the term "workshop" for anything other than light engineering is a prat'.

I suppose both words are part of the new no-nonsense vocabulary of Eduspeak: part of a culture in which everything is planned and foreseen, learning outcomes are reduced to simple propositions that you can look up online, and kids sit in rows facing the front, once again. 'Delivery' sounds so purposeful and unproblematic. But my husband TAS points out to me that, for something to be delivered, someone has to be at home to receive it. It is actually a transaction, not the simple one-way transmission that Eduspeak seems to assume.

Maybe it's not such an appropriate word after all. How about 'teaching'? No, of course not - it'll never catch on.