“I was so pleased to not see the word “rigor” in this post. After hearing Alfie Kohn tell a story about a parent’s desire for rigor, I too looked up the word. Semantics can be temporarily forgiven but not perpetuated with a clear conscience!”
In the classroom, I use a great tool, Visual Thesaurus, that webs words in a fascinating way. Each day I receive emails from them that highlight a word and we take a look at some of the words in our class morning meeting. One day the word was “rigor” and I felt that I had to look out for the misguided adults who might use it around the students. To protect those adults, I explained to students that what I think that teachers, parents, and school leaders usually mean when they say “rigor” is learning that is inspirational, challenging, and stimulating. And yet, I suspect that students continue to have a sense that when we say “rigor” we really mean “RIGOR”. Considering many components of school, I am sympathetic to their perception.
Also consider this connection that popped up as I input “rigor” in http://www.visualthesaurus.com…
Images are screen shots captured 3/20/11 of http://www.visualthesaurus.com, which I like so much I have subscribed to it for the year.