The Power of Words

I’ve begun a campaign to eliminate two words from my company’s glossary:  training and course.  Allow me to explain.

Words have tremendous power.  They can evoke memories, visions and understandings that we writers cannot control.  Or that we can control, if we understanding this principle.

I believe that the word “training” has become too utilitarian to continue to use.  It implies that if you complete something (a class, for example), that you now have some finite bit of knowledge that you didn’t have before.  The same with the word “course”–it implies a completeness.  So if I take some training or take a course, I’m prepared to do something, right?  Not necessarily.

If we believe that learning is an on-going process and that we can always learn more, then using terminology that implies (or indicates) completion is antithetical.  And as we lean more toward using Web 2.0 technologies for learning, what does the word “course” mean anymore?

So I’m proposing that my company use “learning opportunity” instead of “training” and “course.”  This phrase, although it has more letters, more accurately describes what we’re trying to create when it comes to learning:  learner-centered, learner-driven selections of information that live in a “cloud” of information which allows learners to learn according to their own learning preferences and at a pace and depth and time they choose.  It seems limiting, if not inaccurate, to call this “training.”