One issue that came up near the end of the CEE Summit is our name, the "Conference on English Education." Is that the name that will carry us into the future? I know from discussions I've had with members over the years that some think it doesn't adequately reflect our focus on teacher education, some think it's not inviting to those who work at the elementary level (where the term "language arts" is more common), some think the word "English" carries with it a tinge of "English-only," and some think to lose "English" would be to lose our connection to English departments. A few years ago NCTE had a discussion about changing the NCTE name. They/we ended up leaving the name the same--National Council of Teachers of English--but the tag line that now follows--"A Professional Association of Educators in English Studies, Literacy, and Language Arts"--was added. (At least I think that's how it happened.)
So what do you think about CEE as a name for the organization? Change it or keep it the same or . . . ?
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4 comments:
I'm more inclined to go with English Language Arts.
The Conference on English Language Arts might be a bit strange but I've always liked the arts part to it.
One option I heard was ELATE (English Language Arts Teacher Educators).
I've always found the word "Conference" a bit problematic. I would like us to consider removing that from our name.
Also, particularly given our discussion over last weekend about our focus on preparing secondary English teachers, I suggest that we include the word secondary. For example, something like "Organization of Secondary English Teacher Educators" or, Teacher Educators for Secondary English teachers"
The term "Conference" is an artifact of the NCTE governance structure (Conference on English Education, Conference on College Composition and Communication) but the Whole Language Umbrella is also a conference, so I don't think we'd need to keep that word.
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