I guess I'm in full "it's hot" grump/scold mode after this morning's entry about the foolishness of "defenders of the status quo" lingo, though now that I think of it, I'm wondering if that's a new superhero grouping: The League of Justice, the Defenders of the Status Quo, the Champions of Overcooked BBQ, etc. But to be fair to all, I should note that's far from the only overused, historically wince-worthy phrase. To pick another example using the term traditional pedagogy or traditional instruction is also intellectually lazy, because criticisms of recitation-based (or rote-memorization) instruction harken back to 18th-century Swiss writer Johann Pestalozzi, who in turn was used by object-method advocates in the 19th century U.S., by "pedagogical progressives" 100-125 years ago, and so forth. The object method, Francis Parker's approach at Cook County Normal School (and later the University of Chicago Lab School), and any and all descendants are now well over two centuries old in genealogy. So what counts as traditional if not criticism of rote instruction as hide-bound? Or, in the words of the wonderful British writers Jonathan Lynn and Anthony Jay,
Sir Humphrey: It’s the way things have been done for two and a half centuries.
Jim Hacker: Is that the clinching argument?
Sir Humphrey: It has been for two and a half centuries.
Bernard Woolley: With respect, Sir Humphrey, it can’t have been the clinching argument for two and a half centuries, because half a century ago it had only been the clinching argument for two centuries, and a century ago only for one and a half centuries, and one and a half…
From "The Grand Design," one of the earlier Yes, Prime Minister episodes