Its aim is to penetrate and illuminate the world of educational research and theory by explaining what people who publish articles in their fields mean when they use certain words and phrases. This is seen as a first step in an ongoing effort to improve the ability of people who discuss education from strikingly different perspectives to communicate more effectively with one another, perhaps enriching their own ways of thinking in the process. First, language, like a river, is both a transmitter and a barrier. Words that have approximately the same meaning to people make it possible for them to transmit ideas to one another. Second, language, like a wellspring, bubbles ideas up from the depths of the mind.
Words do more than just provide a means for exchanging ideas with others.
Words also play an evocative role in the formation of one's own thoughts. The relationship between language and thought is tenuous and, like a bubble, impossible to grasp without something ethereal happening. Whatever the precise relationship may be between language and thought, reflecting on the language one uses in thinking is very likely to change the way one thinks. Third, like a coastline that divides land and sea, it is impossible to determine precisely the line of demarcation between the landmass of educational terminology and the ocean of words that are not part of that domain. The exact length and precise shape of a coastline depends on the height from which it is viewed.