[Speed Gibson,
Friday February 11, 2005 at 9:29pm]
It's for the Children
In case you missed "Tell me again that it's about the kids" at Craig Westover, allow me to reproduce this telling microcosm of modern education:
Why would an educator care whether method A or method B is used, particularly when one method clearly outperforms the other? Why expose yourself to ridicule, possibly at the national level as in this case? The better question is: does the isolated but unmistakable success of phonics suggest your current efforts are misguided? Obviously, but so what? What does the education establishment have invested in the "whole language" method? Let's start by following the money.
You don't need a specialized four-year degree and a professional license to teach phonics. Every parent has used this method reading bedtime stories with their young children. It's simple and it works. Not everyone can teach phonics, but the pool of those who can teach a simpler, well-defined skill will always out-number those who practice more complex, loosely defined methods. Fighting off the more "primitive" methods reduces the number of qualified applicants and therefore raises salaries.
There's another trend many have observed in K-12 education, that of trying to teach too much at one time, often at too young an age. It used to be that you'd get an overview of America - Plymouth Rock, the Colonies, the Liberty Bell, the Revolution, etc. in second grade. In fifth grade, you expanded to learn more about the Declaration, the Articles of the Confederacy, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, maybe a little on the war of 1812. In eighth grade, you were now ready to handle still more detail, like the Civil War, Reconstruction, Women's Suffrage, the Civil Rights Movement, and so on. Along the way you learn that, well, Washington and Jefferson weren't perfect in every way, but by this point you had the proper perspective. But now, Washington and Jefferson are shown as flawed from the beginning, before these young students have enough life experience to understand that every saint is also a sinner.
English has many exceptions to the general rules of pronunciation, but the general rules work more than well enough to get the young reader started. Yes, they're going to confronted later with words like bough, cough, through, and rough but we got through it and so will they. To try to teach reading one word at a time, as if they're all exceptions is tedious and obviously ineffective. And yet, by making the task more complex, and by making many students thereby need extra help, some teachers could, with the best of intentions, come away more professionally fulfilled, unaware of the consequences.
Actually, this is a very normal human trendency, one that business managers and product designers continually battle in the private sector. But in government, these natural constraints to over-thinking a problem are often absent or ineffective, especially where, as in this case, the outcome is at best a secondary concern.
So that's my theory. Simple jobs don't pay well, and seem less fulfilling. Up to now, I've resisted the urge to use more expressive rhetoric or identify political motives in the above. But the fact remains, that the students are clearly being short-changed by this stubborn, unfounded, and intentional resistance to phonics. Given the undeniable importance of reading, and given the undeniably poor results of "modern" methods, this borders on child abuse.
It's once again time to paraphrase Melvin Udall, the author - curmudgeon played by Jack Nicholson in the film As Good as it Gets. How would he characterize an educator?
"The educational tragedy in Rockford, Illinois, now making national headlines, echoes a larger tragedy. At Lewis Lemon elementary school, with a student body described by The New York Times as '80 percent nonwhite and 85 percent poor,' third graders scored near the top in statewide readings tests. Their results were bested only by students at a school for the gifted.
"How were the results achieved? Teachers used reading lessons 'heavy on drilling and repetition, that emphasize phonics--that is, learning words by sounding them out.' This approach, however, is deemed too extreme by the new school superintendent, who is phasing it out.
"In discarding success, Rockford is following the demands of the still-dominant voices in the nation's schools of education. They insist that phonics instruction be balanced with its antipode, the whole language 'method.' Because 'reading is such a complex and multifaceted activity,' explains Dr. Catherine Snow, professor of education at Harvard, 'no single method is the answer.'
"This is like saying that because eating is 'such a complex and multifaceted activity,' no single method can guide us, and that a proper diet must therefore contain a mixture of food and poison."
- Dr. Onkar Ghate of the Ayn Rand Institute
Why would an educator care whether method A or method B is used, particularly when one method clearly outperforms the other? Why expose yourself to ridicule, possibly at the national level as in this case? The better question is: does the isolated but unmistakable success of phonics suggest your current efforts are misguided? Obviously, but so what? What does the education establishment have invested in the "whole language" method? Let's start by following the money.
You don't need a specialized four-year degree and a professional license to teach phonics. Every parent has used this method reading bedtime stories with their young children. It's simple and it works. Not everyone can teach phonics, but the pool of those who can teach a simpler, well-defined skill will always out-number those who practice more complex, loosely defined methods. Fighting off the more "primitive" methods reduces the number of qualified applicants and therefore raises salaries.
There's another trend many have observed in K-12 education, that of trying to teach too much at one time, often at too young an age. It used to be that you'd get an overview of America - Plymouth Rock, the Colonies, the Liberty Bell, the Revolution, etc. in second grade. In fifth grade, you expanded to learn more about the Declaration, the Articles of the Confederacy, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, maybe a little on the war of 1812. In eighth grade, you were now ready to handle still more detail, like the Civil War, Reconstruction, Women's Suffrage, the Civil Rights Movement, and so on. Along the way you learn that, well, Washington and Jefferson weren't perfect in every way, but by this point you had the proper perspective. But now, Washington and Jefferson are shown as flawed from the beginning, before these young students have enough life experience to understand that every saint is also a sinner.
English has many exceptions to the general rules of pronunciation, but the general rules work more than well enough to get the young reader started. Yes, they're going to confronted later with words like bough, cough, through, and rough but we got through it and so will they. To try to teach reading one word at a time, as if they're all exceptions is tedious and obviously ineffective. And yet, by making the task more complex, and by making many students thereby need extra help, some teachers could, with the best of intentions, come away more professionally fulfilled, unaware of the consequences.
Actually, this is a very normal human trendency, one that business managers and product designers continually battle in the private sector. But in government, these natural constraints to over-thinking a problem are often absent or ineffective, especially where, as in this case, the outcome is at best a secondary concern.
So that's my theory. Simple jobs don't pay well, and seem less fulfilling. Up to now, I've resisted the urge to use more expressive rhetoric or identify political motives in the above. But the fact remains, that the students are clearly being short-changed by this stubborn, unfounded, and intentional resistance to phonics. Given the undeniable importance of reading, and given the undeniably poor results of "modern" methods, this borders on child abuse.
It's once again time to paraphrase Melvin Udall, the author - curmudgeon played by Jack Nicholson in the film As Good as it Gets. How would he characterize an educator?
"I'd picture a teacher. Then I'd take away reason and accountability."