This is a crisis we'd better get a handle on before it's too late -- if it isn't already!
The author outlines how public schools cause many children to become functionally illiterate for the rest of their lives.
Anything to do with “WHY JOHNNY CAN’T READ” from fifty years ago?
Many of the teachers are themselves somewhat functionally illiterate. They must be if they believe the BS of 'Common Core' and "New Math" that issues from the political class. What chance do the children have?
The capacity of the young brain to learn, absorb, and become interested in stuff is practically boundless. For adults, who have a narrow field of vision and become invested and then overinvested in whatever goofball theory appeals to them that day to dictate what young kids should learn is criminal.
Nobody EVER died from learning multiplication tables or the alphabet. Once again, as we see in so many areas, the intellectual theorists are the destroyers.
Dead on accurate. It’s taken about a half century for edu schools and their arrogant, ignorant, edd (Educ. Doctors) spawn to take America’s K12 education from No 1 to 25 in most areas.
Our universities don’t allow edd’s anywhere near their curricula development.
There is no good substitute for a stable family, with mom and dad teaching pre-school kids to read, write and cipher.
It’s wierd isn’t it. We actually know how to teach children to read, do math, etc. and have known for centuries. Yet the theorists are constantly trying, badly, to re-invent the wheel.
The result. The very top, most accomplished students are incredibly capable. The rest just do what they're told.
Another thought....when I was younger, learning how to outline something, starting with the Roman Numerals for main ideas, was a very big deal. That seems to have disappeared as a learning activity. That's a shame. It trained ones mind to filter what's least and most important about an issue.
JMHO
I taught my own kids to read and to memorize basic math facts. We had tutors for advanced math. One was home schooled for a time and the other spent summers doing real school.
Public school is quite destructive, socially and intellectually.
I didn’t teach my children to read. I taught them the letters of the alphabet and their phonetic equivalents, and they proceeded to teach themselves to read.
We homeschooled our 8 kids and I have said a hundred times that it is easier to teach your child to read than to teach him/her to do the dishes. When our automatic dishwasher broke it actually helped because they could not load or unload or inspect properly. Teaching them to read was fun and easy by comparison. I always loved it when they first read John 1 to me.
Sounds like Common Core
Pretty good article overall, except for the well-worn canard about Ritalin. Ritalin does not turn kids into zombies. I will say that there is probably some overdiagnosis/misdiagnosis of ADD, and I could be persuaded to support not prescribing ADD medications until 7th or 8th grade except in extenuating circumstances.
That said, most kids who get diagnosed as ADD are brighter than average, and often can read better than their peers. I was diagnosed as ADD in high school after struggling for years, and put on Ritalin, and the difference was astounding.
This is a crisis we'd better get a handle on before it's too late -- if it isn't already!
Teaching worked when I was a kid. All these academics have ruined education.
Thousands of charter school, magnet schools, etc., and kids are worse off now than before.
A dumb and ignorant constituency are a politicians best friend, as those are the people most easily controlled as they believe whatever crap politicians dish up. For your entertainment hand a Wall street Journal to most high school grads including many adults as well and ask them to read a chapter or two and you be amazed of the shudder and stammer. Not to mention if and when some one has to write a resume for a job application, as good many aren’t even capable of putting a few sentences together, let alone spelling.
Thought you might enjoy this one