“Sight word instruction and lack of effort have contributed to a crippled generation of readers. Pedagogical malpractice.”
Don’t think, FOR A MOMENT, that it’s not intentional, at least at the upper levels, where the decisions are made. They know what works, but their prime motivation is to simply bring this country down, or at least white America down, a notch or two. And what better way to do that than to delay them learning to read or learning math, as long as possible.
They own education, and yet WE still still feed them our kids. I’ve given up on this country, and even my fellow conservatives, after the way I was treated by them when I told them that even their ‘wonderful’ public schools sucked. The only people who did listen were immigrants, as they came from countries with much better education systems than ours, and so had something to compare us to. The rest...they’re clueless, but they sure know how to live in nice houses!
That is probably true for some.
But I think most actually believe their own BS.
Part of it is a "follow the money" mess. Read Rudolph Flesch.
In addition to the money scam, we have generations of teachers and professors in teachers' colleges who now really believe that teaching reading is complicated and needs only professionals to teach it.
One of my best friends, formerly chairman of our school board was a retired mechanical engineer, former B-24 bombardier-navigator who has been involved in the development of a LOT of things that are well know by everyone.
Another of my best friends was the assistant superintendent of our school district, a retired Special Forces ops colonel who is fluent in several languages, has doctorates in education and economics.
He's also been in the middle of a lot of events that have been in the news.
He also was in a Harvard think tank on the teaching of reading.
He came to our district, seeking a small school system where he could "give back", with a huge sacrifice in pay compared to what he could have gotten elsewhere.
He was hoping in that manner to be able to work at improving the system.
We had many "discussions" over the teaching of reading in our district, but the idea of using phonics just wasn't getting anywhere with the assist. super.
Despite his high intelligence and education he was (and is) a complete klutz with computers.
Ernie (engineer) and I were constantly bailing him out of the messes he created.
Ernie and I were both self taught from the old Fortran and DOS days, having just read the books and figured it out.
One day, in frustration, Ernie exploded at him, and asked him, why don't you just read the instructions?
He said he had to be taught everything in a class as he couldn't understand it.
Ernie responded (approximately) of course not, you weren't taught phonics and the words are foreign to you.
He finally "got it" about phonics and realized the "think tanks" were completely wrong in their ideas on the teaching of reading.
BTW, Ernie died last year at 98 years.
I'll give you a quote from him that has nothing to do with this, but will stick with you forever.
"The natural perversity if inanimate objects".
Think about that the next time you have to untangle a mess of electrical cords, a curled up hose, a mess of tools, etc.