Posted on 03/19/2010 12:17:20 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice
As a teenager, I heard rumors that the Russians put flouride in drinking water, presumably to wreck our minds and make us easier to control. I heard this only a few times; and I never heard of evidence. As I said, rumors.
But as I’ve researched and written about education a great deal, those rumors have come back into my thoughts. And here is what I want to report to you today: the Russians had absolutely no need to put flouride or anything else in the water. Ever since 1932, they had look-say in our public schools!
As subtle poisons go, as devices that will wreck minds and make people easier to control, look-say (also known as sight-words or Dolch words) is primo.
I was trying to figure out a way of explaining all this in a few words, and I came up with the phrase “education as neurotoxin.” It’s hard to invent a new phrase these days; but Google didn’t find it. So I wrote a column with that title (and later put it on other sites as “Bad Education Considered as Neurotoxin”).
I’m sure that mental dysfunction is a helpful way to discuss what is done to children in American public schools. But is this only a literary metaphor or more substantial than that? Well, we do have 50,000,000 functional illiterates and a million dyslexics. That’s a fact. Many of these people sincerely believe they were born “learning disabled” or “cognitively impaired.” Schools inspected them and said, “You are defective.” Many millions lived their whole lives believing this.
Of all the sins committed by the Education Establishment, forcing bogus reading methods into the public schools has to be the worst. And the first thing that needs to be fixed.
Here’s the summary with the article: “Much of American education is counter-productive and actually works to stunt and retard students. That's because progressive educators view the school as a factory for producing little cookie-cutter socialists. These educators have ended up favoring some of the worst ideas in the history of education, ideas that are best described as neurotoxic. Montessori knew better. No matter whether kids are gifted or slow, they are best served by Montessori's insight that all children develop most quickly in a challenging, cognitively enriched environment.”
“Education as Neurotoxin” http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/view/129985
Please cite your sources
Look back, I said in my COUNTY the graduation rate is 50% and that they use whole language for reading (that is what they call it not me) and it is the look-say method.
Whole language is another term for look-say. When look-say fell out of favor with parents they switched the terminology. I never said that one woman was proof of widespread illiteracy. It was the fact that she was taught with WHOLE LANGUAGE and didn’t know that the alphabet made sounds. She also graduated high school.
If you think that you can’t graduate high school without knowing how to read then you are seriously uniformed on this subject.
Again I never said that Obama’s election was a result of whole language. I was using it as a example of what happens when people don’t think for themselves. And yes indeed the election of Obama was a result of people not thinking for themselves but swallowing hook line and sinker everything that was fed to them on the evening news.
I don’t misunderstand what the Dolch list. It is a list of high frequency words that kids are taught to memorize. If they would be taught to memorize the sounds of the alphabet there would be no “need” to memorize this list. The words on the list are in the language arts program that I use to teach reading/spelling to my children. They are not taught to memorize them. They are taught to spell/read them.
I have read more than a couple of books on the subject and lots of research/articles. I have also taught several people how to read.
http://www.nrrf.org/essay_Illiteracy.html
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/LegalCenter/Story?id=4336421&page=1
Those are just a couple off of my search engine. I can’t go back and find you all the articles I have ever read.
Please note that I corrected my statement to read 1/8 illiterate and 1/8 functionally illiterate. This means that roughly 1/4 of our population can’t read and write well enough to fill out a job application or read the newspaper.
“you are seriously uniformed on this subject” Lol!
You are not uniformed you are uninformed. :)
http://www.usu.edu/teachall/text/reading/Wholelang.htm#whatis
This article will give you details of a whole language classroom. It is look-say renamed.
I am not even going to bother to respond any more to your posts on this subject. You have a mind set that does not allow for facts to get in the way.
You do not understand history. You do not understand the difference between tools and philosophies. You draw illogical conclusions. You confuse ‘look say’ and whole language ( and no they are not the same). You apparently live in a very sad county ( from the charts I would guess somewhere in Nevada).
I understand the subject quite well and cited sources. You think that you must be able to read to graduate in this country. That shows your ignorance on the subject. I understand history well. Until the early 1900’s phonics was used in this country. With the introduction of look-say, illiteracy rates became a huge problem. In an effort to change the image look-say has had many aliases. Whole language is an approach that uses look-say first, along with read alouds, guided reading, memorization of books etc etc etc. Some of those things were already being done with phonics AFTER the child had learned to read and other like memorization of books was unneeded with phonics. In whole language, phonics is discouraged and only taught on an “as needed” basis. IOW if guessing, context and pictures don’t work to help the child identify the word then the teacher will give the child a little phonics instruction.
Would you like to present you credential on the subject or offer some sources saying that what I have presented is wrong or would you like to continue with your unproven dogma?
Yes my county is very sad in the way of reading and that is why I hate whole language.
“You have a mind set that does not allow for facts to get in the way.”
What “facts” have you presented? I have seen nothing but your assertion that whole language and look-say are not the same thing. They aren’t exactly the same thing. Look-say is the “tool” that whole language classrooms use to “teach” reading. Alot of the other activities in whole language classrooms are wonderful reading activities but they do not TEACH the mechanics of reading.
In whole language classrooms, phonics is less than an afterthought, despised, misunderstood and taught incompletely and incorrectly IF it is taught at all.
Thanks for this comment. It’s almost too sad to think about.
Long March,
I want to be sure I understand your comments. RE: delusional, etc.
What is my delusion? 1) that Dolch words don’t work? 2) Or that the far-left would use an unworkable method to undermine the country? 3) Or something else?
Response: I would not be suprised if it was found that bad education caused actual neurological damage.
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