Wednesday, September 26, 2018
Monday, September 24, 2018
Misreading the Reading Wars Again (and Again)
Misreading the Reading Wars Again (and Again)
Here is some incredibly bad edujournalism: Hard Words: Why aren’t kids being taught to read?
And the summary blurb beneath the title takes that to truly awful:
Scientific research has shown how children learn to read and how they should be taught. But many educators don’t know the science and, in some cases, actively resist it. As a result, millions of kids are being set up to fail.
Now, let me offer a brief rebuttal.
First, the claim that we are not teaching reading as we should is well into its twelfth decade of crisis rhetoric. But the classic example rests at mid-twentieth century: Why Johnny Can’t Read.
That blather was a lie then and it remains a lie today.
I invite you to peruse the work of a literacy educator who taught from the 1920s into the 1970s and left behind decades of scholarship: Lou LaBrant. But the short version is the reading war claim that we are failing reading instruction is a long history of false claims grounded in selling reading programs.
Now let’s be more direct about the bad journalism.
This article cites thoroughly debunked sources—the National Reading Panel (NRP) and a report from NCTQ.
The NRP was a political sham, but it also was not an endorsement of heavy phonics. Please read this unmasking by an actual literacy expert and member of the NRP, Joanne Yatvin: I Told You So! The Misinterpretation and Misuse of The National Reading Panel Report.
NCTQ is a partisan think tank exclusively committed to discrediting teacher education. Their reports, when reviewed, are deeply flawed in methodology and typically misread or misrepresent research in order to reach the only conclusion they ever reach—teacher education is a failure! (Like reading instruction, apparently, has always been.)
I offer here one example of why no NCTQ report should be cited as credible: Review of Learning about Learning: What Every New Teacher Needs to Know. (See also GUEST POST by Peter Smagorinsky: Response to the new NCTQ Teacher Prep Review.)
NCTQ lacks credibility, but the organization has learned how to manipulate the current state of press-release journalism that simply publishes whatever aggressive organizations are willing to feed journalists desperate for click bait.
As well, the article plays the usual game of misrepresenting whole language and balanced literacy. A more accurate explanation of whole language and balanced literacy exposes a really ugly reason some are so eager to trash both and endorse phonics: the former are not tied to (lucrative) reading programs, but phonics is a veritable cash cow for textbook companies and the testing industry. (Note the NRP and NCLB directly led to a textbook scandal under the Bush administration.)
Although I tire making this point, no one in literacy recommends skipping direct phonics instruction. WL and BL both stress the need for the right amount and right time for direct phonics instruction (depending on student needs) and recognize that most students eventually need rich and authentic whole reading experiences to grow as readers (not phonics rules, not phonics worksheets, not phonics tests).
Finally, however, is the real paradox.
Formal schooling has likely never taught reading well. Little of that has to do with teacher education or teacher buy in. Again, see LaBrant’s workfrom the 1920s into the 1960s and 1970s; she laments the gap between good research and practice over and over.
Of course, the key point is why are we failing our students and everything we know about teaching reading?
One powerful reason is the accountability movement grounded in standards and high-stakes tests. Reading instruction (like writing instruction) has been corrupted by the all-mighty tests.
Test reading is reductive (and lends itself to direct phonics instruction, hint-hint), but it is a pale measure of deep and authentic reading, much less any student’s eagerness to read.
Because of the accountability movement, then, and because of high-pressure textbook reading programs, we have for decades ignored a simple fact of research: the strongest indicator of reading growth in students is access to books in the home (not phonics programs).
I want to end by addressing the real scapegoat in all this—teacher education.
Full disclosure: I have been working in teacher education for 17 years, after 18 years teaching high school English in public school.
But, I am the first to admit teacher education is quite bad, technocratic, bureaucratic, and mostly mind-numbing.
Teacher education, however, is not the problem because whether or not we are teaching reading research and practices correctly is irrelevant; teacher candidates overwhelmingly report that once they are in the classroom, they are told what to do and how—what they know from teacher education is tossed out the window.
The article is not a powerful call, then, for teaching students to read. It is a standard example of really bad edujournalism.
Ironically, a bit of Googling and reading could have alleviated much of that, but I guess we are asking for too much and may want to blame teacher education and teachers for those journalists’ inability to read.
Recommended
Monday, September 17, 2018
Thursday, September 13, 2018
Critical Pedagogy with Professor Shirley Steinberg
Critical Pedagogy with Professor Shirley Steinberg #peerreviewweek @PeerRevWeek https://t.co/4wPHUAeGEM— Peter Lang Publishers (@PeterLangGroup) September 13, 2018
Climate Change Is Not Up for Debate. Why Do So Many Teachers Act Like It Is?
COMMENTARY
Climate Change Is Not Up for Debate. Why Do So Many Teachers Act Like It Is?
—Getty
We must end the war on climate change in the science classroom
September 11, 2018
Printer-Friendly
Email Article
Reprints
Comments
Is it hot enough for you? Five of the hottest years on record have occurred in the last eight years. It’s not just temperature. This summer, the Mendocino Complex Fire became the largest in recorded California history. From simple increases in temperatures to complex feedback effects on ocean currents, weather patterns, and hydrological cycles, the consequences of human-driven climate change are no longer distant theoretical threats, but the subject of near-daily headline news. And yet far too many students are still not learning about this urgent problem in their science classrooms.
The consequences of global warming shouldn’t have come as a surprise. The recognition that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere keeps our planet warm dates back to the 19th century. As early as the 1950s, scientists warned that the release of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels would increase Earth’s temperature. In 1995, the international climate science community concluded that the impact of human activities on the climate was unequivocal.
Yet many Americans do not accept the scientific consensus that the world is warming owing to human activity. According to a March 2018 survey, only 58 percent of Americans agree that global warming is mostly human-caused. Alarmingly, public opinion is sharply divided along political lines: According to the same survey, 84 percent of liberal Democrats accept that climate change is caused mostly by human activities, compared to 26 percent of conservative Republicans.
The divergence between public opinion and scientific consensus on climate change is political also in its cause—the result, at least in part, of a well-funded campaign to dispute the scientific findings and discredit the climate science community, fueled by a toxic combination of ideology, politics, and corporate self-interest. Dismayingly, the campaign to cast doubt on the scientific evidence for human-caused climate change echoes loudly in our nation’s science classrooms.
In just the past three years, the legislatures in state after state—including Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska, New Mexico, and West Virginia—have launched attacks on the treatment of climate change in state science education standards. My organization, the National Center for Science Education, has worked with local educators, scientists, and concerned citizens to successfully thwart most of these attacks. Every year, we win battle after battle—but we see little sign that the war is over.
The campaign to dispute the scientific consensus has been effective even among those who are responsible for teaching the next generation about the nature of science and evidence. In the 2014–15 academic year, NCSE and researchers at Pennsylvania State University conducted a rigorous national survey asking secondary public school science teachers a series of detailed questions about what they know, and what they teach, about climate change.
When asked, “What proportion of climate scientists think that global warming is caused mostly by human activities?” only about 40 percent of the responding teachers chose the correct answer: 81 to 100 percent. It’s not surprising then that nearly 60 percent of teachers report encouraging their students to debate the causes of climate change—a topic no more scientifically controversial than photosynthesis.
It would be unfair to blame teachers for this sorry state of affairs. The sources of information on which they rely—textbooks, state science standards, and professional development—lag behind the scientific consensus. In the NCSE/Penn State survey, 57 percent of teachers reported having received no formal instruction in climate change whatsoever; only 11 percent reported having completed one or more courses entirely focused on climate change.
Inadequate training deters teachers from presenting climate change in accordance with the scientific consensus. But so does the ideological polarization of public opinion on climate change. Many educators teach in communities where fear of conflict with their students, colleagues, or other community members is reasonable. Such concerns result in the adoption of teaching practices aimed at defusing potential conflicts that are nevertheless scientifically or pedagogically problematic.
In light of all these obstacles to teaching climate change, it’s easy to feel discouraged. But three facts offer hope for the future:
1. Science teachers are hungry for more information on climate change. Two thirds of the teachers in the NCSE/Penn State survey said that they would be interested in a professional-development course focused on climate change. As more and more states adopt the Next Generation Science Standards, which cover climate change thoroughly, science teachers will increasingly receive training on climate change, boosting their knowledge and confidence.
2. There is an abundance of available evidence. There are so many different lines of evidence for climate change, and the evidence is so clear, that it is entirely feasible to develop inquiry-based climate change lessons for any middle or high school science class: general science, biology, chemistry, physics, environmental science, or Earth science. Once science teachers have the knowledge and confidence to teach climate change, they will be able to find opportunities to do so.
3. Teaching climate change is compatible with different religious and political positions. With the help of gifted climate change communicators like Katharine Hayhoe and Kerry Emanuel, who show that it is possible to accept the science of climate change while being a devout evangelical or a firm conservative, science teachers and the general public can come to appreciate that science—and science education—isn’t partisan. In fact, there is overwhelming, if unheralded, public support for teaching about climate change.
MORE OPINION
At NCSE, we are working with teachers, scientists, and climate change communications experts to develop lessons that address the most common misconceptions about climate change by engaging directly with the relevant scientific data. Early results suggest the lessons are effective, even in communities in which acceptance of climate change is low. We are now also supporting teacher “ambassadors” who will provide local peer-to-peer training in the use of these lessons.
It can be discouraging to recognize that the scientific consensus on climate change that emerged more than 30 years ago is not yet accepted by the American public. But if we work together to help teachers learn and confidently teach the science, the next generation not only will be fully informed, but also will have gained the experience of scientific thinking and problem-solving that will help them meet the challenges they will face in a warming world.
WEB ONLY
Friday, September 7, 2018
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
School Choice and Milton Friedman
I’ve noticed conservatives & school “choice” advocates trying to rehabilitate Milton Friedman’s views on segregation for some time. I’ve spent a good bit of time studying the topic, so… 1/ @NealMcCluskey @DianeRavitch @StevenSinger3 @arpad111— Jersey Jazzman (@jerseyjazzman) September 5, 2018
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)