CORRESPONDENCE
Correspondence SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL Lynne V. Cheney's commentary on the questionable instruction and textbooks used in schools of education was interesting—specifically the current tendency to...
...Happily for me, I had a great class of kids who loved a challenge...
...Maybe the answer is that they simply desire a classless society—everyone equally ignorant...
...Knowledge, learning, and reasoning are not easy things to acquire or impart...
...His eloquent assaults on the absurdities of the "educationists" began in the late 1970s, before I even hit elementary school...
...I finally threw in the pencil after 25 years when I had a principal ask me (after perusing my weekly fourth grade lesson plans), "Why are you spending so much time (25 minutes) on spelling and penmanship...
...ROBERT STRAUSS GREENWOOD, SC Lynne Cheney's mind is in the right place (to say nothing of her heart), and her case is a good one, but it does not dig nearly deep enough...
...Students are instructed to compile writing over time, with limited interference from the teacher, and then the compilation is graded "holistically...
...Don't blame the schools for what education I have...
...He tracks current trends in education to the 1910s, at least...
...Quite the contrary, it has been going on at least 30 years, and probably most of the century...
...Correspondence SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL Lynne V. Cheney's commentary on the questionable instruction and textbooks used in schools of education was interesting—specifically the current tendency to discount phonics ("Who Teaches the Teachers...
...I've experimented with portfolios in two separate classes of ninth graders, and the results were dismal in both cases...
...Or to the same end, do they wish to exacerbate social tensions as their contribution to undermining society as it is now constituted...
...with controlled fury...
...Regarding English, perhaps the worst methodology being heralded at the moment is the use of writing "portfolios...
...Cheney's citations give the impression that this madness is relatively recent, confined to our current decade...
...Though we were the only class in the school not using calculators, we came out the highest fourth grade in the state, with a 96 percentile...
...The war is lost...
...An additional complication lies in our culture...
...Isn't it so much easier to suggest to a child that he "discuss possible spellings with peers" than it is to actually teach him to spell...
...The more poorly its charges perform, the more money it asks for (and gets) from the public and the government...
...What sounds good in theory becomes another sad way to dumb down instruction—and what's particularly tragic is that so many teachers buy into the feel-good veneer of success in these fads...
...Ours has become a culture of convenience...
...I teach high school English, and after a decade in the classroom, I completed a Metropolitan Achievement Tests (MAT) program at a local university...
...Some will say that I admit to being raised under this insane system, and yet seem somewhat articulate...
...Could it be that they desire a permanent, illiterate underclass to prove that the "system" doesn't work and that radical social change is needed...
...GINNY YANYAR BRISTOL, RI We read Lynne Cheney's article "Who Teaches the Teachers...
...IAN HAMET ANN ARBOR, MI How right Lynne Cheney is...
...What possible motive do Regie Routman, Frank Smith, J. Richard Gentry, Kathy Short, Jerome Harste, and Constance Weaver have in promoting such a flawed education policy...
...Most everything of value that I know I have taught myself, the skill of typing being a noteworthy exception...
...My college instructors were dedicated and usually receptive to my skepticism of current teaching fads (such as discounting phonics...
...Despite this, however, I was a stumbling block in the soft path that education has become and deemed a tad too old-fashioned in my methods (I was— and proud of it...
...Children are going to have spellcheck and computers, they're not going to need either subject in the future...
...The institution of public education thrives on its own failures...
...Spelling itself is an inconvenience, too, not to mention "authoritarian...
...As a starting point, I direct the curious reader to the writings of Richard Mitchell...
...DENNIS & CAROL TRAVIS GLEN HEAD, NY...
...She also decried the fact that I refused to allow my fourth graders to use calculators for the math portion of the Metropolitan Achievement Tests— a practice that was greatly encouraged by the education establishment in order to boost math scores...
...Grade inflation is absolutely built into the portfolio system, because no conscientious teacher could hold students to tough standards when the teacher has not first provided step-by-step guidelines...
...But, as Cheney accurately remarks, the textbook material is often simplistic or just plain wrong...
...The more money it gets, the more it can grow itself...
...Aug...
...More student teachers need to challenge the information peddled to them...
...Instead of systematic attention to student progress, with attention to rhetorical effectiveness as well as grammar, I had to make ballpark judgments on helping student writers head in the right direction...
...Anything that threatens that growth and survival . . . well,you go to a National Education Association convention and suggest school choice, vouchers, or (if you're either very brave or very foolish) privatizing the entire system, and listen to them scream bloody murder...
...the most essential element missing from schools of education is debate...
...It cannot be won without a radical change of strategy...
...That which is difficult is unpopular, and that which is unpopular seems ever doomed to failure...
Vol. 4 • August 1999 • No. 46
