For Better or Worse...

[Friday]

The floodgates have been opened, and the water ain't reversin' it's flow.

Found a site that I initially wrote off as rightest claptrap. I then started to really read what the articles were saying. Damn if they didn't make sense:

Capitalism Magazine: Education

One article:

Education Dogmas

Take something as basic as what teachers should be doing in the classroom. Should teachers be "conveyors of knowledge who enlighten their students with what they know"? Or should teachers "see themselves as facilitators of learning who enable their students to learn on their own"?

Ninety two percent of the professors of education said that teachers should be "facilitators" rather than engaging in what is today called "directed instruction" -- and what used to be called just plain teaching.

The fashionable phrase among educators today is that the teacher should not be "a sage on the stage" but "a guide on the side."

Is the 92 percent vote for the guide over the sage based on any hard evidence, any actual results? No. It has remained the prevailing dogma in schools of education during all the years when our test scores stagnated and American children have been repeatedly outperformed in international tests by children from other countries.

"Teacher as facilitator". That phrase was drummed into my head in school so often that it became an automatic part of my teaching philosophy.

But are we really doing the right thing by letting students teach themselves, only guiding their way when they falter? Is it wise to throw students into the educational arena without a solid foundation of knowledge? Why did we shift from direct instruction (a practice which is making a comeback in Special Ed) to "gently guiding" the process of learning? I think Montessori had something to do with that.

Another article:

The Phonics vs. "Whole Language" Controversy

The controversy over how to teach reading is not a narrow, technical dispute. It is a broad, philosophic disagreement, with crucial educational implications. The phonics proponents maintain that human knowledge is gained objectively, by perceiving the facts of reality and by abstracting from those facts. These proponents, therefore, teach the child directly and systematically the basic facts--the sounds that make up every word--from which the abstract knowledge of how to read can be learned.

Supporters of whole language, by contrast, believe that the acquisition of knowledge is a subjective process. Influenced by John Dewey and his philosophy of Progressive education, they believe that the child must be encouraged to follow his feelings irrespective of the facts, and to have his arbitrary "opinions" regarded as valid. On this premise, the child is told to treat the "whole word" as a primary, and to draw his conclusions without the necessity of learning the underlying facts. He is taught this--in spite of the overwhelming evidence, in theory and in practice, that phonics instruction works and whole language does not.

I was taught to read thru phonics, yet taught to teach reading by whole language. I never questioned the change, but why was there one? This could be a good reason why diagramming isn't being taught in schools. Not because of inferior teachers, but because it doesn't fit the "whole language" paradigm of instruction.

Number_6, your pet topic of "facts vs. feelings" has even permeated education, and this shocks me. I never thought about it in quite this way. No wonder I eased into teaching so readily. My personal philosophy meshed well with the educational philosophy I was being taught.

In Special Education, there is a direct instruction program called Reading Mastery. It is a phonetically based program, with heavy teacher involvement. This program was considered revolutionary, yet teachers balked about using it.

All it is is a phonics program, much like I had while learning to read. Isn't it telling that such a program is now considered unusual, now relegated to Special Education?

Why haven't I realized any of this before?

 

[Friday]

Come to think of it, I observed a Montessori preschool classroom once. The students were walking around, "discovering" the different areas of the room: manipulatives, dramatic play, library...

The teacher was overseeing the whole process, walking around the room, basically making sure no fights broke out. There was no instruction going on, just student initiated exploration.

The question I ask now is this: Preschoolers have not learned to extrapolate information from their environment. Frankly, a 4 year old does not have the developmental skills yet to initiate the critical interpretation process. He is left to the skills he does inherently own to interpret his environment, namely the ability to feel out situations. Early on, he is taught to rely on feelings, rather than his emerging capacity to think logically, and critically interpret the facts around him.

The building blocks needed for learning are now assumed to be inherent, instead of having to be taught.

Dayum...

 

[WordInterrupted]

I think the distinction between teachers as guides and as a facilitators is a false dichotomy. Being a guide and imparting a base of knowledge is necessary to facilitate self-directed learning.

 

[Friday]

I think the distinction between teachers as guides and as a facilitators is a false dichotomy. Being a guide and imparting a base of knowledge is necessary to facilitate self-directed learning.

Most teachers, however, seem to skip the "imparting the base of knowledge" part.