Time To Re-open The Entire Illiteracy Issue — AGAIN
For those of us who LOVE reading — for pleasure and for knowledge — these are trying times.
Already, there is an URGENT call from homeschool families who have lost homes due to wildfires. The call is for donations to help them reestablish their libraries, amongst other help needed. These are people who depend VERY MUCH on reading for education of their children. http://app.response.hslda.org/e/es.aspx?s=775692352&e=368046&elq=53daec6ba9f74bcc9f4dabf8c1b35862
Sorry, for going off tangent. I mean to very briefly talk about the significance of Sam Blumenfeld’s long life, and contribution to the field of literacy, and the sadness about his passing. http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/08/26/samuel-blumenfeld-waltham-phonics-teaching-advocate-was-conservative-writer/PtIcQDPJpk0f1Awm13StmO/story.html
Being involved as a “consumer” (parent, citizen, taxpayer) of education for over 45 years, and wondering why “the system” DID NOT WANT the consumer closely involved, my awakening to this frustrating circumstance came from reading Sam’s writings. He opened my eyes, mind and heart to the underground, the underbelly, of the public education system. Some revelations:
- The public education systems (internationally) are political, with both power and ideology agendas
- Economics and the exploitation of the field by vested interests, publishers, professors, etc. is rampant.
- Literacy, or the ability to read is not about being functionally literate to make logical sense of the world — NO, literacy has become a tool for people to become CONDITIONALLY literate to be able to change the world to one of social justice and equity.
- Etc.
Of all the reading I have done to try and find the one best source to help break “the code” of this imposed exploitation of the public — the who, why, how — Blumenfeld’s books are the snappiest, most insightful. If you can find “New Illiterates and how to keep your child from becoming one” — read it. In 1973 he had broken “the code” of how “whole-word” got started as a new reading “movement”. It was always meant to be for DEAF children who could not hear sounds. But, politically it was adopted as a method for all children, and still plagues us to this day.
PERHAPS the best starting point is to get his latest book, issued just a few months before his death — Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians Are Using Government Schools to Destroy America's Children.
Read the 30 plus reviews first and let’s read this together.
Maybe we can wrangle this beast down. Why do we still talk about one in seven, or one in four, or whatever, of our children being “functionally illiterate”.
That is unacceptable. Maybe EXIT from “the system” is really the ONLY way to avoid this issue. Hence, homeschoolers or Education Savings Accounts so parents can choose the schools they need.. Let’s talk!