Which Other Professional Besides A Teacher Would Say That?
Only in education would you hear someone say — “Teaching is such that it takes a lifetime to get good at it and then you retire.” John Myers, Professor, on Educhatter blog, Mar 26, 2016
No doctor, engineer or accountant would say that ! Nor, would they be allowed to remain in their profession for long! To use your clientele and your field continually as subjects of experimentation and a playpen for your own learning is really upsetting and disturbing. Is this a responsible profession or a “disabling” one as Ivan Illich used to say and write about ? Why do we have to appeal to a Daniel Willingham to sort this out — aren’t there professional and ethical standards in education?
It’s only in education that there is some kind of accepted (or is it somehow intimidated) tolerance that educators can have so many excuses to avoid proven standard practices. “Methods” is a bad word to use in conversations with teachers — “Don’t tell me how to teach. I don’t tell my doctor how to take out my appendix.” — is a frequent (or variant) reply when a parent dares mention “methods”.
Where we’re at right now is very much where we were 45 years ago when I tried to get parent voice more heard. There actually was a much greater awareness then and a good number of groups supporting the parent voice. Unfortunately and regrettably, not so much now. All I was able to accomplish was to play a role in the launching of the home education movement — https://gaither.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/john-holts-conversion-to-home-education/
Discredited and questionable practices and developmentally inappropriate expectations of the young are still practiced and parent qualms are still dismissed. And parents are still stuck with few choices or exits or any sympathetic listeners in the defensive system.
Both Reading and Math are considered foundational skills that the young student should start mastering at an early stage. Where are we at with these two? Math is a continual worry and news articles continue to expose the issues.
Regarding Reading there is a worry of colossal scale! At an international conference on comparative education held in Vancouver recently (CIES, Mar 6-10,’16) at one of the sessions it was announced that after considerable testing an initiative would soon be launched by UN and other agencies to help developing countries with reading programs. BUT, within the literature there lurks one sentence that dooms the enterprise:
“The reading “wars” are alive and well in many low-income countries, often miring ministries of education and teaching centers in seemingly endless debates between the “whole-language” and “phonics-based” approaches.” (pg 4 Early Grade Reading Assessment Toolkit)
What should be done? Those poor families will not be getting the best information or practices to help their children to read as promised.
[Most of the above is also posted to Educhatter blog ]