Quincy, I highly suggest you submit this for EdWonk's carnival... This could definitely take top honors this week.
Did it about 5 PM today.
Quincy, You make some great points, but frankly, as a teacher for 11 years, I don't know _anyone_ who teaches like this, in any subject! Do you? Anyone with sense, knows you do both -- you have to give students the tools with which to build and help them make connections to the uses to which the tool can be put for their own betterment and enrichment. So I teach phonics _and_ comprehension skills _and_ an appreciation for literature _and_ encourage students to read the kinds of texts that _they_ enjoy while exposing them to ones they might not otherwise choose on their own. While I appreciate your argument, I don't see, frankly, the horrors that you rail against. Maybe in the students, but not in the teachers! Now, the real question is, if they are not getting it from us, where are they getting it from?
Erica -
I'm arguing against a theory more than a practice. Most teachers figure out what they need to do to get results pretty quickly. The problem is that the progressivist theory of education continues strong in many ed schools with, among other things, their notions of fostering creativity and free thought by never requiring students to learn anything they don't want to learn or using methods that are effective, like rote learning, because they aren't fun. My theory, based on my experiences, is that any student taught based solely on the progressive theory would end up being limited, non-creative thinkers.
I think you've hit the nail on the head on this, Quincy.
I'm a scientist - Master's in Polymer Chemistry, and Bachelor's in Chemistry, Physics, and Mechanical Engineering. If I hadn't memorized all of the basics - formulas, laws, terminology - I would never have been able to master my fields. Look it up? Please! That's an excuse for a lazy person who doesn't want to bother using their brain.
Even in music, you have to memorize notes, signatures, dynamic marks, etc. to be able to play a piece of music. What if you had to look up these every time you wanted to play something?
What if you hired a plumber to install a new hot water heater, and he had to go read an instruction manual to know how to use each of his tools, because he hadn't bothered to 'memorize' how to operate them?
No, teachers who oppose 'drill and kill' are just people who allow their own immature dislike of hard work and memorization to dictate to others. I've seen math teachers who hate
math teachers who hate math; English teachers who can't write a grammatically correct sentence; social studies teachers who know nothing about history or geography.
The desire to teach is not in and of itself a qualification to be a teacher, any more than the desire to be a dancer will automatically imbue a klutz with the grace and skill to dance 'Swam Lake'. Progressivism sounds good to a lot of people because it seems to be a way to get there without doing all the hard work.
"Progressivism sounds good to a lot of people because it seems to be a way to get there without doing all the hard work."
Excellent observations!
The tragedy is that ignorant teachers can remain so because the progressive/constructivist cult prohibits explicit instruction. Teacher mastery of a subject is therefore not needed and no demonstration of such mastery is required.
Following Erica, I would like to propose that you are beating the stuffing out of a strawman (Progressive Ed. is not "only learn what you want"! - although it can certainly be bastardized to that useless formulation. Can you provide references to any serious endorsement of this method?) Certainly my ed education up to this point has stressed the necessity of both approaches, something any sensible new teacher should figure out on their own within a few months at worst. Rather than being prohibited, explicit instruction was consistently presented as a valuable and necessary tool - just not the only tool in the kit. In fact, the overall model of teaching we learned (ie, balanced literacy) incorporates explicit instruction as a major component.
Putting aside genuine ideological issues (and they do exist), one reason for giving more time to progressive-style approaches is that they are less familiar to many people. Of course, this depends on age and place of schooling, but going
[con't] most places results in applicants with a basic familiarity with the overall shape of traditional education. It's progressive ed. that most folks need more training in (as evidenced by the confusion evident in the above description).
Aditionally, times have changed. Long ago, or so I'm told, teachers had widespread support and respect at both the social and individual levels. Nowadays we are competing with TVs and PlayStations, maybe facing students whose parents won't/can't make them work, and who might well insist that any and all problems are the teacher's fault. Some of us are facing classrooms where kids write about getting to spend time with their dad when he gets out of jail, or where violence and insecurity is all-pervasive. You yourself wrote that learning facts " gets progressively harder the less interest I have. " Presumably you don't face these distractions? One of progressive ed.'s main points is harnessing kid's natural interests (think sports
[con't] . . .think sports stats or music idols)!
Additionally, traditional ed. has its limits. Great, they memorized the dates, people, places, causes and effects of the War of 1812! However, most of them cannot use this knowledge for anything except to repeat it on a test. You've helped them how, exactly? (And this question is even more pressing now that high stakes tests are including more high level& creative thinking problems)
OBVIOUSLY you need both. Just like every other pointless, wasteful ed. strawman death match that thrills the ideologically pure but helps teachers not at all.
Also, you need teachers that are well-versed in content, curriculum, and ed. theory, so that you don't have folks rejecting progressivism (or worse, 'teaching' with it) based on such misunderstandings. Same reason (as discussed in another Carnival of Ed. post) that there's widespread problems with teachers doing Everyday Math and leaving out the math games, not realizing they are a
. . a vital part of the program.
Silliness.
It's looking pretty sharp over here!(Makes me envious.) Welcome to the EduSphere!
"Additionally, traditional ed. has its limits. Great, they memorized the dates, people, places, causes and effects of the War of 1812!"
I don't know what the writer means by "traditional" ed (since progressive/constructivist ways are the norm, they could be considered "traditional". If he means interactive, explicit instruction (what I would consider best practices), then it encompasses a whole range of intellectual activities from acquiring knowledge to developing inductive reasoning skills and so forth.
It looks like the ed schools are not doing a good job in communicating effective instructional methods.
The progressive/constructivist ed cult does indeed prohibit explicit instruction. I know this from personal experience. Also see this: http://instructivist.blogspot.co...d-to-
teach.html
The cult derisively calls explicit instruction "lecturing" or "chalk and talk" and "that's not how children learn" and what have you.
For a full response to Dan's posts, check out:
http://quincy2001.blogspot.com/2...-to-
critic.html
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