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For most of the last 100 years there have been two immutable facts in
American education. First, every year more money has been poured into the
education industry. Second, the increase of money has not made an improvement in
the educational outcomes. In fact, despite a massive influx of money over the
years many students today are doing far worse than their parent’s generation
did on less money.
This seems counter-intuitive. In our society, more money normally equals
more success. But not in education. Well, the school buildings are nicer and the
teachers are paid better. There has been an explosive increase in the number of
people in the administration building. The only thing missing is for the
students to do better, especially in relation to the increased dollars spent.
Recognizing that students are not doing better, many educators added to
their insatiable appetite for increased public funding a perchance to experiment
with educational fads. Every few years the education establishment turns itself
on its head in the name of some new fad such as Whole
Language. Then, a few years later when the academic outcomes of students
worsen, that fad is discarded and a new fad is tried.
Public education is full of well intentioned people who do not really
understand the medium. They assume teachers and students are similar. But in one
critical way they are not.
The great divide in educational achievement involves the intuitiveness of
the learner in a specific academic area. We all have things which we learn
easily and some we do not. Some can do complex math in their head while others
are not able to do even the most basic math. Those who learn easily in a
specific area are intuitive learners in that area. They are not intuitive in
every area. I suspect young Bill Gates was a computer genius but not much of a
poet.
The core problem in education is that for the most part all teachers are
intuitive in their areas of expertise. Math
teachers look exasperated as they say, “People, this is not that hard.”
Foreign language teachers say, “People, this is not that hard.” And, reading
teachers roll their eyes when they realize that some students still do not read.
The fundamental core area of academics is not math, geography, science or
civics. It is reading. Without the ability to read well, every other discipline
is almost impossible to master. We must be effective and efficient readers
before we are academically competent at anything else.
The problem is that the reading teachers are intuitive readers. They grew
up reading intuitively. Some of their students are intuitive readers. Doing what
comes naturally to the teacher works on some students, but not all students. It
does not work on non-intuitive readers.
At least half of all students are intuitive readers. The other half are
not. The national dropout rate at times approaches the same percentage of
students who are non-intuitive readers. Non-reading high school students are
very prone to drop out of school.
It is not that people are or they are not intuitive readers. It is
measured in degrees. Some students are more intuitive than others. Still, unless
taught differently non-intuitives will end up never really learning to read.
Their entire academic career will suffer and then they drop out.
The test of reading intuitiveness is fluency. Do they have to think about
reading as they read or do they just read and therefore are free to concentrate
fully on the content?
Intuitive readers can survive the fad of Whole
Language where phonemic awareness and the rules of phonics are not taught or
practiced. The non-intuitives are slaughtered by Whole
Language or any other educational fad that does not give phonemic awareness,
phonics rules and lots of practice.
Just because some students can learn does not mean that all can and will
learn. For all of the money spent on education, it may be time for someone to
say, “The Emperor has no problem reading, but many students do.”
Remember, education in America is not about the emperor, it is about the
students. |
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