Re:Why the Learning Styles myth spreads
by ZeroGravitas on Friday August 19, 2022 @03:32AM
(#32518388)
If your argument for doing something starts with this:
> The teachers felt like curriculum robots—and pushed back. “This seems dehumanizing, this is colonizing, this is the man telling us what to do,” says Weaver, describing their response to the approach. “So we fought tooth and nail as a teacher group to throw that out.” It was replaced in 2015 by a curriculum that emphasized rich literary experiences. “Those who wanted to fight for social justice, they figured that this new progressive way of teaching reading was the way,” he says.
Then it's a bad sign. I'm glad they don't let us get past the second paragraph before turning it into a culture war.
The Minority View in the 2000 report seems a bit less 'culture war' and more thoughtful:
> In the end, the work of the NRP is not of poor quality; it
is just unbalanced and, to some extent, irrelevant. But
because of these deficiencies, bad things will happen.
Summaries of, and sound bites about, the Panel’s
findings will be used to make policy decisions at the
national, state, and local levels. Topics that were never
investigated will be misconstrued as failed practices.
Unanswered questions will be assumed to have been
answered negatively. Unfortunately, most policymakers
and ordinary citizens will not read the full reviews. They
will not see the Panel’s explanations about why so few
topics were investigated or its judgments that the results
of research on some of the topics are inconclusive.
They will not hear the Panel’s calls for more and more
fine-tuned research. Ironically, the report that Congress
intended to be a boon to the teaching of reading will
turn out to be a further detriment.
> As an educator with more than 40 years of experience
and as the only member of the NRP who has lived a
career in elementary schools, I call upon Congress to
recognize that the Panel’s majority report does not
respond to its charge nor meet the needs of America’s
schools. In spite of the Panel’s diligent efforts and its
valuable findings on a select number of instructional
practices, we still cannot answer the first and most
central question of the charge: “What is known about
the basic processes by which children learn to read.”
We still do not know what types of instruction are
suitable for different ages and populations of children.
We still do not know the relative effectiveness of the
three models of reading as bases for instruction. We do
not even know whether the existing body of research
can answer those questions. Therefore, I ask Congress
not to take actions that will promote one philosophical
view of reading or constrain future research in the field
on the basis of the Panel’s limited and narrow set of
findings
> The teachers felt like curriculum robots—and pushed back. “This seems dehumanizing, this is colonizing, this is the man telling us what to do,” says Weaver, describing their response to the approach. “So we fought tooth and nail as a teacher group to throw that out.” It was replaced in 2015 by a curriculum that emphasized rich literary experiences. “Those who wanted to fight for social justice, they figured that this new progressive way of teaching reading was the way,” he says.
Then it's a bad sign. I'm glad they don't let us get past the second paragraph before turning it into a culture war.
The Minority View in the 2000 report seems a bit less 'culture war' and more thoughtful:
> In the end, the work of the NRP is not of poor quality; it is just unbalanced and, to some extent, irrelevant. But because of these deficiencies, bad things will happen. Summaries of, and sound bites about, the Panel’s findings will be used to make policy decisions at the national, state, and local levels. Topics that were never investigated will be misconstrued as failed practices. Unanswered questions will be assumed to have been answered negatively. Unfortunately, most policymakers and ordinary citizens will not read the full reviews. They will not see the Panel’s explanations about why so few topics were investigated or its judgments that the results of research on some of the topics are inconclusive. They will not hear the Panel’s calls for more and more fine-tuned research. Ironically, the report that Congress intended to be a boon to the teaching of reading will turn out to be a further detriment.
> As an educator with more than 40 years of experience and as the only member of the NRP who has lived a career in elementary schools, I call upon Congress to recognize that the Panel’s majority report does not respond to its charge nor meet the needs of America’s schools. In spite of the Panel’s diligent efforts and its valuable findings on a select number of instructional practices, we still cannot answer the first and most central question of the charge: “What is known about the basic processes by which children learn to read.” We still do not know what types of instruction are suitable for different ages and populations of children. We still do not know the relative effectiveness of the three models of reading as bases for instruction. We do not even know whether the existing body of research can answer those questions. Therefore, I ask Congress not to take actions that will promote one philosophical view of reading or constrain future research in the field on the basis of the Panel’s limited and narrow set of findings