Waking Dream
January, 2005
Professor Plum has had An Insight. At first he thought it
was a touch of gastroenteritis, brought on by eating two pounds of boiled
shrimp (on sale at Harris Teeter--that’s right, Teeter--for 3.99/lb). But no. An Insight.
“What the heck are you talking about, if anything?”
demands the Inquisitive Reader.
Well, it’s like this…
Professor Plum has been trying vainly to figure out
what’s the story with Edland. Consider some puzzling
features that require figuring out.
1. The core words in the argot of Edland
(Edubabble), by which Edlanders
conduct business (of transforming their words into countless materials,
programs, and activities), are meaningless. They have no empirical
referent; you look but nothing is there.
Learning styles. [No such thing.]
Multiple intelligences. [Another word for talents.]
Holistic. [Whatever you want it to mean.]
Naturalistic. [Like bark or mud.]
Authentic. ["Goodnight Moon" not
Moby Dick.]
Child-centered. [Yadda
yadda.]
Knowledge construction. [Stupidity construction.]
Engaged. [Married.]
Meaningful. [Piffle.]
Standard. [A big mystery.]
Criterion. [An enigma.]
Objective. [See benchmark.]
Benchmark [See objective.]
Integrated. [Means nothing.]
Seamless. [Like a tube sock.]
Demonstrate. [Ain't it great.]
Research. [Scribbling.]
Innovation. [100 years old.]
Initiative. [See innovation.]
Rubric. [Rhubarb.]
Evidence. [Anything at all will do.]
Brain-based. [Liver-based.]
All flapdoodle. Egregious piffle. Higher-order bilge.
2. Words that DO have objective meaning--that is,
something IS there that two or more observers can see and agree upon--are
shunned in Edland.
Systematic instruction.
Explicit instruction.
Distributed practice.
Skill elements.
Integration of elements into routines.
Mastery.
Error correction.
Forms of knowledge (e.g., concepts and rules are defined
by their logical structure).
Communication formats (routine sequences for
communicating/teaching concepts, rules, and strategies).
3. Curricula (e.g., whole language, fuzzy math,
multicultural social studies), instructional methods (heterogeneous grouping,
sustained silent reading, cooperative math groups), assessment methods
(portfolios), teacher training programs, etc., are put forward (e.g., by
education schools and state agencies) and are adopted by schools, without any
field testing. These are maintained in the absence of any hard data that they
work. They are even sustained in the presence of hard data that they do NOT
work.
4. Curricula (e.g., direct instruction reading, math, and
science), instructional methods (direct, focused teaching; temporary
homogeneous skill groups), and assessment methods (mastery tests) are either
not adopted or are abandoned in the presence of hard data showing that they ARE
effective AND DO move children in the direction of school, district, or state
mission statements.
5. Incessant activity at state, district, and local
levels, and in schools of education (e.g., planning new programs; “aligning”
every aspect of a program with “standards”; writing reports; hosting
conferences, workshops and all manner of “professional development”) has
absolutely NO effect on the quality of teacher preparation or student
achievement.
6. Enormous amounts of money are spent (e.g., by schools
of education) to boost and celebrate Edland's
"significant contributions to society," but nary a penny is spent
actually to improve the skills of persons in impoverished areas, single
parents, or persons forced to change careers.
7. After more than a century, Edland
still has not defined in a clear way what beneficent outcomes it will provide
(e.g., exactly what teachers will be able to do and exactly what students will
learn) in exchange for billions of bucks given to it every year.
Puzzling? You bet!
"Puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those
ills we have, Than fly to others we known not of.."
[Hamlet.]
Professor Plum thought he had a handle on it when he
proposed that Edlanders are simply the laziest people
on earth.
Or were prating asses who needed
to get slapped hard and often.
Or that Edland was best
understood as a political phenomenon--a powerful establishment controlling
everything from ideas to classroom actions.
Or that Edland could be seen as
an enormous pageant of fleeting images.
Or that Edlanders are idiots.
Indeed.
But something happened in class tonight that shocked
Professor Plum from his stylish black rayon shirt (14.99 at T.J. Maxx) down to his midnight blue socks. [I know. They don’t
match. But I got boots on.]
“Oh, what was it? What WAS it?” implores the
Excitement-Deprived Reader.
Well, it was a class in
In addition, we are gradually working up a set of
procedures these future teachers can use to improve reading skills when they
don't have a whole remedial program such as Corrective Reading.
Now, I know that many kids in middle and high school
place into Corrective Reading Decoding level A--the lowest level--which is
about at a FIRST grade level. So, I began to write on the board the specific
early reading skills the class would have to know how to teach--phonemic
awareness, letter-sound correspondence, sounding out words. All stuff I’ve
blabbed about here before to the dismay and heartache of many Valiant Readers.
If students in the class do not have Corrective Reading
materials, they will need SCRIPTS for teaching the basic skills. So, my
colleague and I were planning to teach the class to design the scripts. And
then IT HIT ME! The book "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons"
would do the job.
So, I ran (or, to be more precise, I sauntered to my office
in a decorous fashion, as is my wont) and grabbed (or picked up) one of my many
copies of “100 easy lessons.” Lo, and also behold, our students could use this
book to TEACH (and follow the insanity closely here) THE BASIC READING SKILLS
TO MIDDLE AND HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS.
Yes, it would work perfectly! A book MEANT to teach FIVE year
old kids would be JUST the ticket for students 12 to 18! After from
Just what kind of thing IS this? You have to work really
hard to keep kids THAT ignorant.
You know those dreams where you are trying to run and it
is soooo hard and you are pulling yourself along the
ground by your fingernails? And you wake up soaking wet--from sweat I mean? No?
Well I have them fairly often. I must be working like a dog in the dream,
and I’m getting nowhere.
And that’s the answer.
Edland is a waking dream.
A “matrix” reality where everyone is dreaming they are awake and all the
dreamers are co-producing the collective dream.
Yes, the materials and activities and endless
“conversations” in Edland are real enough. But dreams
need a material foundation--dreamers and beds and blankets to trap your legs. Just as dreamers in “the matrix” needed a material world to sustain
their dream state.
The dreamy imagery of life-long learners, the airy talk
of seamless curricula and authentic experiences, the empty standards and
rubrics and mission statements--all these are kept alive and are communicated
and are continually reified at the conferences, during the endless
meetings, in the yearly reports, in the syllabi, and in the journals.
The dreamers are not always asleep. As soon as
they leave the building and start their car, the OTHER reality--everyday
life--is operative. Where you don’t want your physician to construct
knowledge--but just plain KNOW what ails you. Where you buy a
car only AFTER you look it up in Consumer Reports. Where turning the
steering wheel to the right makes the car turn to the right--in a law like
fashion.
But next day, when they see that familiar building (bed)
and hear the continuous soothing sonorous lullaby (“We are initiating a new
program to foster a closer alignment of our rubric with the standards…”) they
immediately fall asleep and contribute to the collective dreaming.
And the dreamers will never wake up. Nothing (so
far) can shake them from images and dream-communities that are so comforting
and so protecting.
I think the best thing to do is steal their pants and
chain the doors shut so they can't get out.