To Understand the Perniciousness of the Notions Proffered by Earl "Sook" Holbridge, Review This Article

On Wednesday, 1 June 2016, another opinion piece appeared in the  Star Tribune that espoused the same vacuous approach to education foisted on future teachers by professors in departments, schools, and colleges of education.  Offered as an article touting a school that putatively operates according to principles dramatically different from those of the public schools, the author (Earl "Sook" Williams, in "Students Stuck in a Dysfunctional System," Star Tribune Opinion Pages, 1 June 2016), in fact demonstrates just how pernicious is the Constructivist philosophy of education professors that devalues knowledge in a charade that purports to advance critical thinking and lifelong learning as the chief principles of K-12 education.


In fact, knowledge must be at the core of an excellent education.  Critical analysis and a true lifelong love of learning depend on amassing a great deal of knowledge in the course of one's K-12 experiences.  Intellectual laziness and a great probability of knowledge deficiency on the part of Ted Kolderie, Dane Smith, Robert Wehl, Jay Haugen, Jeff Ronneburg---  and Earl "Sook" Holdridge in fact drive them to present their vacuous ideas in the name of reform.


I will most likely eventually address Holdridge's notions and claims directly, but for a sense of just how harmful are his feel-good shibboleths, please review the following article, previously posted on this blog on 9 March of this very year 2016 >>>>>


"Excellent Education Is Defined by Student Mastery of Commonly Shared Knowledge---  and, Thus, Beware the Acolytes of Ted Kolderie"


In their article, “The Way to Design Schools So That All Can Succeed” (Star Tribune, March 7, 2016), Robert Wehl, Jay Haugen, and Jeff Ronneburg tout bad ideas that are consistent with those espoused by professors in our terrible departments, colleges, and schools of education; and that emanate directly from Ted Kolderie, whose vapid notions often appear on these pages. They should be recognized for their vacuity as a guide to the overhaul of K-12 education.


First consider the meaning of an excellent education and what actually prevents our students from receiving the education that should be theirs as human beings in community with others.


Excellent education is a matter of excellent teachers imparting well-defined knowledge and skill sets in the liberal, industrial, and technological arts to students of all demographic descriptors in grade by grade sequence throughout the K-12 years.


An excellent teacher is a professional of broad and deep knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge to all students.


When our K-12 students go across the stage at graduation, their brains should be alive with commonly shared knowledge that is their human inheritance. From their K-5 years forward, all students should especially gain a bevy of information in mathematics, natural science, history, economics, literature, English usage, the fine arts, and world languages. From the middle school years (grades 6-8) forward, student knowledge and skill sets should include those pertinent to industrial arts such as plumbing, auto mechanics, carpentry, electrical circuitry, and construction; and those germane to the use and application of computer and electronic technology.


But for at least four decades, professors in departments, schools, and colleges of education have espoused a “constructivist” approach to learning that focuses on immediate student interest in the context of that person’s individual life experiences. Education professors devalue knowledge as defined by well-defined, sequentially learned, commonly shared knowledge and skill sets. One can always look up that sort of knowledge, they say, with the help of classroom presences functioning as information “facilitators,” rather than as true teachers.


These same education professors give us K-5 teachers whose programs are the least rigorous on college and university campuses; such teachers have very little subject area knowledge. Prospective teachers at grades 6-12 do get bachelor’s degrees in legitimate disciplines; but the standards for licensure are low, and the system is rigged to impel them toward master’s degrees in education, rather than in the subject areas that they teach. Education departments, schools, and colleges are “cash cows” for universities.


Thus it is that education professors promote the shibboleths of “critical thinking” and “life-long learning” that actually act in tandem as a smokescreen for teaching our students very little:


Students have little knowledge, for example, as to how the Federal Reserve System works; why people do what they do according to Sigmund Freud, B. F. Skinner, and Abraham Maslow; the doctrinal and cultural difference between Shi’ite and Sunni Islam; what Reconstruction was and why it failed; how the dramatic phrasings of August Wilson soar to Shakespearean heights ; and how Einstein’s calculations pertinent to the universe challenge the earthbound laws of Newtonian physics.


This is the context in which readers should reject the ruminations of Wedl, Haugen, and Ronneburg. Their references to “customized student learning,” flexible rather than universal standards, multiple measure assessments rather than objective testing, empowered teachers, and autonomous school sites are verbal constructions that resonate pleasantly in many ears but echo the insipid pronouncements of education professors.


We need not less, but more centralization, of the sort that has made students in South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Germany, and Finland the most knowledgeable in the world. We need commonly shared knowledge bases that will give all students lives of cultural enrichment, professional satisfaction, and civic preparation. We must have objective testing, which is the fairest and most dependable way to measure student learning. We need universally well-trained teachers able to impart vital knowledge and skill sets to all students. And we need locally centralized school systems that must be surrogates for national centralization in a nation fixated on local control.


In this age of cybernetic friends communicating in physical isolation and alienated people perpetrating violence on their fellows, know that we need informed citizens interacting in the context of community.


Know that the fanciful ruminations of Ted Kolderie acolytes cannot give our students what they need in commonly shared knowledge, skill, and sense of community.


Know, most importantly, that only via commonly shared knowledge, skill, and sense of community can students go forth to thrive both as individually fulfilled human beings and as citizens responsible for the good of all humanity.