Education professors have damaged
generations of K-12 teachers and administrators at the Minneapolis Public
Schools and in locally centralized school districts throughout the United
States with notions rooted in the need for the education professor to survive at
universities at which other professors know so much more.
Consider these terms from the education professor’s
lexicon, followed by my comments:
One Size Fits All
This is a term of disparagement for set curriculum
delivered to all students, in the absence of consideration for individual differences,
interests, and learning styles.
Project Method
William H. Kilpatrick first popularized
this term among “progressive” educators in his 1918 book, The Project Method, in which he argued that students learn best
when engaged in holistic, life-like projects in cooperation with others in
groups.
Promise of Technology
One hears and reads in many places these
days that computers will revolution education;
technology enthusiasts view computers and other instruments as having
the capacity to provide individualized learning experiences based on the pace
of learning and interests pertinent to each particular student, ensuring universal
success.
Research has shown
This is a phrase used often by members of
the education establishment (education professors and the administrators and teachers
whom they train) to bolster claims made for favored approaches such as
portfolios, cooperative learning, and differentiated instruction.
Rote Learning
This refers to learning facts through memorization
and repetition, considered by education professors and their acolytes to be
inferior to learning in holistic, life-like experiences, and through
interaction with one’s fellows.
Self-Esteem
This became a key concern of education
professors and those whom they trained from the 1970s forward, promoting favorable
comments to students in an effort to build self-confidence and to make all
young people feel good about themselves in the world.
Teaching to the Test
Education professors and other opponents of
standardized testing frequently claim that the administration of standardized
tests narrows the curriculum and diminishes teacher creativity as practice for
looming standardized assessments limits the focus of teaching to the skills and
material that will ensure good test scores.
My Comments
One Size Fits All
One size should indeed fit all, in the
sense that all students should be taught the same abundance of knowledge and skill sets in a well-defined,
logically sequenced, grade by grade curriculum throughout the K-12 years; and just as the quantity and content of what
is learned should be the same, the quality of instruction provided to all
students should also be uniform.
Project Method
This is an adjunct, secondary mode of
learning, supplementary to more efficient methods such as reading challenging
material across the liberal, vocational, and technological arts; listening to teachers delivering lectures and
to fellow students in class discussions;
and engaging in individual research on serious academic subjects.
Promise of Technology
Advances in computer and other digital technologies
have given students rapid access to information on a wide variety of
subjects; but technology is not a
substitute for engagement with teachers and classmates, must be used wisely in
the quest for quality information, and more than ever makes an abundance of knowledge
and skill sets vital for evaluation of sources and dependability of
information.
Research has shown
Educational research varies widely as to
quality, too often conducted with small sample sizes with accompanying
extrapolations that are scientifically dubious;
educational research should be compared to findings in scientifically rigorous
studies in fields such as psychology and sociology that are published in refereed
journals scrutinized by academic experts.
Rote Learning
Memorization of factual material to the
point of automaticity makes learning more efficient, embedding great quantities
of information in the long-term memory so that new information may be acquired
more quickly and securely; memorized and
inculcated facts are important for critical analysis and encourage creative
inferences and extrapolations.
Self-Esteem
Teacher comments intended to raise a
student’s self-esteem should be genuine expressions of admiration; in the school setting, such comments should most
often be rendered for the accomplishment of an academic feat.
Teaching to the Test
All teachers should impart the knowledge and
skill sets that will be covered in well-constructed objective and standardized tests
that measure what students should know at a given grade level; this expands rather than narrows the curriculum.
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