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 own comments:
Teach the child, not the subject
This is one those notions that has been
around since the 1920s, when William Heard Kilpatrick, Harold Rugg, and
education professors at Teachers College of Columbia University started their
campaign advocating an approach to education for which they appropriated the
appellation, “progressive”; teaching the
child rather than the subject focuses on the social and emotional needs of
students rather than content conventionally associated with academic curriculum.
Teach the whole child
This was the third major component of the “progressivist”
movement of the early 20th century, along with “child-centered
schooling” and “teach the child, not the subject”; teaching the whole child deemphasizes
knowledge-based curriculum in favor of an approach that gives more weight to
the social and emotional needs of the child, in the effort to produce a person
of high self-esteem and confidence in the world.
Textbook Learning
Education professors deride learning via
textbooks in particular, and books in general, favoring projects, demonstrations,
and “hands-on” learning experiences.
Thematic Learning
This approach is counterpoised to focus on
individual academic disciplines, favoring instead multi-disciplinary investigations
of themes, topics, and subjects driven by student interest.
Transmission Theory of Schooling
This is a pejorative expression in
opposition to the impartation of knowledge from teacher to student,
counterpoised to active involvement of students in projects, demonstrations,
and the compilation of portfolios.
Whole-Class Instruction
Conventional classroom presentations by a teacher
to a whole class are anathema to education professors and their acolytes, who
prefer cooperative learning, student investigations, and projects conducted
while a classroom presence known as a “guide” or “facilitator” rather than a
teacher assists students in their active learning experiences.
Whole-Language Instruction
This approach to the teaching of reading,
emphasizing engaging reading experiences with literature in the absence of
instruction in phonics and phonemic awareness, became a major mode of
instruction in many schools of the 1950s and 1960s; the assumption is that students will pick up principles
of grammar and English usage naturally as the joy of reading whole words in
engaging reading material animates and motivates the young reader.
My Comments >>>>>
Teach the child, not the subject
Teaching the child in a school setting is
primarily about the impartation of knowledge from teacher to student; the excellent teacher is a professional of
broad and deep knowledge with the pedagogical ability to impart that knowledge
to all students, necessitating sensitivity to a child’s social and emotional
needs.
Teach the whole child
The teacher’s prime professional responsibility
is to ensure that a student learns important knowledge and skill sets pertinent
to the subject matter of her or his class;
in doing this, the master teacher is keenly aware of the multiplicity of
needs that a young person has as she or he develops and grows in the school setting
and beyond.
Textbook Learning
Wide reading of material spanning the
liberal, vocational, and technological arts is central to the school experience; textbooks, other books, and direct
instruction by the teacher provide the most efficient means of accumulating
vast stores of knowledge and skill sets at the core of an excellent education.
Thematic Learning
Themes are meaningfully explored only on
the basis of strong knowledge sets that provide the factual underpinning for
contemplation, reflection, and discussion of the variety of topics considered
in an education of excellence.
Transmission Theory of Schooling
Teachers should be professionals of broad
and deep knowledge with the prime role of imparting that knowledge to students
of all demographic descriptors; transmission
of knowledge and wisdom is as central to the teacher’s responsibility as to the
role of elders across the world who pass on the cultural inheritance to young
people under their guidance.
Whole-Class Instruction
Teachers of those nations (Finland, Japan, South
Korea, Taiwan, Singapore) whose students record highest achievement on the
Program of International Student Assessment operate primarily in the mode of whole-class
instruction, the most efficient and effective pedagogical method; all other classroom activities are
secondary to the prime method of whole-class instruction.
Whole-Language Instruction
Students become excellent readers only when
they grasp the fundamentals of phonics, phonemic awareness, and the many
conventions of English and other languages;
going forth to wide reading in classic world and ethnic-specific
literature should then be a given.
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