Over at the AJC, their bloggin' schools' apologist has had an epiphany: readin' don't just happen and it ain't like catchin' a cold. The decades old pedagogical orthodoxy was based on osmosis, the notion that by simply watching someone else read, or even having someone, particularly for a photo-op, read to you then magically those capabilities will transfer to you. As if our schools (which means teachers, admins, teachers of teachers, and yes, media apologists) have adopted a monkey-see-monkey-do approach. It has its advantages. For them. They offload responsibility for their inability to teach even basic reading skills, and NAEP has diligently reported these failures, onto parents claiming "there just ain't 'nuff readin' goin' on at home." And they still take credit for that third of students who are teacher-proof and will become proficient at reading, even though, as we all now know, this happens at home.
The techniques (modalities?) that work require effort. On the part of the student who must actually spend significant time practicing and on the part of the teacher who must intercede, correcting any mistakes. These are the kind of draconian tactics Sister Mary Vattaveist used back i the day. Effectiveness not withstanding, that just ain't the way learning gets done these days. Of course the NAEP reports that not much learning is going on anyway.
Maybe the problem is systemic lack of domain expertise. Given how long this failed pedagogy has been in effect it is very likely we have the illiterati "leading" in the classroom and school offices. How can someone who never encountered the teaching of reading in their own life ever figure out how to teach our children? Especially if they cannot even read about it.
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