A most remarkable comment showed up in a recent US News and World Report article.
The article discusses new teaching methods that identify and help students BEFORE they wind up getting labeled as special education students.
In a negative reaction to this new program, which seems to be a promising way to help kids, USN&WR quotes an education professor as saying, "Everyone's great fear is: Will the science compromise the art of teaching?"
I find that comment terribly revealing. I can't help wondering if the quote is accurate.
Real science is all about determining the truth concerning cause and effect – in this case, the best student reaction to different methods of teaching.
So this quote basically asks, “Will the truth about what is needed to meet students' educational needs be allowed to interfere with teachers doing whatever they prefer instead, regardless of whether those teacher-preferred practices work better for children?”
If this sort of philosophy is actually present in our education schools, we have been presented with some great insight into why so many kids wind up in special education while the results of solid research into what works gets discarded in favor of some sort of ill-defined teaching “art.”
Monday, July 28, 2008
Insight into the Massive Special Education Problem
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7 comments:
This sort of philosophy is INDEED present in our education (indoctrination) schools.
What you are not discussing is the sad truth that schools are no longer about teaching knowledge but are in fact about indoctrinating for social change.
“[State controlled] education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.” – Joseph Stalin
“Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924)
"[I]f you serve a child a rotten hamburger in America, federal, state, and local agencies will investigate you, summon you, close you down, whatever. But if you provide a child with a rotten education, nothing happens, except that you're liable to be given more money to do it with."
--Ronald Reagan
I don’t think the article claims that RTI can cure LD.
As I understand it, Response to Intervention is a relatively new take on an older research-based idea – early intervention.
In Kentucky, like many other states, the legal definition of a learning disability was (and I suppose still is) “a severe discrepancy between achievement and ability.” This may have been fine, as definitions go, but it created problems with our youngest students.
For example, let’s assume we have a 5-year old child who is truly learning disabled. In order for that child to qualify for specially designed instruction, he would have to show that severe discrepancy. But with our youngest children that’s hard to do because our comparison group (non-disabled children) which represents expected achievement is so young. It’s hard to get a statistically “severe” discrepancy until the kids are 7 or 8 years of age. By that time, our LD kid is three years into his educational program and is not receiving special instruction.
As I understand it, RTI hopes to prevent academic failure through early intervention.
Has the law caused some children to have been short-changed instructionally because they could not be legally identified? Certainly.
RTI hopes to correct that situation. Whether it does or not – I don’t know.
The plan is to get kids when they’re young – intervene instructionally – monitor progress closely – and watch for children who continue to have difficulty.
Students who do not respond to these interventions are more likely than students who do respond to have a biologically-based learning disability and therefore to be in need of special education. I am unclear as to how that factors into today’s legal requirements, which changed the year I retired - and not being “a Special Ed guy,” I might not be up-to-speed.
As for your question – how can anyone write something like “Will science compromise the art of teaching?” Well…I could, although I wouldn’t in this case.
There is most definitely an art to great teaching. To miss that is to view the educational process as one dimensional. It is anything but…
Just ask any parent who goes to school for a parent/teacher conference and hears test scores attributed to their child that they know are an inaccurate reflection of what he or she really knows.
Science doesn’t always produce facts and facts don’t always equal truth – at least not in the social science world.
Richard
Teachers are not taught to teach reading with the sound-sequence pattern of letters method. This is more commonly called "phonics."
Phonics is the physics of sounds that abstract letters represent and the order in which they flow. Otherwise known as language.
The educational hierarchy spent decades fighting phonics, replacing it with the look-say method. That may work fine for the deaf, and for some who are sight readers.
Until reading levels are brought up to grade level, education will continue to lag.
Phonics can be taught systematically, that is, as a course in phonics and can be incorporated into any reading program. This would probably be best for those just learning to read. It doesn't take years or decades to learn to read.
There are 44 basic sounds in English. Sixty percent of the vowels in words are short vowel sounds. Sometimes just learning those five short vowel sounds can get someone started on the path to becoming a successful reader.
Or phonics can be taught incidentally. All subject matter has its own vocabulary. Learning the pronunciation of those words is phonics. Learning the definition of words is necessary to understanding subject matter.
All teachers should have to take a course in systematic phonics. It will serve them well their whole career.
Hempy,
Yes, phonics is a necessary part of any effective instructional program.
...but your history is a little out of order.
The look-say method came first.
See Dick Run? Run Dick. Run. It's how we old-timers learned to read.
Then came phonics, and it was the most effective method of reading instruction for most (not all) kids. It gave children a method to successfully decode unknown words and build vocabulary.
In the early days of KERA, the state pushed for the abandonment of phonics in favor of the whole language method. It was a big mistake, and some of us refused to quit teaching phonics.
Now, the state has long since realized the mistake and phonics is back - althought it may be called "word attack skills," "working with words" or something similar.
Phonics instruction is a necessary component of teaching a new teacher to teach reading.
Interesting comments from all. I am on the road, so this will be brief, but some notes are too important to delay.
First, The Principal writes that the article doesn't claim RTI can cure LD. I didn't say it did. The point is that good RTI can prevent students from being labeled as students with learning disabilities when they really are not, but just are not being taught effectively.
On the issue of the statement about science, part of the issue is that far too many educators don't have enough understanding of scientific investigation to understand the issue. Ed schools do a terrible job of instructing teachers in this area. That isn't just my opinion, it is echoed by Arthur Levine, the past president of Columbia Teachers College, who has written extensively about the poor preparation of teachers, and even education researchers, to understand and benefit from good scientific investigations. However, my statement stands. If teachers continue to think that art overrides good scientific research, we are in serious trouble. That is not to say that we have nearly enough good scientifically based research, because we don't. But, when good research does exist and is still ignored, that is a major problem.
Also, RE: The Principal's later post indicating that phonics post-dates look-say, that is completely incorrect. In fact, it is centuries incorrect.
Phonics dates back thousands of years. Just do a little Googling. When Dewey and company came along, they got the notion that phonics was bad, and that led later to the look-say Dick and Jane readers. The Principal owes Hempy a tip of the hat for getting this right.
Dewey...?
Well, yes, I must confess I wasn't thinking back that far. Phonics is older than the 1950s...as is looking at whole words. There are words...constructed on a symbolic code...both "methods" are as old as the printed word.
So Hempy, here's your hat tip.
There is probably no place where the social sciences come into question so much as with indentification of children for certain programs...particularly those on the margins (Gifted - Special Education). Accurately identifying giftedness in an 8-year old is tricky business.
...same for some categories of special education, like learning disability.
But the issue with art & science isn't about dominance. In my mind, it's' a 50/50 proposition. Both are necessary, and neither is sufficient.
Richard
The Principal (Richard Day) writes:
“But the issue with art & science isn't about dominance. In my mind, it's' a 50/50 proposition. Both are necessary, and neither is sufficient.”
I agree that, at present, due to the inadequate amount of decent scientific research on education, teaching in many areas still remains an art. In this respect, however, the teaching profession now solidly trails other social research efforts by a wide margin. Related areas such as psychology and sociology are much further along in developing scientific methods to advise their endeavors, leaving education solidly in the dust.
But, an art versus a scientifically developed program isn’t a 50-50 deal. When decent science informs us about an issue, that should trump “old wives tales” based art (often read today as agenda-driven) approaches in education. Sadly, that rarely happens. I continue to be amazed and dismayed by the widely encountered situation where teachers and education professors either ignore or outright reject the results of any research, even when well-conducted, that challenges their art-oriented faith-belief system about teaching.
I encountered a fresh example of this two days ago at the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce’s annual “Economic Summit” when one of our education school professors started expounding on the great success of “Progressive” math instruction in our high schools.
Months after its release, this gentleman had yet to read the final report of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, which takes a very different position based on a hard look at the scientific evidence that is now available. What makes this report especially notable is that the past president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the organization that formerly was responsible for pushing “Progressive” math, was a member. He signed off on the findings without protest.
Still, months after the National Math Advisory Panel’s final report’s release, we have eduprofs in Kentucky who have not even started to look at this very well publicized report, but that doesn’t stop them from talking with smug self-assurance even though they are not even up to speed on the major recent research.
So long as this anti-science attitude continues to be the dominant trend in education, our kids and our economy in general are going to suffer.
As a note: For more on this, read Arthur Levine’s “Educating School Teachers” and “Educating Researchers” for an eyeful on this from the former head of one of the nation’s most highly regarded ed schools. These reports should Google right up for you if you search those titles.
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