I’m about 2 1/2 episodes into this podcast:
The tl;dr is that one of the predominant methodologies for teaching kids to read in use in the US is:
Short version is that millions of kids are getting early reading education that doesn’t include phonics and relies essentially on guessing what words are being used in a sentence.
And are taught to write similarly….oh, it’s OK if they can’t spell, they’ll learn that in a later grade.
Interesting. My son has dyslexia. Phonics didn’t really work for him, for many reasons. He eventually learned to read [1] by focusing on the overall shape of the word and memorizing that - exactly the way you’d learn to read if you were, say, Chinese. I believe it was harder, because the word-shape in English is not a pictogram of any sort, just an abstract shape. And according to his description, the shape changes when he goes back to re-read it. Guessing based on context is absolutely part of it too. But this is not a path anyone should choose for a kid who has other options.
[1] I believe he’d nearly given up entirely on reading, until he stumbled upon a really fun series of kids’ books, and he was so delighted he needed to keep reading. I’ve written the authors to thank them. The books that did it for him were “Bad Guys”, by Aaron Blabey, “Ninja Kid” and “Wolf Girl” by Anh Do.
I first learned about this dyslexic font because one of my children is diagnosed with dyslexia. In trying it out, I discovered that it helps me, too. It’s free and works with all my reading platforms, like Libby, Kindle, etc.
Cool, thanks. We’ll give it a whirl.
Attempting to limit what teachers can include in their lessons, and then suggesting they could be replaced by AI?
Here’s her speech:
That’s a really rich article. This part especially stood out to me. Teah8ng something like English must be so hard these days.
I teach 18 year olds who range in reading levels from preschool to college, but the majority of them are in the lower half that range. I am devastated by what AI and social media have done to them. My kids don’t think anymore. They don’t have interests. Literally, when I ask them what they’re interested in, so many of them can’t name anything for me. Even my smartest kids insist that ChatGPT is good “when used correctly.” I ask them, “How does one use it correctly then?” They can’t answer the question. They don’t have original thoughts. They just parrot back what they’ve heard in TikToks. They try to show me “information” ChatGPT gave them. I ask them, “How do you know this is true?” They move their phone closer to me for emphasis, exclaiming, “Look, it says it right here!” They cannot understand what I am asking them. It breaks my heart for them and honestly it makes it hard to continue teaching. If I were to quit, it would be because of how technology has stunted kids and how hard it’s become to reach them because of that.
I am only 30 years old. I have a long road ahead of me to retirement. But it is so hard to ask kids to learn, read, and write, when so many adults are no longer doing the work it takes to ensure they are really learning, reading, and writing. And I get it. That work has suddenly become so challenging. It’s really not fair to us. But if we’re not willing to do it, we shouldn’t be in the classroom.
This is what happens when you kowtow to the bully. They just come back for more. I hope other colleges are paying atteniton.
In case anyone doesn’t already know this: Columbia has always been the “Jewish” Ivy, the one that accepted Jewish students and professors long before the others did.
It’s like saying the Pope is anti-Catholic.
They set cunning traps for ideologues and put them in gilt cages?
And of course the Mika and Joe do not remotely push back on that bullshit. 
