And I thought getting duct taped to a chair for fidgeting was bad. Thatâs appalling.
âThe new assessment will evaluate educators on three main aspects: knowledge of the U.S. Constitution, âunderstanding of American exceptionalismâ and âgrasp of fundamental biological differences between boys and girls,â according to a news release about the new assessment.â
Petition to refer to the ADL as the KDLâŚ
Kapo, obviously.
Two words for the ADL, since they seem to have lost the meaning:
Never Again.
Harvardâs center for conservative scholarship is just⌠harvard.
True, but we all know that the Trumpists want the Charles Lindbergh Center of âConcerned Moderatesâ, and anything less is too liberal.
Yeah⌠the HItler center for ethnic studies maybe⌠
Josef Mengele Memorial Center for Medical Research?
Larry Nasser center for pediatric medicine
FTFY. God, i hate this timeline.
[âŚ]
According to the Chronicle article, Freeman said, âWe are in danger of producing an educated proletariat. ⌠Thatâs dynamite! We have to be selective on who we allow [to go to college].â
âIf not,â Freeman continued, âwe will have a large number of highly trained and unemployed people.â Freeman also said â taking a highly idiosyncratic perspective on the cause of fascism ââthatâs what happened in Germany. I saw it happen.â
[âŚ]
Interesting take. I never realised the SA was a gang of intellectuals.
Can someone more informed on reading education tell me if this is a good thing or a bad thing?
https://missouriindependent.com/2025/07/11/missouri-lawmakers-ban-controversial-reading-instruction-model-as-primary-method/
I remember hearing this podcast a while ago about the whole language approach that was popular for a while and how people now believe it contributed to the problem of lower literacy ratesâŚ
I think that three-cueing is an aspect of whole language or the basis of it? I think there are other reasons why literacy rates are dropping, but this does seem like a real part of the problem and going with a more scientifically grounded approach would help?
Ok, thanks. Itâs just not a subject Iâm well informed on, so I donât know whether to applaud my legislature or be mad about it, lol.
From that article:
Harper went to a professional development day at one of the districtâs lowest-performing elementary schools. The teachers were talking about how kids should attack words in a story. When a child came to a word he didnât know, the teacher would tell him to look at the picture and guess. The most important thing was for the child to understand the meaning of the story, not the exact words on the page. So, if a kid came to the word âhorseâ and said âhouse,â the teacher would say itâs wrong. But, Harper said, âif the kid said âpony,â itâd be right because pony and horse mean the same thing.â
Harper was shocked. First of all, pony and horse donât mean the same thing. Second, the idea that you look at pictures and guess when you donât know a word seemed odd to her. âI wouldnât have been able to use that strategy at the secondary level,â she said. There were no pictures in the books her high school students read.
The teachers described their approach to reading instruction as âbalanced literacy.â Harper didnât quite know what that meant, but her colleague Jodi Frankelli had heard lots about balanced literacy. Frankelli was the districtâs new supervisor of early learning. Though her teaching experience and training were in the upper grades, too, sheâd been a principal at one of Bethlehemâs elementary schools. She said it hadnât been completely clear to her what balanced literacy was. The main idea seemed to be: Give kids lots of good books, and with some guidance and enough practice, they become readers. âWe never looked at brain research,â she said. âWe had never, ever looked at it. Never.â
My God, they were just winging it. And maybe using a technique they couldnât even define and werenât even sure what it entailed. You know, I donât really remember learning to read, but Iâm pretty sure my elementary school wasnât just winging it like this. Did a generation just forget how to teach reading?
Yeah, itâs kind of wild how they thought that this would work to help kids learn how to read. I think they were influenced by spoken language acquisition, which is generally speaking for many kids, seamless. We just pick it up by being immersed in it. But of course, writing isnât that old, and historically, not everyone read (I guess there is a theory that the earliest readers/writers were shamens or mystics of any community and writing was seen as a sacred thing - I think Alan Moore has talked about that?). Weâre certainly all capable of learning to read and write, but itâs not innate in the same way talking is, and I think these folks just⌠conflated the two since they are both about human communication? The podcast got a bit into how the method developed, and it seemed like a lot of⌠lazy thinking maybe⌠or hopeful thinking? But they are two different skills, and one is more⌠natural, than the other? If that makes sense?