Posted on 09/03/2012 6:21:00 PM PDT by BruceDeitrickPrice
Warning, this article contains superlatives and extreme statements. How should we teach the young? I believe everyone should be passionate about the answers. The country’s fate depends on it.
Over the years I often heard the name John Saxon but knew for sure only that his books were popular among homeschoolers. I was under the impression that he wrote his books for them. Not true. He wrote his books for every kid stuck in a classroom.
I’ve just finished “John Saxon’s Story: a genius of common sense in math education,” an excellent biography by Nakonia Hayes. It is a smart, judicious book with 340 pages. It is not a potboiler, not really a page-turner. But it tells the life story of a totally remarkable man. I think it’s correct to say that John Saxon is the greatest American educator of the last hundred years. He is unique in our history. If you want to understand the wreck that is American public education, read this book. If you are a teacher or parent hoping to defeat the treachery in the school system, read this book.
John Saxon--almost by accident, in a second career following 27 distinguished years in the Air Force--became a millionaire as writer and publisher. His books and his methods were that good. Oh, how the Education Establishment hated him for this. If the playing field had been level, I assure you Saxon would have been a billionaire. He would be to education and publishing what Steve Jobs is to computers.
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(Excerpt) Read more at rightsidenews.com ...
I am writing this going through the Saxon series for the third time,
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Gee! I thought I was the only one who did this for **fun**!
We should form a secret club with special decoder rings. :-)
bookBUMPjaquie-amy/matt-
I’m not familiar with “Common Core” math since I’ve been retired for quite a while, but I don’t like the word “common”-sounds like a diminished program to me.
Saxon Algebra, Saxon Phonics....anything educational is this John Saxon. He wrote or co-wrote about 12 books.
Niki Hayes and others are now engaged in a project to keep the name and legend alive. I’ll be helping.
Her site is saxonmathwarrior.com.
They are the exact opposite of each other.
Saxon taught incrementally, with mastery.
Reform Math (12 kinds) teaches chaotically, with no mastery.
Thank you. Seems every few years they have to change from whole language to this or that and won’t stick with anything that actually works. Saxon would be definite improvement over all the failures of the last 30-40 years in education. Start small and get the groundwork in their little heads and then there is nothing stopping them . . . except a little thing called teacher UNIONS.
Thanks for this excellent commentary.
Here’s something else that occurred to me while reading the biography. Each of the dozen Reform Math books (e.g. Everyday Math) has 10-20 authors. So that’s about 200 professors with their snouts in the trough. That buys a lot of compliance, and a lot of disdain for Saxon, even though he’s the one doing a good job.
Shibumi,
Gatto and Saxon may be a tough fit. Saxon was a basic, basics, basics guy— with love and cleverness but plenty of sweat.
Gatto is very popular with Education Revolution, where people celebrate ALTERNATIVE ED, any sort of school that lets kids loose. (It’s all a little too hippie for me.) Maybe good for highly motivated kids.
But don’t most kids want structure? Don’t they want to see their own progress? Saxon caters to these desires.
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