It’s a mistake to let teachers off the hook with excuses about how they were misled or deluded into implementing failed educational practices. After all, these people were graduates of educational programs who would have been expected as professionals to discern what was effective and legitimate practice and what wasn’t. Would you excuse a doctor who implemented quack medical practices whose bad judgment led to permanent illness or death of his patients? I don’t think so!
Dr.
You make a valid point. Indeed, wintertime (often heard on this site) wants to throw teachers in jail, etc.
But I would ask you to be lenient for these reasons:
First of all, the teachers are not nearly as smart as doctors to begin with.
Second, the people running medical schools are actually trying to do a good job, whereas the ideologues in charge of training teachers are not trying to do a good job; they are trying to turn out an indoctrinated person. This is a huge divergence.
Third, being in education is a lot like being in the Catholic Church. You are expected to follow the creed. You are expected to do what your superiors tell you to do. You are not going to find young priests telling bishops when and where they are wrong.
Fourth, K-12 education is full of dense, complex sophistries. Even the smartest people get lost in these things for weeks and months. Do you think the average teacher has any idea what constructivism is or why sight-words don’t work? I write about this stuff all the time, and I can tell you it has taken me months sometimes to see to the other side of these things.
Being a doctor is a profession. In this country, being a teacher is joining a cult, an evil cult. It should not be that way. But to an overwhelming degree it is that way. So let’s feel sympathy for teachers even as we try to coax them out of this cult.