Testimony of parent whose son committed suicide [1 of 4] after attending the Ark. Gov.'s School

American Family Association of Arkansas ^ | 1992 | Shelvie Cole

[Eva]

We moved out of a school district because they had a special program, called "Aiming High", which separated all the "gifted" students from the rest of the school in middle school. My son did not make the cut, even though he had been recommended for the program by his teachers.

When I went into the school to discuss the program with the principal, I contended that the program was inequitable because it offered special enrichment to the "gifted" kids that was not offered to regular students. I said that it denied the regular kids the stimulation of having brighter students in the classroom and basicly condemned the regular classes to "Aiming for mediocrasy. The principal told me that perhaps the regular
students didn't belong on a college prep track because we don't need so many college educated students, anyway.

It's called goal based education. In other words the powers that be are going to pre-determine what level of education your kid deserves based on their own stupid tests and what career path they choose for your kid. In our school district that meant that none but the gifted were aimed for college.

[Red Jones]

thanks for this thread aquinasfan; To me, americans are very foolish not to overwhelmingly require a voucher system. Every single child should have his education funded by the state taxpayers and they should all be funded equally. But the school that educates that child should be selected by the parent, not the state. The state should also not intervene into the school's functioning to dictate the curriculum or anything of that sort. This is not only necessary to restore quality to our education system, but to ensure simple civil rights.

Some people say that if we did that then muslim wahabis will have schools or that wickans or devil worshipers would have schools. The american born mainstream education professionals will do a lot more damage to america in their schools than these other small groups will do in their schools.

With vouchers we will fund a large variety of schools. There will be some that will be absolutely excellent. Those schools will be increasing their enrollment wildly as time goes on. They will also influence the other schools to follow their lead. With vouchers we can completely revolutionize the school systems and realize great improvements over time. With the current system where we give taxpayer money to these types of people highlighted on this thread we are just destroying ourselves.

[Red Jones]

thanks for this thread aquinasfan; To me, americans are very foolish not to overwhelmingly require a voucher system. Every single child should have his education funded by the state taxpayers and they should all be funded equally. But the school that educates that child should be selected by the parent, not the state. The state should also not intervene into the school's functioning to dictate the curriculum or anything of that sort. This is not only necessary to restore quality to our education system, but to ensure simple civil rights.

Some people say that if we did that then muslim wahabis will have schools or that wickans or devil worshipers would have schools. The american born mainstream education professionals will do a lot more damage to america in their schools than these other small groups will do in their schools.

With vouchers we will fund a large variety of schools. There will be some that will be absolutely excellent. Those schools will be increasing their enrollment wildly as time goes on. They will also influence the other schools to follow their lead. With vouchers we can completely revolutionize the school systems and realize great improvements over time. With the current system where we give taxpayer money to these types of people highlighted on this thread we are just destroying ourselves.

[Aquinasfan]

I had to think what a wonderful lesson this was for the young people in there who had probably consistently been told that there is no absolute truth!

Heads will roll.

[Aquinasfan]

I had to conclude that they had been instructed not to tell anyone what they were doing.

God help them, and us. Very enlightening and unfortunately, depressing.

[twigs]

Eva, you are one of the wiser parents. Although I live in a pretty good school district, all of them around here bus out kids for this program. I agree with you that all kids should get the benefit of a challenging education. This same teacher told us that somehow, once, she got ahold of the math challenge problems that the "gifted" kids worked on. She thought they were really good, so she used them for her "ordinary" kids. The "gifted" teacher went into a huff and told my teacher that she would have to devise another plan. IOW, whatever the "gifted" stduents needed to do HAD to be different from that which the "ordinary" students did.

As I sat in on many classes in our area, I was quite surprised, in this age of policital correctness, how aware teachers were between "ordinary" students and "gifted" ones. Although I'm a conservative who sees differences among people, I felt very uncomfortable at this characterization. Kids tend to live out the expectations handed to them. I only saw one teacher who expressly designed her lesson plans to mirror the advanced content of the courses she once taught at a private school. I was very impressed at the results of her class. She assured me that if you challenge any kids to think and learn, they will (there are always individual exceptions; I'm talking here about the group). Her "ordinary" students gave her the same level of results as did her prior private-school students. I think that's because she expected them to.

[Aquinasfan]

It's called goal based education. In other words the powers that be are going to pre-determine what level of education your kid deserves based on their own stupid tests and what career path they choose for your kid. In our school district that meant that none but the gifted were aimed for college.

This philosophy dates back to the origins of compulsory government education not only in America, but right back to the Prussia of the early 1800s. Fichte, the German atheistic philosopher thought it best to school the "elite" 1% in separate schools which would provide something like a classical education. Another 5% would be trained to be professionals (doctors, lawyers, etc.) The remaining 94% were to be prepared for being drones. The curriculum for these children was designed to actually diminish their intellectual abilities. Especially important was the goal of diminishing an interest in self-education. Preventing them from reading was the key. The technique to accomplish this? Whole language.

The absolutely stunning history is outlined in John Taylor Gatto's The Underground History of American Education

[twigs]

Thank you for your post. In fact, you have just given me an idea. I have to write a senior thesis in order to receive my teaching certification in English and I just chose the topic of how the Sapir-Whorf theory has influenced educational theory. [I'm assuming it has; if not, I'll have to change my focus a bit.] I hadn't thought of pursuing the area of whole language instruction, but it might be the direction to go. I'd like to know more about its history and underpinnings. I need to get Gatto's book. I've heard a lot of good things about it.

[Aquinasfan]

I need to get Gatto's book. I've heard a lot of good things about it.

I forgot to mention that the first eight chapters are available to read now on-line. Click on the link above. The chapters dealing with whole language are included in the available chapters.

Another good book for information regarding the origins of whole language is Sam Blumenfeld's "NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education." Gatto's history seems to be more extensive though.

[Aquinasfan]

I just chose the topic of how the Sapir-Whorf theory has influenced educational theory

What's that?

[Eva]

I am not sure that whole language would accomplish this goal. The sight reading method that I was taught in first grade was essentially the equivalent of whole language and actually produced a much faster, more interested reader. I realize that not all students are suited to sight reading, but those who are get a jump start on reading that sustains them all the way through college.

Did you know that dyslexics can't learn phonetic reading, and that is their main reading roadblock? So, there are two groups who benfit from sight reading, visual learners and learning disabled.

In short, there is no, one size fits all method of teaching reading. The needs of all students need to be considered and methods altered to suit. I guess what I am advocating is the old reading groups. We had planes, trains, cars and boats.

In my school district (along time ago), a classical education was the goal for everyone. Rather than condemning some to a lesser education, you had to opt out. Up to five years of Latin was offered and advanced classes were open to anyone who was interested. The school scored in the top ten in country on Iowa tests.

[twigs]

Eva, I agree with your remarks about reading. When my daughter started in Christian kindergarten, I heard some parents discussing how the public school children were learning to read faster while their children were losing interest. It always seemed to me that a combination of the two methods was the way to go. Certain words need to be memorized anyway. I also agree with you that there is no "one" ideal way to teach reading; actually to teach anything.

[twigs]

The hypothesis posits that language determines thought, that the thoughts we construct are based upon the language that we speak and the words that we use. It is the underlying premise of newspeak in Orwell's 1984. I haven't yet done much research, but what I want to do is determine if a belief in that premise has influenced educational philosophy--and methodology--in the past half-century.

[Eva]

In my opinion, phonics works best when started in pre-school, where the child is thrilled to be able to figure out one word at a time. By first grade, alot of kids will be bored by this method and be in a hurry to read more than a word at a time. Phonics also slows down the comprehension.

It seems though, that for alot of children, drawing boxes around words and using flash cards doesn't seem to work. It's hard for me to understand because all my family, myself included, are visual learners. I even have a bit of a photographic memory. I can remember times when I didn't know the answer to a test question and I could close my eyes and read it on the page of the text.

[Aquinasfan]

I am not sure that whole language would accomplish this goal. The sight reading method that I was taught in first grade was essentially the equivalent of whole language and actually produced a much faster, more interested reader. I realize that not all students are suited to sight reading, but those who are get a jump start on reading that sustains them all the way through college.

I'll condense what I read from Gatto and Blumenfeld.

Sight reading is appropriate for languages like Chinese where pictures represent words. Phonics is appropriate for languages like ours in which letters represent sounds.

"Sight reading" has been promoted by advocates for the reasons you mention –it avoids the drudgery of flashcards and learning letter sounds. The drawback is that it is a very bad paradigm for deciphering unknown words. There is no way for someone who has learned to sight read only to "sound out" previously unencountered words. The resulting frustration leads to anger, despair at reading and an association of reading with pain. This is the effect that whole language advocates like Dewey desired. His goal for youngsters was two-fold, to encourage children to work together to guess at the meaning of words and to limit the ability of the child to read, and hence learn, by himself.

There is a marked correlation between whole language instruction and declining literacy rates wherever it has forced out phonics instruction. Perhaps the most notable example is the decline in reading ability of American GI's from the 30's to the 50's and the drop in California test scores ten or twenty years ago when whole language was implemented statewide. Check out Gatto for his sources.

Did you know that dyslexics can't learn phonetic reading, and that is their main reading roadblock? So, there are two groups who benfit from sight reading, visual learners and learning disabled.

I've read the opposite. From what I've read, the "brain pattern" testing that was performed decades ago and upon which that conclusion is drawn is wrong, but has become textbook orthodoxy.

In my school district (along time ago), a classical education was the goal for everyone. Rather than condemning some to a lesser education, you had to opt out. Up to five years of Latin was offered and advanced classes were open to anyone who was interested. The school scored in the top ten in country on Iowa tests.

The history of American government education is very tangled and there are many threads running through it. On one hand you have the elitist/dumbing down vision of Horace Mann, The Columbia Teacher's College, Thorndike, and Dewey. On the other hand you have the classical approach that has its origins in grassroots American self-education and religious instruction. The origins of compulsory education in the 18th century are an incoherent mixture of Protestantism, Hegelianism, Unitarianism, socialism, social Darwinism, and psychology.

The influence of Protestantism declined linearly from the early 1900s through the Supreme Court decision banning school prayer in the mid-1960s when the schools became the exclusive domain of humanists, socialists and psychologists.

That explains why you could still receive a classical education "a long time ago."

Give Gatto a read. You won't be disappointed.

[twigs]

Very, very interesting. You've said a number of things there that I have never thought about. My daughter is a very visual learner. When in kindergarten, her teacher (a very good one too) suggested I consider a very light dose of Ritalin (I didn't). Now, at 17, she's ready to soon enter college to study art. Yet, she always relied on her phonics to read. She started k/g when she was 4. By the time she was 5, she was even more rammy. She showed signs of boredom during these young years, and when I mentioned it to her principal, he said that was an adult concept and that children didn't experience it. I knew better b/c I was seeing it.

I never thought of my learning style, but I do try to visual things to draw upon knowledge. I also try to "see" a text in my mind. Thank you. Very, very interesting!

[Aquinasfan]

Gatto and Blumenfeld both assert that a self-motivated individual can learn to read competently in 40 hours regardless of age if instructed with a phonics program.

My experience confirms this. At age four my first daughter learned to read competently (could independently handle short Dr. Seuss books) after about 30 hours of teaching (1/2 hour a day for two months) with Blumenfeld's book, Aphaphonics. My second daughter was even faster, learning in about twenty hours. But she was 4-1/2.

Both already knew their letter sounds from watching Sesame Street.

[twigs]

Thank you.

[Aquinasfan]

The hypothesis posits that language determines thought, that the thoughts we construct are based upon the language that we speak and the words that we use. It is the underlying premise of newspeak in Orwell's 1984. I haven't yet done much research, but what I want to do is determine if a belief in that premise has influenced educational philosophy--and methodology--in the past half-century.

Sounds like a great topic. You're dead on. That's why euphemisms are so important. Language doesn't directly, mechanically determine thought, but it heavily influences thought and most importantly seems to set up boundaries over which the formed mind is reluctant to cross.

The answer to the last question is a resounding yes. Gatto covers some of that territory too.