Education

Back in '88, '89, the research was clear. Teach phonics. Teach vocabulary. Read to students to expand vocabulary.

30 years later we had the same crap I flopped at in the late '60s--"whole word." Because it was considered less old fashioned and more "progressive." It's a good deal--phonology is constructed by the individual brain, so you need a minimum vocab to figure out how your L1 works, and most "phonemic awareness" programs teach and test phonics and vocabulary but say, "We're [ falsely ] claiming to teach phonemic awareness." Because that's what the useless education schools teach to teach.

Still, you put kids under pressure to learn and bore them with no distractions, they mostly figured it out. I learned how to read between second and third grades when my father helped me read some ridiculous story about an anthropomorphized family of brown bears, I saw there was a whole saga for this family, and he got me book after book. Given my engaged efforts during that one summer vacation I went from low-tracked 2nd grade with a C- average to having my 3rd grade teacher and test results suggest I could skip 4th grade ... Nixed by "au courant with the latest thinking/best practices" counselors who said it would hurt my psycho-social development by depriving me of my (non-existent) friends. Idjits to a cell.

Speaking of cells, now that's a problem. I'm thinking tomorrow every student that I see on a cell phone gets written up after they fail their open-note/closed phone vocabulary pop quiz over what was presented today. (Each word was highlighted, pointed out, identified as testable and to be noted. Near end of class, I went back over each word they needed to know twice. Kids who get pissed if I say, "I'm busy, give me a minute" can flip me the bird for 40 minutes and be pissed off when I say, "Why are you talking over me--be quiet." "I'm not talking." Self-centered "I have the right social views, I'm green!" or self-righteous JROTC assholes. Let the kid who fell asleep sleep ... woke him up as his lunch period ended. "Oops. Get to class." "But I missed lunch?" "Not my problem. Get to class or be marked absent and get a robo-call saying you were truant. Don't fall asleep.&quot

Cellgen. Faraday bags for all. Or make all rooms into Faraday cages.

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