The New York Post’s editorial board leveled an accusation of harm on the recently dissolved Columbia Teachers College. The Board contends that the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, under the direction of Lucy Calkins and backed by an endowment in the $Billions, “failed to foster the building of knowledge and vocabulary vital to learning the love of reading” (18 Sept 2023). * In its criticism of Calkins and company, the Post’s editors say that Columbia pushed programs in reading that were based on ideology, not science, thus failing the “children who most needed help.” The editors also said the Columbia approach had diminished the value of phonics.
But what can anyone expect of a bastion of liberalism like Columbia? Didn’t they have an “ideal” educational system to propagate? So what if the methodology had no scientific evidence of its efficacy. They thought of it. So, shouldn’t it work? Look how many schools adopted it in New York and throughout the nation. Look at the fawning disciples in the flock of educators who abandoned other methods to adopt Columbia’s. Surely, there’s evidence in numbers.
OBE
The abandonment—finally—of a failed system in reading reminds me of another such failed system, one that absorbed the nation for a number of years (and maybe still lingers here and there). Called Outcomes Based Education (OBE), the system required students to retake tests regardless of their personal scores if the class as a whole did not achieve an average 70% grade on those tests. Yep. “A-students” had to retake tests because other students didn’t do well. Noting like lumping everyone together to foster excellence, right?
Like the Columbia approach, the OBE approach had no evidence of its effectiveness save a single limited study that itself lacked thoroughness and rerunning. In the instance of the OBE programs that swept through educators in various teaching universities, simpleminded adoption became a lucrative avocation. “Go out to spread the Word, my children, and school district superintendents will advocate for you at school board meetings and pay you as consultants.” They did, and they did. In the application of the the program, however, teachers encountered the unforeseen effects when they discovered a major flaw: Students who threatened classmates: “Hey, I didn’t study for this test, so you better not make a good grade.” It happened. “No joke,” as POTUS is fond of saying.
What Does It Take to Become an Educator?
One might ask how educators can buy into so many failed educational systems. The answer lies in the mass-produced teacher population. Whereas engineers might have to take more than 130 credits to acquire their degrees, most teachers reach the B.A. or B.S. with just 120 credits. And among those teacher-education credits there’s little emphasis on epistemology and the scientific method. There’s usually only one course in developmental psychology, and there’s virtually nothing about neuroscience, linguistics, economics, political philosophy, and the history of western knowledge.** Instead, there are courses in “presentation,” which amount to turning on some visual aid machine and showing a slide show, now called a digital slideshow (e.g., PowerPoint). Methodology, not substance, is the focus in many teacher-education curricula. Don’t ask a recent education graduate to fare well on Jeopardy.
And that has left us a with generations of teachers who follow rather than think critically. That might be one of the reasons that teachers’ unions vote as a “block” and support the party that makes the most promises and ingrains itself the most deeply in the union leaders’ minds. And since those in the ranks rise to become the principals and superintendents, no one can expect critical thinking from the majority of them—though there are many great principals and superintendents leading school districts in spite of the overall trend.
But Teachers Have Herculean Tasks
In a country that provides free education to everyone, teachers have a very hard soil to plow. Overcrowded classes and disinterested parents contribute to their hardships that have, with the loss of discipline led to chronically deficient inner city schools. And the task of teachers is made even more difficult by the forced insertion of ineffective educational methods.
That Columbia had an inordinate influence over reading and writing programs shouldn’t surprise anyone. Universities are expected to be “cutting-edge” by the masses. If an ivy League school can produce famous thinkers, writers, and scientists, why should it not also produce great educators?
A late colleague of mine whose life experiences included playing professional baseball to the AAA level and serving as a member of the Peace Corps in Africa, returned to education to complete his M.A. at Northwestern U. But before he entered that degree program, he attended Columbia, hoping to learn from the some of the more famous literary scholars of the time. He transferred to Northwestern, however, because in his first semester at Columbia, a famous professor gave the opening lecture and then disappeared as graduate students held all the succeeding classes. Apparently, the nitty-gritty of lecturing and pursuing critical exchanges with students were not his cup of tea. And apparently, also, the program initiated by Calkins operated similarly, that is, once accepted as “biblically true,” it became THE methodology, undergoing no further critical evaluation, but leaving a few generations of elementary and secondary students devoid of reading skills. Had OBE established a similar foothold on young minds, American education would be worse off than it is today. Just imagine being that teacher forced to retest an “A” student because classmates did not fare well.
It’s All about Hard Work in the Long Run, Isn’t It?
So, here’s your daily dose of anecdotal information. Among the many courses I taught is one key introductory class on historical geology, a topic that covers 4.5 billion years of the planet’s development. Massive amount of information. In one very large class of geology majors, I gave lectures for about three weeks before testing. As I corrected the test, I realized I had one student who scored an almost perfect paper and the rest of the class that scored either barely passing or failing grades. The students were outraged. It had to be my fault. They went to the dean, they went to whoever they thought could help. They complained to me. I noted that everything on the test was either in their notes or in textbook passages I had noted for them. I also reminded them that I had suggested study groups so that they could build their knowledge together and question themselves.
Another three weeks passed, another test time approached. I reminded them once again to form study groups, to challenge one another, and to memorize, memorize, memorize. And they listened. In the evenings I saw them in the hallways and empty labs pouring over the material. They were in effect “busting their butts.”
On the day of the test, I walked in and handed out a one page test with three questions:
The students looked at me, and someone asked, “What’s this?”
I replied, “It’s your test. No talking, Start now.”
They finished in seconds, of course. Came down to the front of the small auditorium, and handed me their tests. They then walked out and gathered in the hallway mumbling. When I walked out the door, one of the students asked, “What was that?” I simply said, “That was your test.”
As I began to walk to my office, one of the students said, “But we learned all that stuff.”
To which I replied, “That’s the point.”
After that incident, I noticed pre-test groups gathering in the halls and labs, and the grades of all the students improved. Somehow they became self-motivated to do the hard work of learning. Was it something I said or did?
Educational Systems Lack Rigorous Questioning
My reasoning for including neuroscience and developmental psychology in education curricula lies in the reality that “I can’t larn nothin’ for ya.” But if I understand how your brain works and how it has developed, I might help you to “learn something.” That means influencing motive and instilling appropriate level skills in young minds. However my little test experiment might be criticized, it did motivate students at least in that one instance to do the hard work to learn. Isn’t that the point of education, from e ducere, to "lead out” or “from” (ignorance). The Columbia reading methodology kept a few generations of students in ignorance by adopting a fun way to learn, except that it resulted in little learning.
Like Columbia’s reading methodology, OBE and similar educational methodologies look to easy solutions that do not pass a test of experimentation except for a few initial subjects in qualitative research, not quantitative research. The people who initiate such programs are content with unscientific results and go on to proselytize in the name of their pet programs. And modern educators are quick to adopt those programs and to become disciples without critically examining them. One might say, “Well, what harm can they do? They have to try something to reach the masses.”
But the harm snowballs through generations and across the evermore intellectually flat landscapes of equity. Imagine being that “A” student who scored well on a test yet was required retake the test instead of moving on to the next subject.
There’s no ultimate educational methodology, no panacea. There is, however, hard work and individual effort that seem to find rewards in individual success. The word teacher derives from Anglo-Saxon tacn, which means “signpost,” “guide.” An educator can lead one out of ignorance by serving as a guide, but the guidance can’t be based on untested ideal methodologies that make university professors feel good about themselves and that obtain a following of uncritical disciples. And just as a “Keep off the grass” sign loses its effectiveness, so a teacher can lose it. Every educator must constantly renew with energy and a critical mind the way he or she approaches each child. That places a big burden on the shoulders of teachers, but to whom else can one go? Departments of education and teacher union leadership do not teach while consuming vast amounts of money for whatever: Political power, pet projects, untested ideals, failed redos of programs like OBE, and anything that results in travel to conferences to make people feel good about themselves while doing nothing for the kids in the classrooms.
Teachers have a tough job, but in trying to make it easier, university educators in places like Columbia only make it less effective.
*Columbia quietly closes down Teachers College project that ruined countless lives. Online at https://nypost.com/2023/09/17/columbia-quietly-closes-down-teachers-college-project-that-ruined-countless-lives/
**You might ask, “Why economics and political philosophy?” The argument for inclusion of those two disciplines lies in the value of the individual. Today’s left-learning educators seem to prefer equity over equality, that is, equal outcomes over equal opportunity. The choice of the former over the latter contributes to the development of people without the ability to think critically, much in the manner of Willam Lederer’s 1961 book A Nation of Sheep in which the author describes failures in Asia and ascribes them to the American intelligence community’s and State Department’s uncritical reliance on hearsay. Today’s social media drives much of the current “nation of sheep” who fail to question the legitimacy of information and who prefer simple answers and simple solutions. “Just give everyone a higher minimum wage.” “Just give everyone on the team a trophy for participating.”
But what can anyone expect of a bastion of liberalism like Columbia? Didn’t they have an “ideal” educational system to propagate? So what if the methodology had no scientific evidence of its efficacy. They thought of it. So, shouldn’t it work? Look how many schools adopted it in New York and throughout the nation. Look at the fawning disciples in the flock of educators who abandoned other methods to adopt Columbia’s. Surely, there’s evidence in numbers.
OBE
The abandonment—finally—of a failed system in reading reminds me of another such failed system, one that absorbed the nation for a number of years (and maybe still lingers here and there). Called Outcomes Based Education (OBE), the system required students to retake tests regardless of their personal scores if the class as a whole did not achieve an average 70% grade on those tests. Yep. “A-students” had to retake tests because other students didn’t do well. Noting like lumping everyone together to foster excellence, right?
Like the Columbia approach, the OBE approach had no evidence of its effectiveness save a single limited study that itself lacked thoroughness and rerunning. In the instance of the OBE programs that swept through educators in various teaching universities, simpleminded adoption became a lucrative avocation. “Go out to spread the Word, my children, and school district superintendents will advocate for you at school board meetings and pay you as consultants.” They did, and they did. In the application of the the program, however, teachers encountered the unforeseen effects when they discovered a major flaw: Students who threatened classmates: “Hey, I didn’t study for this test, so you better not make a good grade.” It happened. “No joke,” as POTUS is fond of saying.
What Does It Take to Become an Educator?
One might ask how educators can buy into so many failed educational systems. The answer lies in the mass-produced teacher population. Whereas engineers might have to take more than 130 credits to acquire their degrees, most teachers reach the B.A. or B.S. with just 120 credits. And among those teacher-education credits there’s little emphasis on epistemology and the scientific method. There’s usually only one course in developmental psychology, and there’s virtually nothing about neuroscience, linguistics, economics, political philosophy, and the history of western knowledge.** Instead, there are courses in “presentation,” which amount to turning on some visual aid machine and showing a slide show, now called a digital slideshow (e.g., PowerPoint). Methodology, not substance, is the focus in many teacher-education curricula. Don’t ask a recent education graduate to fare well on Jeopardy.
And that has left us a with generations of teachers who follow rather than think critically. That might be one of the reasons that teachers’ unions vote as a “block” and support the party that makes the most promises and ingrains itself the most deeply in the union leaders’ minds. And since those in the ranks rise to become the principals and superintendents, no one can expect critical thinking from the majority of them—though there are many great principals and superintendents leading school districts in spite of the overall trend.
But Teachers Have Herculean Tasks
In a country that provides free education to everyone, teachers have a very hard soil to plow. Overcrowded classes and disinterested parents contribute to their hardships that have, with the loss of discipline led to chronically deficient inner city schools. And the task of teachers is made even more difficult by the forced insertion of ineffective educational methods.
That Columbia had an inordinate influence over reading and writing programs shouldn’t surprise anyone. Universities are expected to be “cutting-edge” by the masses. If an ivy League school can produce famous thinkers, writers, and scientists, why should it not also produce great educators?
A late colleague of mine whose life experiences included playing professional baseball to the AAA level and serving as a member of the Peace Corps in Africa, returned to education to complete his M.A. at Northwestern U. But before he entered that degree program, he attended Columbia, hoping to learn from the some of the more famous literary scholars of the time. He transferred to Northwestern, however, because in his first semester at Columbia, a famous professor gave the opening lecture and then disappeared as graduate students held all the succeeding classes. Apparently, the nitty-gritty of lecturing and pursuing critical exchanges with students were not his cup of tea. And apparently, also, the program initiated by Calkins operated similarly, that is, once accepted as “biblically true,” it became THE methodology, undergoing no further critical evaluation, but leaving a few generations of elementary and secondary students devoid of reading skills. Had OBE established a similar foothold on young minds, American education would be worse off than it is today. Just imagine being that teacher forced to retest an “A” student because classmates did not fare well.
It’s All about Hard Work in the Long Run, Isn’t It?
So, here’s your daily dose of anecdotal information. Among the many courses I taught is one key introductory class on historical geology, a topic that covers 4.5 billion years of the planet’s development. Massive amount of information. In one very large class of geology majors, I gave lectures for about three weeks before testing. As I corrected the test, I realized I had one student who scored an almost perfect paper and the rest of the class that scored either barely passing or failing grades. The students were outraged. It had to be my fault. They went to the dean, they went to whoever they thought could help. They complained to me. I noted that everything on the test was either in their notes or in textbook passages I had noted for them. I also reminded them that I had suggested study groups so that they could build their knowledge together and question themselves.
Another three weeks passed, another test time approached. I reminded them once again to form study groups, to challenge one another, and to memorize, memorize, memorize. And they listened. In the evenings I saw them in the hallways and empty labs pouring over the material. They were in effect “busting their butts.”
On the day of the test, I walked in and handed out a one page test with three questions:
- The theory of moving crustal units is called Pl_te Tect_nics.
- The spreading of the sea floor is known as Sea Floor Spre-ding.
- Three ways plates interact is by diverging, sliding-past, and conv_rging
The students looked at me, and someone asked, “What’s this?”
I replied, “It’s your test. No talking, Start now.”
They finished in seconds, of course. Came down to the front of the small auditorium, and handed me their tests. They then walked out and gathered in the hallway mumbling. When I walked out the door, one of the students asked, “What was that?” I simply said, “That was your test.”
As I began to walk to my office, one of the students said, “But we learned all that stuff.”
To which I replied, “That’s the point.”
After that incident, I noticed pre-test groups gathering in the halls and labs, and the grades of all the students improved. Somehow they became self-motivated to do the hard work of learning. Was it something I said or did?
Educational Systems Lack Rigorous Questioning
My reasoning for including neuroscience and developmental psychology in education curricula lies in the reality that “I can’t larn nothin’ for ya.” But if I understand how your brain works and how it has developed, I might help you to “learn something.” That means influencing motive and instilling appropriate level skills in young minds. However my little test experiment might be criticized, it did motivate students at least in that one instance to do the hard work to learn. Isn’t that the point of education, from e ducere, to "lead out” or “from” (ignorance). The Columbia reading methodology kept a few generations of students in ignorance by adopting a fun way to learn, except that it resulted in little learning.
Like Columbia’s reading methodology, OBE and similar educational methodologies look to easy solutions that do not pass a test of experimentation except for a few initial subjects in qualitative research, not quantitative research. The people who initiate such programs are content with unscientific results and go on to proselytize in the name of their pet programs. And modern educators are quick to adopt those programs and to become disciples without critically examining them. One might say, “Well, what harm can they do? They have to try something to reach the masses.”
But the harm snowballs through generations and across the evermore intellectually flat landscapes of equity. Imagine being that “A” student who scored well on a test yet was required retake the test instead of moving on to the next subject.
There’s no ultimate educational methodology, no panacea. There is, however, hard work and individual effort that seem to find rewards in individual success. The word teacher derives from Anglo-Saxon tacn, which means “signpost,” “guide.” An educator can lead one out of ignorance by serving as a guide, but the guidance can’t be based on untested ideal methodologies that make university professors feel good about themselves and that obtain a following of uncritical disciples. And just as a “Keep off the grass” sign loses its effectiveness, so a teacher can lose it. Every educator must constantly renew with energy and a critical mind the way he or she approaches each child. That places a big burden on the shoulders of teachers, but to whom else can one go? Departments of education and teacher union leadership do not teach while consuming vast amounts of money for whatever: Political power, pet projects, untested ideals, failed redos of programs like OBE, and anything that results in travel to conferences to make people feel good about themselves while doing nothing for the kids in the classrooms.
Teachers have a tough job, but in trying to make it easier, university educators in places like Columbia only make it less effective.
*Columbia quietly closes down Teachers College project that ruined countless lives. Online at https://nypost.com/2023/09/17/columbia-quietly-closes-down-teachers-college-project-that-ruined-countless-lives/
**You might ask, “Why economics and political philosophy?” The argument for inclusion of those two disciplines lies in the value of the individual. Today’s left-learning educators seem to prefer equity over equality, that is, equal outcomes over equal opportunity. The choice of the former over the latter contributes to the development of people without the ability to think critically, much in the manner of Willam Lederer’s 1961 book A Nation of Sheep in which the author describes failures in Asia and ascribes them to the American intelligence community’s and State Department’s uncritical reliance on hearsay. Today’s social media drives much of the current “nation of sheep” who fail to question the legitimacy of information and who prefer simple answers and simple solutions. “Just give everyone a higher minimum wage.” “Just give everyone on the team a trophy for participating.”
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