Over on ms_teacher, a middle school teacher has an intriguing post about differentiating between someone who cannot do something and someone who can do that something but does not do it. The example she uses, which she drew from the recent debate at Edspresso (“Nancy Creech vs. Ken De Rosa on Whole Language”), makes the argument that those who can read but don’t read are functionally equivalent to those who cannot read.
Ms_teacher finds this a misrepresentation, and I agree. She attacks the misrepresentation by converting “read” to “do math.”
Does anyone else not see how absurd this line of reasoning is? I am someone who “can do math” but doesn’t because I’ve never enjoyed math. Am I, therefore equal, to someone who cannot “do math” at all?
It is, indeed, an absurb line of reasoning. In fact, a critical element in this misreprentation is that the individual who can (but does not) read has choice. If you can’t read, you can’t even choose not to read! It beats me how muddle-minded some folks’ reasoning is. Why would one wait for students to choose to read? If they can’t, they can’t chose to do it.
Link to the post. While you’re there, read some of her other posts, too. Link to Nancy Creech vs. Ken De Rosa on Whole Language.
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