Over on Zig Site, Siegfried Engelmann has a new series of articles in which Socrates questions fictitious educators about educational concepts. In the first, Socrates engages one Dr. Gibbs, a “prominent professor of education.” Here’s an excerpt:
Dr. Gibbs: Learning is extremely complicated and influenced by a host of factors, including motivation and parental attitudes. The point I try to make to my students is that every child is an individual who learns according to his or her time table, and in his or her unique way.
Socrates: You give us a lot to think about. But is there some fact or rule that describes all learning?
Dr. Gibbs. Of course not. The learner is what the learner does and what the learner has inherited. Learning is not some kind of cut-and-dried process. The most specific thing one could confidently say about all learning is that it occurs in a series of predictable stages, which have been described by Piaget and others.
Just imagine the hash that Socrates makes of such bologna!
In another, Socrates and Dr. Baram Rosenthal, an “educational guru,” discuss reading instruction. Catch ‘em at Zig Site. Look in the left rail.
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Harvard leadership program
Under the headline “Harvard Offers New Doctorate for School Leaders Who Aim to Shake Up Status Quo” in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Peter Schmidt reported that Harvard University announced a grant-funded doctoral degree program to leaders in education. The graduates are supposed to be people who can engender “major school reform.”
What reform, one might wonder? Transformed to what? Just any old transformation? I’d like it if the transformation was toward adopting evidence-based practices. Will the graduates of the program know anything about effective teaching?
Read Mr. Schmidt’s article.
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