From Borderland’s Ministry of Barnyard Literacy Rants:

Timothy Shanahan, the current International Reading Association president, claims he never said that kids shouldn’t read in school. But he damns himself in his own defense by making a narrow argument against devoting class time to SSR (sustained silent reading).

Shanahan appraised the IRA mission,

According to its bylaws, IRA has three primary purposes: (1) to improve the quality of reading instruction, (2) to encourage reading and an interest in reading, and (3) to promote reading proficiency.

and he offered his opinion on goal #2.

The issue isn’t whether it is good to practice. It is whether we can get kids to read more—and to read enough to improve their reading ability….One goal is a public responsibility, while the other is a personal aspiration. That is a critical distinction. It means the larger community expects, or even requires, us to teach well, but the stimulating desire part is our game, not theirs.

It might mean something else. To say that one goal is a public responsibility and the other is a personal aspiration excludes a multitude of other possibilities. How about, “…and the other is a moral commitment?”… Shanahan is correct when he says that our instructional approach depends on the kind of society we wish to create, but this is unavoidable. We teach students based on our beliefs about what they need to know to become the people we want them to be. Teaching calls us to influence human consciousness. Our commitments to that end should serve as seeds for reflection on what it means to be human in the world we’re creating.

If my “personal aspiration” happens to be that I wish to work for social justice, to help individuals gain self-awareness, to teach that dreams are foundations for our future plans, that possibilites are limitless, that doubt is not defeat, and that disquiet may also be the catalyst for questions that embolden, enlighten, and ultimately change the world then my aspiration becomes a moral imperative for the empowerment of literate self-directed learners.

Quality of instruction certainly relates to student motivation. To believe otherwise misses the point of education completely. It ignores the humanness of the endeavor and promotes a reductionist approach to teaching as a technical service. I urge teachers to be accountable to more than metrics. We need to first hold ourselves accountable to our ideals. We need to rise above technical proficiency and strive for ethical integrity.

To ignore the merits of encouraging literate practices because a “benefit hasn’t been found” is stupid. All we have to do is choose to look through our own eyes and believe the evidence that comes from our common sense to know if SSR benefits readers and increases motivation. A benefit hasn’t been found? Says who? Say researchers who are hell-bent on seeing only what can be measured. The naked ignorance of this claim is astounding.

We might want to measure what we value, but we should be careful not to value only what we can measure. Once we conclude that only measurable phenomena are admissible evidence of student progress we cut ourselves off from valuing a multitude of human traits. Because we can’t measure joy, or pain, confidence, or anxiety, should we claim that they don’t matter? That they don’t exist?

It’s a fool’s quest to proceed confidently into the classroom armed with a calculator and a crude testing instument looking for “benefit.” The ignorance of people who promote “scientifically-based” teaching distresses me. When the only truths we can believe about ourselves are “measurable” we’ll be stripped of our critical substance. We’ll be pliable consumers of slogans and propaganda dressed up as research.

I’m apalled that the president of the IRA could be so blind, so narrow, so selfish and so hypocritical to accuse teachers of pursuing their “personal aspirations” even as he does so himself in choosing to disregard one of his organization’s primary purposes. This isn’t leadership. It’s a bum steer, and we don’t need this worthless bull.