Comments on: A Bum Steer from the IRA

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 16:18:27 +0000

Brad, the issue is the same for science education as it is for literacy and mathematics. Your last statement, that the literacy skills needed to understand the issue are the subject of the debate, makes me wonder (more about) what is ever going to happen to resolve the problem. Since I haven’t thoroughly read the literature on motivation I’m curious about the methodology used to evaluate it, and its effects.

By: Brad Hoge

Brad Hoge — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 18:58:18 +0000

As always, an excellent post. I’m not surprised that what I read as your concerns for reading instruction correlate so well with my concerns for science literacy. Only teaching what is measurable in science undercuts science literacy because it short-changes or ignores explanatory frameworks (big picture ideas). Motivation is an issue in science education as well, and as such exposes a catch-22 for educators. Like the elusive optimum of natural selection, it is difficult to provide a static definition of motivation without resorting to circular reasoning, but it is, in fact, quite easy to describe motivation from the standpoint of a dynamic system. The fact that motivation cannot be quantitatively measured frustrates those who cannot think in non-linear ways. Thus, the catch-22. The literacy skills needed to understand the issue are the very subject of the debate.

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 05:19:18 +0000

Marco, thanks for your response(s) The focus of my difficulty with arguments about accountability to standards, whether politcally, legally, or technically-driven is that teachers should recognize the value of vision, and the need to clarify our aims. Yes, a joyous and confident teacher might be infectious. So would a rule-bound authoritarian. Which do we imagine as the better practitioner? I argue for ethical accountability because I fear that in our technical age, ethics has been subsumed by concerns for “covering your ass,” a posture that contributes to horrendous abuses of power. We might produce a generation of able readers who understand nothing about the generation of ideologies.

I don’t, of course, believe that we should replace reading instruction with free reading. I do think, however, that free reading and journalling complements strategy instruction, allowing students to apply reading strategies, and to monitor and discuss their thinking with a teacher who understands what they are doing. These approaches to teaching reading won’t come packaged in a “program” that will “work” for everyone, but they should be discussed and promoted as an alternative to teacher-proof instructional materials.

Thanks for the links to additional reading. I edited out the final link that pointed at utexas.edu because it was broken and I couldn’t determine its intended target. I’m grateful for your reference to Mosaic of Thought. The book has served as a springboard for many changes in my classroom, not from imitation, but from reconsideration and invention.

By: Marco Polo

Marco Polo — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 03:51:17 +0000

Having belatedly read the original article, I've got 1 more thing to say: Shanahan is on shaky ground, and I'm not sure I buy his distinction between a public responsibility and personal aspiration - hasn't the world become simply too small for this distinction to matter much? - but if he's right about the research on motivation, then that's important: There is research on motivation, but those studies don’t tell how to motivate kids. Motivating kids to read is more complicated than teaching them to read. Lots of instructional approaches improve achievement, but what about motivation? What stimulates one person may not work for another. On this point, that motivating kids to read is more complicated than teaching them to read he sounds like Keene and Zimmerman: For decades many educators believed that teaching reading meant dealing with the visible or audible, rather than cognitive manifestations of reading. If children completed drill sheets and workbook pages...[these] would ensure that students could comprehend complex text. But... in fact many chldren were not (and are not) learning to comprehend using the approach.(p.18), and one of the key aims of Mosaic of Thought is to convince teachers that it is possible to teach cognitive ways of engaging readers more completely with texts, and to show them ways this might be achieved. While it may be technically true that the research on motivation doesn't tell how to motivate kids (to read), there are some books written by people who are knowledgeable in both fields of psychology and teaching (e.g. Donryei).

By: Marco Polo

Marco Polo — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 03:03:40 +0000

Because we can’t measure joy, or pain, confidence, or anxiety, should we claim that they don’t matter? That they don’t exist? No, but (taking a leaf from Barzun), is it not important to stay focussed on what can actually be taught? An administrator, in these politicized, litigating, times, may well be taking too big a risk if (s)he said, we need to teach kids to WANT to read. to ENJOY reading, to be CONFIDENT readers. Even tho these are admirable and desirable goals, is it also not important to remain realistic (and thus to keep others’ expectations realistic) about what can practicably be taught in school? What can realistically be set as a measurable target? And if measurable targets are not set, then it makes it easier for accountability to be fudged or avoided altogether.
Joy and confidence are hard to measure, yet what is vitally important, is to hire joyful and confident (yet humble) teachers. My two bits.