Top 10 Worst Ideas In Education
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Bill Gates concluded
that public schools are so bad they are a threat to the national economy and the society’s long-term survival. Why might
a shrewd observer think this? What is it that most needs fixing? Herewith the 10 worst ideas in public education:
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1) BOGUS READING INSTRUCTION
-- Whole Word, Sight Words, and Dolch Words (there are many aliases) have created 50 million functional illiterates, for the
simple reason that this method does not work. (No one learns to read fluently with Sight-Words. Some people learn to read,
if at all, IN SPITE OF of Sight-Words.) This hoax and the accompanying gimmicks known as guessing, picture clues, et al should
be eliminated from the schools. |
2) REFORM MATH -- Arithmetic
jumbled and mumbled. Reform Math is a monster with many names (Connected Math, Chicago Math, Mathland, etc.) created by the
same people who gave us New Math and now want to give us Core Standards. Reform Math forbids mastery, requires spiraling from
topic to topic, and promotes using a calculator to compensate for a lack of basic skills. |
3) COOPERATIVE LEARNING --
Students always work in groups. A good approach for fostering a herd sensibility; a dreadful approach for creating independent
thinkers and self-starters.
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4) CONSTRUCTIVISM --
A destructive fad. Teachers are reduced to facilitators, their knowledge and academic training rendered moot. Students are
required to invent their own new knowledge. This process will be long and slow. After all, the human race has been around
for millennia and has collected tens of thousands of prime facts, insights, discoveries, theories, etc. What sort of loon
turns a child loose with this order: try to recapitulate the intellectual history of the human race? (A far better approach
is to give children a wide range of foundational knowledge ASAP.) |
5) WAR AGAINST CONTENT --
A witless policy pursued since the time of John Dewey. The apparent goal is to make sure that children learn as little
as possible. In any case, that is the result.
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6) NO MEMORIZATION -- This
is standard operating procedure in all grades and in all courses. It is an excellent policy if you wish to ensure cultural
illiteracy and societal amnesia.
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7) SELF-ESTEEM -- Another
destructive fad now rampant. Students must be praised even when they do bad work. Furthermore, a concern for self-esteem can
justify eliminating virtually all content from classrooms, on the grounds that some students won’t be able to handle
the material. A quiet plague.
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8) MULTICULTURALISM -- This
sophistry requires children to learn more about faraway cultures, both in miles and years, than about their own. As the children
have no frame of reference for understanding other cultures, little information is retained, other than the persistent message:
your own country is no damn good. Multiculturalism helps in the war against content. Kids are kept busy, going nowhere.
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9) HOSTILITY TO TESTING
-- A helpful policy if you wish to conceal that children aren't learning much. |
10) TOO MANY IMPOSTORS
-- Ideologues pretend to care about education even while focused on manipulating the minds of millions of children. (Keep
these extremists away from the schools, and the other nine problems will miraculously vanish.) |
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BONUS PROBLEM: the Top 10
work in perfect harmony to dumb down the schools, and make them the threat to our future that Bill Gates saw.
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GOOD NEWS: These bizarre and
bogus methods are not automatic or inherent. They had to be smuggled into the public schools. They can be discarded.
First step: encouraging people to look closely at them.
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