Update (10:10 PM):  More at LibriVox.org.

The New York Times story on the “reading workshop” method glorifies indifference toward literature.

…

This so-called movement is led by people who don’t love literature enough to defend it, and who don’t care about history enough to find out that their revolution is nothing revolutionary. It glorifies a certain indifference.

The movement writes off the literature itself. It writes off the teachers who teach it well and inspire their students to love it. It writes off the possibility that literature will affect students’ entire lives and stay in their minds, in ways that teen novels cannot do. Proponents say, “Look, the kids are reading; this is working!” They do not stop to think that reading 20 pages a day is not the same as grappling with literature. The chicken coop is not a palace. (Oops–no one teaches Dostoevsky anymore.)

I taught Sophocles’ Antigone (among many other works of literature) to my eighth grade ESL students. We had heated debates in class. Students wrote thoughtful essays. I thought, “How much more they will understand when they read it in high school!” Then I realized they probably wouldn’t read it in high school. They would probably never have it assigned to them again.

Amen.

Mr. Robert Pondiscio says in “New York Times Discovers Reader’s Workshop” (Core Knowledge Blog, August 29, 2009 ):

Update: “Progressive schools let kids pick their own books in the 1920s and 1930s. Now it is supposed to be a major innovation. Ha!” tweets Diane Ravitch, who is quoted in the piece.  The paper “applauds the death of any version of a common culture.”  Just desserts of the NY Times,” she adds.  “By encouraging the death of reading, they doom the NY Times.”

“Progressive schools.” That’s John Dewey’s baby…

Poetry celebrates the individual word, the sound of language, and the rhythm of language in a way that narrative does not. It is a fun, short, tasty morsel to share with children. I think it’s important to expose very young children to poetry because children build the foundation for learning to read through being exposed to the sounds and rhythms of language. For older children, I think poetry is a great vehicle for learning how complex thoughts, humorous ideas, deep emotions, or entire narratives can be expressed with a few carefully chosen words.

Thompson, G. B., Connelly, Vincent, Fletcher-Flinn, C. M. & Hodson, S. J. (2009). The nature of skilled adult reading varies with type of instruction in childhood. Memory & Cognition, 37, 223-234.

Does the type of reading instruction experienced during the initial years at school have any continuing effect on the ways in which adults read words? The question has arisen in current discussions about computational models of mature word-reading processes. We tested predicted continuing effects by comparing matched samples of skilled adult readers of English who had received explicit phonics instruction in childhood and those who had not. In responding to nonwords that can receive alternative legitimate pronunciations, those adults having childhood phonics instruction used more regular grapheme-phoneme correspondences that were context free and used fewer vocabulary-based contextually dependent correspondences than did adults who had no phonics instruction. These differences in regularization of naming responses also extended to some low-frequency words. This apparent cognitive footprint of childhood phonics instruction is a phenomenon requiring consideration when researchers attempt to model adult word reading and when they select participants to test the models.

I have not looked into the study so I don’t know anything about its methods and validity, but it sounds interesting and worth looking into.

Dr. Bertonneau introduces his article “Orality, Literacy and the Tradition” by saying:

I want to discuss what I take to be the basic, or the deep, justification of the traditional curriculum. By “the traditional curriculum,” I mean the Greek and Roman classics, the Bible, Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes, and items from modern and national literatures. … But I also mean by “the traditional curriculum” the basic training in literacy that comes before any acquaintance with the classics, or with a literature of any kind.

After mentioning a few differences between cuneiform and the Syrian and Greek alphabets, Dr. Bertonneau writes:

Consider Eric Havelock’s contention in Preface to Plato (1963) and in the somewhat less familiar Origins of Western Literacy (1976) that the appearance of alphabetic writing corresponds to a revolution in thinking.

Which revolution in thinking could be described as follows:

Havelock also ascribes other intellectual transformations to the assimilation of alphabetic writing. The habits of logic and of rhetorical analysis emerge, he argues, from the exactitude of expression that writing nurtures, so that philosophy itself stems from literacy. The new type of distinctly literate thinking also de-emphasizes the egocentricity of spoken discourse, which always takes place between physically present interlocutors who are personally involved in their assertions and counter-assertions. Speech is rapid, but writing is slow and occurs in isolation from the ego-clash. As the ad hominem pronouncement, the grammatical first and second persons and copious self-justification are the staple of oratory, so then does the syllogism, condensed and rigorous, constitute the basis of the new graphically controlled type of argument. With literacy, argument can become non-personal or objective. …

The very fact that a statement, once impressed on a medium, retains its character and is unchanging, influences the notion of a stable and explicable world amenable to analysis and subject to internal limits or laws. Grammar, of course, becomes thematic with writing in a way that it never can be with spoken language. There is also a quantum increase in the complexity of syntax. A mentality capable of thinking in subordinate clauses, of qualifying tentative hypotheses, is a different thing from that which rarely gets beyond simple statements, and which usually expresses itself in expostulations and sudden retractions, as we do with awkward inveterateness in speech.

Dr. Bertonneau goes on to discuss:

Sappho and Homer;

Plato’s Protagoras as a confrontation between a mind trained by literacy and therefore capable of reasoning (Socrates) and a mind pre-literate and therefore limited in scope and range (Protagoras);

some anecdotes about the Canadian woodsman in the Visitors chapter of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden as contrasts between a pensive, reflective mind that could read and write (Thoreau) and a pre-literate mind that was limited to orality (the woodsman);

the NCTE’s attack on reasoning by their attack on writing and by stress on “oral” and “visual” “communication.”

He also passes judgment on current methods:

Repeatedly and emphatically, current pedagogical theory embraces the subjectivity, the emotionality, and the argumentative relativism that are characteristic traits of oral language. “Man is the measure,” as Protagoras said. Current pedagogy describes these traits under new terms that valorize them as usefully proletarian and subversive. But the intellectual condition to which the new advocates of the oral style would consign their students is as limited now as it was before the habits of literacy prevailed over those of the acoustic-mimetic order.

To that last sentence: Amen; we live in a world of cause and effect, and there is no getting around it. But, to consign students to such a state is sad, wrong, unfair, and unjust. Students should get an education, as far as possible, that is better than ours — an education that at least prepares them for adult life and for the complex decisions they will have to make.

So when students say they understand something, but just can’t put it into words — no they don’t.

“Orality, Literacy and the Tradition” is a must-read.

Some writing specialists excuse bad writing on the hopeful supposition that a gap exists between cognition and expression—similar to the way a stroke victim can have a complex thought, but cannot properly verbalize it. That is, students who write badly nevertheless know what they want to say, or what they have read, as well as anyone else. I have concluded that no evidence supports this postulate. Having no other means to discern cognition than through its expression, one must take as a given that expression is cognition.

Defective writing, unlike the stroke victim’s aphasia, reveals more than mere awkwardness of expression; it reveals the confusions that becloud both the act of reading and the subsequent attempt at a mental sorting out of the narrative. The individual who cannot see things clearly cannot think about them clearly. Likewise those who cannot make sense of stories, which represent cause and effect in the human world, will have difficulty making sense of the actual human world, to which stories refer.

That ought to whet your curiosity.

I’d tend to agree with him. Without years of experience teaching, without years of experience teaching myself, and without familiarity with philosophy, I would not have been able to come to this conclusion. I’ll explain in later posts.

I read some of the books as a child, but I don’t recall which ones. I’ll have to ask family. Do you remember any of the Little Golden Books? Which ones did you read or have read to you?

I own a half dozen or so of their Western-themed books. One of the books that I like best is The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp by Monica Hill, pictures by Mel Crawford, Simon and Schuster, New York, (c) 1958. It ends in the morally uplifting fashion:

Wow. What an example to set: there are men out in the world prepared and willing to stand up to, and put out of the way, those who want to try to make others live by the false, evil maxim “might makes right.” And maybe you could be one of these good people who protect us from those who would oppress us.

Wyatt Earp was a man with moral backbone.

The answer to why people seem smart but can’t think is not so complicated as it first appears. There are plenty of (supposedly) “smart” people who can be trained, like a monkey, to cram for an exam (or exams); get a college degree; remember procedures related to an occupation; take steps to complete a task, etc., etc. It is the use of critical thinking that demonstrates the difference between being smart and possessing intelligence (intellectual ability).

…

I can tell you about accountants with MBAs who never heard of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, even when these institutions headlined the mainstream news each day. I can tell you about a CPA who won’t read non-fiction books because the “big words” are too intimidating. Most of my colleagues have never read a book—especially non-fiction—since the college days. Newspapers may make it into their daily regimen because, for most people, reading a newspaper is predictable in content and scope, and therefore it lacks the intimidation factor of a hardbound paperweight with hundreds of pages of unforeseen words and ideas.

These comments and observations corroborate Mr. Bertonneau’s comments.

As parents and educators, we need to be more aware of the distinction between educating to reason and educating to memorize (or to know without understanding).

Yes, Shakespeare invented over 1700 of our common words. Please see my About, Inc. site for a list.

And yes, he invented many of the most used expressions in our language. Bernard Levin said it best in the following quote about Shakespeare’s impact on our language:

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare “It’s Greek to me”, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger, if your wish is father to the thought, if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool’s paradise – why, be that as it may, the more fool you, for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then – to give the devil his due – if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I were dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then – by Jove! O Lord! Tut, tut! for goodness’ sake! what the dickens! but me no buts – it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare. (Bernard Levin. From The Story of English. Robert McCrum, William Cran and Robert MacNeil. Viking: 1986).

Many authors have used phrases from Shakespeare’s works at titles for their own novels. Here is a list of just a few: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley; The Dogs of War by Robert Stone; The Winter of our Discontent by John Steinbeck; The Undiscovered Country by Auther Schnitzer; Something Wicked this Way Comes by Ray Bradbury; and Bell, Book, and Candle by John van Druten.

See also Lee Jamieson’s “Common Phrases Invented by Shakespeare” at About.com, where he gives a list of “some of the most popular Shakespeare phrases in common use today” and points out that:

In many cases, it is not known if Shakespeare actually invented these phrases, or if they were already in use during his lifetime. In fact, it is almost impossible to identify when a word or phrase was first used, but Shakespeare’s plays often provide the earliest citation.

Interesting. Shakespeare: Don’t leave your education without it.

We should not forget, however, that the tortured prose corresponds to dim and cloudy thinking and that this same dim and cloudy thinking will one day define the prevailing mental climate of our society. Many students seem content to be what their counterfeit educational experience and a spiritually toxic popular culture have made them. They remain sullen but resolute in their vapidity and self-absorption.

Some students, however, seem secretly and inarticulately pained by what they are—and by what they glean that they could do if their actual paltry preparation did not disable them from doing it. Those would be such things as reading books and understanding them or cultivating an appreciation for beautiful imagery or dramatic action, or simply having an extended conversation on a significant topic. Whether it concerns sullenness or inarticulate yearning, one ought to understand the mentality, if only because the mentality is the key to the coming age.

The reality of such ill-formed minds is painful and pitiful. I hate to hear it; but if it’s true, it’s true.

Students should be educated to enjoy the clarity of thought, power of mind, and excellence in life of the ancient Greeks. They should not be failed so that they suffer the stultifying experience of ancient Egyptians: a state of living death.

Mr. Bertonneau says in regard to the sequence of years B.C. vs. A.D.:

Most were content, not so much to flounder in a nebulous impression as blithely to assert complete implicit confidence in their uninvestigated lack of knowledge and clarity. Most harbored no suspicion that they might know falsely or know wrongly, that is, that they might be in error.

This shows something more general, I think: that many high school grads (remember, Mr. Bertonneau is discussing in this series the middle range of student essays, not the best and not the worst) cannot properly reason. They don’t know what a conclusion is, what evidence is, what a chain of reasoning is, how to use logic, how to differentiate certainty from possibility, probability, and plausibility. They don’t know the difference between induction and deduction — and barely know the words. Reason is only self-correcting if you know how reasoning works and that it follows methods.

Mr. Bertonneau later in his essay writes the scary conclusion:

I have argued elsewhere that such constructions are a type of oral generality whose appearance in student prose signifies that they are closer in their mental habits to historically pre-literate and other non-literate peoples than to literates like our grandparents.

Remember, in his last essay (“What, Me Read?”) he pointed out how many/most students could not sequence events (B follows A). In his current essay (“What, Me Read? Part II”) he points out that even some oral traditions could sequence events — as, for example, that of Homer.

A harsh conclusion, yes. But an important conclusion to know about — if it’s true. We need to take corrective action for our own children, and try to improve modern education in whatever ways we can: change the way we teach at school; convince our school to stress literacy and reasoning; homeschool; write op-eds; get on a school board; write to our Congressmen; do enrichment work with our children after school.

Later in his essay, Mr. Bertonneau identifies one of the causes of decaying literacy and reasoning skills:

Many a critic has complained that the supervisors of K-12 nationwide have long since deemphasized rigorous literacy training in favor of unstructured oral “expression” and mediated visual demonstration.

More fundamentally, modern American education needs “cognitive medical care” to cure it of the “diseases” of John Dewey and Immanuel Kant — who say we can’t know reality; there are not absolutes; therefore we can only go by what ‘works now;’ that truth is a social product (do you want your kids to develop a morality based on ‘it’s good or right because everyone/most people do it?’).  Modern American education needs a good dose of Aristotle, William Harvey, Galileo, John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, Michael Faraday, Ayn Rand. And as Mr. Bertonneau implies, students need to read for themselves the authors and thinkers who have had a deep and lasting influence on American culture and the world in general: Plato, Marx, Freud, St. Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, Muhammed, Buddha. Students need to read selections from The Illiad, The Odyssey, The Republic, the Bible, the “Magna Carta,” Two Treatises of Government.

Mr. Bertonneau’s essay illustrates that the bulk of modern high school grads cannot reason, as seen by the fact that they do not practice a cardinal aspect of reason: integration. They cannot form a chain of reasoning (as opposed to just stringing ideas together).

“What, Me Read? Part II” is an interesting article. It’s a must-read…as a start to doing more reading, research, and reasoning about reading and education.