4 ms·

What would you recommend?

ZeroGravitas 9mo ago
How about saying that average reading performance is falling for all students? And that it's important to reverse that trend to have a better society.
- tolerance 9mo ago
  Do you object to the headline for the same reasons as the person above? Do you have an issue with the article itself? I’m not trying to be provocative. I’d only like to know what you think. If there’s a legitimate reason to single young men out in this issue then what’s wrong with that?
- mpweiher 9mo ago
  "...while average scores have declined for everyone, boys are doing much worse."
bell-cot 9mo ago
Put together a bunch of local focus groups of successful elementary school teachers - preferably ones who remember the "good old days", before how reading should be taught was prescribed by big-ego academics, consultants, ideologues, and politicians. (Ideally, the latter sorts would be lured off to some red herring project, that'll conveniently never get funded.) Ask 'em to assemble short descriptions of "what actually works" for teaching reading. If they end up describing half a dozen approaches, which seem to work in different circumstances (kids, teacher, resources, etc.) - that's fine. Also ask for lists describing a dozen or two advantages and disadvantages - which help or hurt a kid's prospects for reading well - and simple ideas on how to encourage the former and fix or work around the latter. Encourage the old teachers to leave off group identifiers. Let real-world parents and teacher reading their descriptions intuit that (say) #11 would apply to many lower-income non-white Catholic boys. Try to put a strong "every child is an individual human being" slant on the whole thing. Far too much of the current focus is on partitioning kids into various "identity" castes, for the benefit of people who evidently thrive on caste warfare. If we can't magically ship all those folks off to some Planet Faraway, I don't have any great ideas for keeping them from storming into the classrooms and spoiling everything.
- tolerance 9mo ago
  How does this result in better literacy rates and how might the educators and administrators prevent these new identifiers from forming into “castes” of their own? Can’t parents and teachers sort of gerrymand the program. Don’t children (like adults) want to bond over shared “identities”, individuality not withstanding? My interpretation of your proposal is that each cohort is taught to read in a way that’s supposed to correspond to their respective strengths and weaknesses. In a way I don’t see how this is too far off from figuring out better ways to teach boys how to read; if a better way to teach girls is discovered in the process then is that okay with you even if both methods differ and say…learning had to take place in separate classrooms because of it? I don’t imagine the system you theorized would be any different with regard to separation. I’m sure that in theory every cohort wouldn’t be a 1:1 match per teaching method, there would probably be some overlap, mixed classrooms so to speak, all getting taught the same way. But with so much emphasis being put on the eradication of “castes” it begins to feel like getting the kids to just be able to read is lost and used as a front for some other agenda. Literacy rates in general are low and boys have typically done worse but in addition to other factors that might not have always been normal (e.g. low percentages of young men in college compared to women), the present decline will likely affect young men the most in the long run and if overall rates continue to decline young men when probably be only qualified to pick fruit and pack boxes, have sex and play games for a living. Until the thrill of the last two wear off. It doesn’t take a long perusal through the news and history books to see how society is shaped by the decisions and dispositions of men. They’ve seen other “identities” (borrowing your quote marks) over the last few years receive attention and treatment in some fashion. If no one is willing to give them the same opportunities then enjoy the Nick Fuentes/Nicki Minaj administration in 2032.

How about saying that average reading performance is falling for all students? And that it's important to reverse that trend to have a better society.

tolerance 9mo ago
Do you object to the headline for the same reasons as the person above? Do you have an issue with the article itself? I’m not trying to be provocative. I’d only like to know what you think. If there’s a legitimate reason to single young men out in this issue then what’s wrong with that?
mpweiher 9mo ago
"...while average scores have declined for everyone, boys are doing much worse."

bell-cot 9mo ago

Put together a bunch of local focus groups of successful elementary school teachers - preferably ones who remember the "good old days", before how reading should be taught was prescribed by big-ego academics, consultants, ideologues, and politicians. (Ideally, the latter sorts would be lured off to some red herring project, that'll conveniently never get funded.) Ask 'em to assemble short descriptions of "what actually works" for teaching reading. If they end up describing half a dozen approaches, which seem to work in different circumstances (kids, teacher, resources, etc.) - that's fine. Also ask for lists describing a dozen or two advantages and disadvantages - which help or hurt a kid's prospects for reading well - and simple ideas on how to encourage the former and fix or work around the latter. Encourage the old teachers to leave off group identifiers. Let real-world parents and teacher reading their descriptions intuit that (say) #11 would apply to many lower-income non-white Catholic boys. Try to put a strong "every child is an individual human being" slant on the whole thing. Far too much of the current focus is on partitioning kids into various "identity" castes, for the benefit of people who evidently thrive on caste warfare. If we can't magically ship all those folks off to some Planet Faraway, I don't have any great ideas for keeping them from storming into the classrooms and spoiling everything.

tolerance 9mo ago
How does this result in better literacy rates and how might the educators and administrators prevent these new identifiers from forming into “castes” of their own? Can’t parents and teachers sort of gerrymand the program. Don’t children (like adults) want to bond over shared “identities”, individuality not withstanding? My interpretation of your proposal is that each cohort is taught to read in a way that’s supposed to correspond to their respective strengths and weaknesses. In a way I don’t see how this is too far off from figuring out better ways to teach boys how to read; if a better way to teach girls is discovered in the process then is that okay with you even if both methods differ and say…learning had to take place in separate classrooms because of it? I don’t imagine the system you theorized would be any different with regard to separation. I’m sure that in theory every cohort wouldn’t be a 1:1 match per teaching method, there would probably be some overlap, mixed classrooms so to speak, all getting taught the same way. But with so much emphasis being put on the eradication of “castes” it begins to feel like getting the kids to just be able to read is lost and used as a front for some other agenda. Literacy rates in general are low and boys have typically done worse but in addition to other factors that might not have always been normal (e.g. low percentages of young men in college compared to women), the present decline will likely affect young men the most in the long run and if overall rates continue to decline young men when probably be only qualified to pick fruit and pack boxes, have sex and play games for a living. Until the thrill of the last two wear off. It doesn’t take a long perusal through the news and history books to see how society is shaped by the decisions and dispositions of men. They’ve seen other “identities” (borrowing your quote marks) over the last few years receive attention and treatment in some fashion. If no one is willing to give them the same opportunities then enjoy the Nick Fuentes/Nicki Minaj administration in 2032.