You say in this essay that you are surprised that a bright light is emerging from the murkiest depth of the country. I don’t think it’s surprising at all. Whether it is the return of the repressed in Jung, the strange fact that vanquished/subservient imperial powers end up culturally dominant when the powers that beat them stay economically dominant, the Hegelian lord-bondsman dialectic or what have you.
Who knows why light comes out of the darkness, but it seems to be the rule and not the exception.
Phonics, dammit!! I’d scream at “education administrators.” Then Little-Brown handbooks, dammit!! This Rousseau bullshit has to stop. Thank you, God, for Catholic schools.
When teaching littles to read, try starting with a few a,b,c sounds then use rhyming words. This is how to avoid the meaningless situation of sound association. They know what the rhyming words mean like “ cat, bat, fat” and can begin to read them quickly. I’m a speech and language pathologist and this concept works.
Thank you, mother, for making me learn to read when I didn't want to in first grade. It made all the difference in my life's trajectory. I was raised in Kansas, which is not all that different from the South, even though our accent is not quite as interesting.
Progressive actors don't understand that in abolishing all systems that might make someone feel inferior, judged, subservient, or obedient, they are abolishing everything that, for lack of a better word, works.
I'm Louisiana-born, New Orleans-area educated, and now teaching in a Western purple state, so I found this particularly interesting.
I work mostly with students who have identified learning or emotional disabilities. They come to me for their required minutes in a more restrictive environment, and I try to make every one of those minutes count.
The “science of reading” is now the new rage. It's what happens after the previous three reading programs have been scrapped, and dumped in the trash (not donated to others that could use it).
Every group hears the same thing. “We're here to read. The only way you get better at reading is to read, reread, and read some more. After that, we'll talk about what we read. What did it say? What is the writer trying to tell us?”
It's a high-trust classroom. Oral reading isn't a performance. It's practice. We read, we stumble, we reread, we figure things out, and we keep going.
I agree with you. Authority, structure, expectations, and repetition matter. I've taken a little bit of that Southern surge with me out West, and I see it working every day with my students.
Being from somewhere might be the key to learning anywhere. Your old college ground is a now writing place, all situated within a “real estate scheme”. Two centuries later, you have an excellent schematic. I am looking forward to ground-truthing the South with your guidance. There is clearly a there, there.
Even some of us northern kids grew up with dads named “Sir” and moms named “ma’am”, at least when dad was around to enforce the response language.
Yeah we here in Tennessee were always dragging ass on the ratings jostling with Arkansas and Mississippi to look down upon (just joking) late sixties-late seventies. It was a big political movement with bipartisan support that nudged us up
There is a lot here that I love. With respect to "forcing" children I am reminded of Illich's many discussions on codification of language, Empire, and the impossibility of "teaching" the vernacular. Could we not work out a way to understand bringing children into the world of taught language, meaning written language, that doesn't require a framework of force? Of course there is entailed in all of this the instantiation of Girardian violence according to the chronological hominization through murder, a violence which Heiddeger saw but in the work of Bartlett is surpassed by Christ who, in time but of course in Ontological priority, instantiated a semiotic shift to the true human, the real root of the human who becomes divine precisely as human. And so separating the violence and language is chronologically impossible but, through imitating Christ must be at least possible to, if not overcome, enact differently, which is to say can we not parent and teach decoding on paper nonviolently? Not forcing but befriending our children in a world of actions so saturated by reading text that it is more akin to participation in a joyful co-discovery than forcing? Are not schools an Illichian liturgy of violence such that to even imagine a nonviolent education amidst the corruption of Christ that is the west is almost impossible? Made worse by the entire culture that has dehumanized us? And here to Christopher Lasch is not unrelated in his location of the destruction of the family in the anti-human marketplace.
Interesting article. I’m relieved to have dodged the reading by osmosis era and to hear that it is ending. What a disservice we have done to the generation who suffered this idiocy.
I grew up in Atlanta, from a Southern family, married to a Louisianan and spend a lot of time contemplating our cultures — so appreciated your analysis on the South too!
Fascinating, thanks. I think that in Yankeeland, immigrant families are the most likely to resist delusional Rousseauianism and support the kind of Southern values described here.
In Washington, DC, public schools a white kid must score a 90 to get an A, a Hispanic must score 85 and a black kid 80. I'd be curious to know the system in your neck of the woods .
You say in this essay that you are surprised that a bright light is emerging from the murkiest depth of the country. I don’t think it’s surprising at all. Whether it is the return of the repressed in Jung, the strange fact that vanquished/subservient imperial powers end up culturally dominant when the powers that beat them stay economically dominant, the Hegelian lord-bondsman dialectic or what have you.
Who knows why light comes out of the darkness, but it seems to be the rule and not the exception.
Beautiful thought, thank you.
Phonics, dammit!! I’d scream at “education administrators.” Then Little-Brown handbooks, dammit!! This Rousseau bullshit has to stop. Thank you, God, for Catholic schools.
So true.
When teaching littles to read, try starting with a few a,b,c sounds then use rhyming words. This is how to avoid the meaningless situation of sound association. They know what the rhyming words mean like “ cat, bat, fat” and can begin to read them quickly. I’m a speech and language pathologist and this concept works.
Nice, that's a good tip to get them across that bridge.
Thank you, mother, for making me learn to read when I didn't want to in first grade. It made all the difference in my life's trajectory. I was raised in Kansas, which is not all that different from the South, even though our accent is not quite as interesting.
Progressive actors don't understand that in abolishing all systems that might make someone feel inferior, judged, subservient, or obedient, they are abolishing everything that, for lack of a better word, works.
Very difficult thing to openly believe
I'm Louisiana-born, New Orleans-area educated, and now teaching in a Western purple state, so I found this particularly interesting.
I work mostly with students who have identified learning or emotional disabilities. They come to me for their required minutes in a more restrictive environment, and I try to make every one of those minutes count.
The “science of reading” is now the new rage. It's what happens after the previous three reading programs have been scrapped, and dumped in the trash (not donated to others that could use it).
Every group hears the same thing. “We're here to read. The only way you get better at reading is to read, reread, and read some more. After that, we'll talk about what we read. What did it say? What is the writer trying to tell us?”
It's a high-trust classroom. Oral reading isn't a performance. It's practice. We read, we stumble, we reread, we figure things out, and we keep going.
I agree with you. Authority, structure, expectations, and repetition matter. I've taken a little bit of that Southern surge with me out West, and I see it working every day with my students.
Excellent to hear this, Daniel. Keep it up.
Being from somewhere might be the key to learning anywhere. Your old college ground is a now writing place, all situated within a “real estate scheme”. Two centuries later, you have an excellent schematic. I am looking forward to ground-truthing the South with your guidance. There is clearly a there, there.
Even some of us northern kids grew up with dads named “Sir” and moms named “ma’am”, at least when dad was around to enforce the response language.
"yeah" without a "sir" was considered a grave insult to Southern adults.
Yeah we here in Tennessee were always dragging ass on the ratings jostling with Arkansas and Mississippi to look down upon (just joking) late sixties-late seventies. It was a big political movement with bipartisan support that nudged us up
There is a lot here that I love. With respect to "forcing" children I am reminded of Illich's many discussions on codification of language, Empire, and the impossibility of "teaching" the vernacular. Could we not work out a way to understand bringing children into the world of taught language, meaning written language, that doesn't require a framework of force? Of course there is entailed in all of this the instantiation of Girardian violence according to the chronological hominization through murder, a violence which Heiddeger saw but in the work of Bartlett is surpassed by Christ who, in time but of course in Ontological priority, instantiated a semiotic shift to the true human, the real root of the human who becomes divine precisely as human. And so separating the violence and language is chronologically impossible but, through imitating Christ must be at least possible to, if not overcome, enact differently, which is to say can we not parent and teach decoding on paper nonviolently? Not forcing but befriending our children in a world of actions so saturated by reading text that it is more akin to participation in a joyful co-discovery than forcing? Are not schools an Illichian liturgy of violence such that to even imagine a nonviolent education amidst the corruption of Christ that is the west is almost impossible? Made worse by the entire culture that has dehumanized us? And here to Christopher Lasch is not unrelated in his location of the destruction of the family in the anti-human marketplace.
“Force” here I would not characterize as violence, but discipline (from disciple), which I see as a form of love.
Interesting article. I’m relieved to have dodged the reading by osmosis era and to hear that it is ending. What a disservice we have done to the generation who suffered this idiocy.
I grew up in Atlanta, from a Southern family, married to a Louisianan and spend a lot of time contemplating our cultures — so appreciated your analysis on the South too!
Fascinating, thanks. I think that in Yankeeland, immigrant families are the most likely to resist delusional Rousseauianism and support the kind of Southern values described here.
Excellent essay. The progressive obsession with the mirage of “social justice” has clearly injured education (among many other things).
Does the abolition of the federal education bureau factor into this?
I didn’t see it emerge myself, but maybe.
As someone who learned to read by himself before attending any school, I know most kids can't do that. Good luck, southerners.
In Washington, DC, public schools a white kid must score a 90 to get an A, a Hispanic must score 85 and a black kid 80. I'd be curious to know the system in your neck of the woods .