In about five minutes I'm going to join some colleagues and walk up to an "institute" at Lucy Calkins's Reading and Writing Project at Teachers College. Calkins has been under fire more than ever recently; she seems to be the focal point around which circle the literacy pundits who harp most noisily about the importance of "science" as the foundation of all educational practice. Natalie Wexler's popular book, The Knowledge Gap, casts Calkins as its villain, and the various pro-phonics people in the reading wars--journalist Emily Hanford and cognitive scientist Mark Seidenberg are the ones I've noticed most--also love to hate on Calkins. Seidenberg recently wrote a blog post with the amazing title, "This is Why We Don't Have Better Readers", as if Calkins were single-handedly holding back the nation's youth. And who knows, maybe she is.
Having never gone to Ed School, I'm curious to see what I'll find. I'll write more later...
No comments:
Post a Comment