http://brucedeitrickprice.edublogs.org Improving Education Thu, 03 Jul 2008 02:28:51 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Please, if you know a non-reader or you are connected to a literacy program, check out what I believe is a very important new article: 33: How To Help  A Non-Reader To Read,  on Improve-Education.org. The country is said to have 50,000,000 "functional illiterates." Typically, these are people once trapped in Whole ... http://brucedeitrickprice.edublogs.org/2008/04/30/helping-the-non-reader-the-dyslexic-the-illiterate/ I just reviewed an old book for Amazon.com called "The New Illiterates" by Samuel Blumenfeld. Published in 1973, this book is still amazingly fresh. How can that be? Because our elite educators still hang on to all their excuses and sophistries, still refuse to work for genuine academic improvement. In this ... http://brucedeitrickprice.edublogs.org/2008/03/13/why-we-need-a-teacher-liberation-front/ I've just finished a long historical piece called "The War Against Reading" (#30 on Improve-Education.org.) The main focus is on Whole Word and why it can't possibly work. If you are confused about any of this, please check it out.  The article mentions a second, complementary war against arithmetic. This war was ... http://brucedeitrickprice.edublogs.org/2008/01/09/what-really-happened-to-education-in-usa/ One of the big unreported stories in this country is that a whole industry has grown up around dyslexia---to excuse it, blame it on any cause but the real one, and find reasons why it's not really so bad. Dip into any of this and your head will spin. The ... http://brucedeitrickprice.edublogs.org/2007/12/18/dyslexia-whole-words-second-shadow/ New software lets me create some very useful videos (actually they're more like highly animated slideshows). Here are the titles you can find on YouTube: Phonics vs. Whole Word The Truth About Robots John Dewey and the Burden of Ideology How To Teach Latin, Etc. World's Easiest Test Once you find one, you've found them all! ... http://brucedeitrickprice.edublogs.org/2007/12/07/educational-videos-on-youtubecom/ As I've written about the reading wars---Whole Word vs. phonics---and argued that Whole Word was never anything but a sophistry, I've become increasingly fascinated by a collateral question: how were our educators able to get away with their scam?? (If that sounds harsh, please Google: "A Tribute to Rudolph Flesch," ... http://brucedeitrickprice.edublogs.org/2007/10/01/the-big-silence-how-phonics-was-disappeared/ ****announcing an important new article**** Here’s a summary of my school years: all my schools were highly-rated, but not one class was taught as well as it could have been. Why?! I’ve been totally intrigued by this question for a long time. Here’s my suggestion: we need to look at classrooms the ... http://brucedeitrickprice.edublogs.org/2007/06/21/the-emerging-era-of-ergonomic-education/ Goods News! Princeton Alumni Weekly ran my letter--the one below. My faith in Princeton is partially restored. I think it's a smart letter, and written in a fairly low key. So why not run it? Well, I've noticed more and more how the liberal media help the educators by the ... http://brucedeitrickprice.edublogs.org/2007/05/23/why-our-public-schools-do-a-poor-job/ A column I have in several places on the internet starts like this: "Most major American newspapers are scoring a painful trifecta: losing readers, waving goodbye to advertisers, and firing journalists. Why is this happening?" I discuss two causes. The first (in brief) is the papers are too busy pushing ... http://brucedeitrickprice.edublogs.org/2007/03/31/newspapers-commit-suicide-by-siding-with-educational-establishment/ WHY ARE TEACHERS LOSING RESPECT ?? a letter sent to the Princeton Alumni Weekly: ------------------------ In “The Road Back to School” (Oct. 11, ’06), Caroline Horowitz ‘04 is quoted as saying that teaching has lost much of its prestige. Sad if true; but I don’t think it is. People still respect teachers. What the ... http://brucedeitrickprice.edublogs.org/2007/03/12/42/