Education-related
Oct. 10th, 2003 06:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beandelphikiHere are some great quotes on learning to read from a book I'm reading, The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer.
We are not impressed by "child-led" education (waiting until the child brings you a book and begs for a reading lesson) for the same reasons that we don't let our elementary-school children eat exactly what they want: young children do not realize that spinach is not only better for them than Twinkies, but actually more satisfying in the long run. (pg. 66)
I'll say! *adores spinach*
A word about beginning readers. We strongly object to the Goosebumps and Spinechillers books, as well as Sweet Valley High and other lightweight romance series directed at young readers. "At least they're reading," parents sigh. But these books are the literary equivalent of TV cartoons. Just because your child develops a taste for cartoons doesn't mean that he'll then go on to watch National Geographic specials. The cartoons train him to pay attention in five-second bursts and teach him that he doesn't need to think in a connected series of propositions because bursts of images will work just as well. In the same way, Goosebumps and Sweet Valley High books develop a child's taste for short sentences, simple sentence structure, easy vocabulary, uncomplicated paragraphs, and shallow, simple plots. This won't help him make the transition to decent literature; it may teach him to turn away from anything that makes his brain work too hard. A diet of Goosebumps does not promote the patterns of thought that produce intellectual and personal excellence. (pg 89-90)
I completely agree. I remember when I was 9 and all my friends were reading Goosebumps. I begged and begged my mother to buy one for me, so she finally gave in and bought me a volume from early in the series. As soon as we got home from shopping, I ran up to my room and read the book.
A little while later I came down, handed the book back to my mother and said, "Mom, I don't ever want to read another one of these books again."
I knew perfectly well they were crap, and I was disgusted.
That said, I wouldn't ban my child from reading them. But I wouldn't let that be all they read, that's for sure.
And one last one, on history this time, on the idea of studying American history more than the history of the rest of the world (American book, after all):
...American history ought to be kept in perspective: the history curriculum covers seventy centuries; America occupies only five of them.
A common assumption found in history curricula seems to be that children can't comprehend (or be interested in) people and events distant from their own experience. So the first-grade history class is renamed the Social Studies and begins with what the child knows: first, himself and his family, followed by his community, his state, his country and only then the rest of the world.
This intensely self-focused pattern of study encourages the student of history to relate everything he studies to himself, to measure the cultures and customs of other peoples against his own experience. And that's exactly what the classical education fights against - a self-absorbed, self-referential approach to knowledge. History learned this way makes our needs and wants the center of human endeavor. This attitude is destructive at any time, but it is especially destructive in the present global civilization. (pg. 124-5)
Which speaks for itself.
We are not impressed by "child-led" education (waiting until the child brings you a book and begs for a reading lesson) for the same reasons that we don't let our elementary-school children eat exactly what they want: young children do not realize that spinach is not only better for them than Twinkies, but actually more satisfying in the long run. (pg. 66)
I'll say! *adores spinach*
A word about beginning readers. We strongly object to the Goosebumps and Spinechillers books, as well as Sweet Valley High and other lightweight romance series directed at young readers. "At least they're reading," parents sigh. But these books are the literary equivalent of TV cartoons. Just because your child develops a taste for cartoons doesn't mean that he'll then go on to watch National Geographic specials. The cartoons train him to pay attention in five-second bursts and teach him that he doesn't need to think in a connected series of propositions because bursts of images will work just as well. In the same way, Goosebumps and Sweet Valley High books develop a child's taste for short sentences, simple sentence structure, easy vocabulary, uncomplicated paragraphs, and shallow, simple plots. This won't help him make the transition to decent literature; it may teach him to turn away from anything that makes his brain work too hard. A diet of Goosebumps does not promote the patterns of thought that produce intellectual and personal excellence. (pg 89-90)
I completely agree. I remember when I was 9 and all my friends were reading Goosebumps. I begged and begged my mother to buy one for me, so she finally gave in and bought me a volume from early in the series. As soon as we got home from shopping, I ran up to my room and read the book.
A little while later I came down, handed the book back to my mother and said, "Mom, I don't ever want to read another one of these books again."
I knew perfectly well they were crap, and I was disgusted.
That said, I wouldn't ban my child from reading them. But I wouldn't let that be all they read, that's for sure.
And one last one, on history this time, on the idea of studying American history more than the history of the rest of the world (American book, after all):
...American history ought to be kept in perspective: the history curriculum covers seventy centuries; America occupies only five of them.
A common assumption found in history curricula seems to be that children can't comprehend (or be interested in) people and events distant from their own experience. So the first-grade history class is renamed the Social Studies and begins with what the child knows: first, himself and his family, followed by his community, his state, his country and only then the rest of the world.
This intensely self-focused pattern of study encourages the student of history to relate everything he studies to himself, to measure the cultures and customs of other peoples against his own experience. And that's exactly what the classical education fights against - a self-absorbed, self-referential approach to knowledge. History learned this way makes our needs and wants the center of human endeavor. This attitude is destructive at any time, but it is especially destructive in the present global civilization. (pg. 124-5)
Which speaks for itself.
