BULLSHIT IS WHAT IT IS

I could not help but align the similarities of politicians and, I have named Education Department and periphery education and media education commentators, wonkpersons - to this article in the Economist, December 4th, 2021. It is titled On Bullshit : Brussels edition. 

Note: The quotations in italic are from the article. Mine and other's comments are in print. 

Preamble: A politician or wonkperson may have a miniscule experience in education. More likely they do not have the knowledge and experience of academics who study the reports and the principles of education, what has been successful, what has not worked. There has been a variety of research as regards ‘Reading Wars’ since I began as an educator, 1983, the two rival armies have been phonics V’s balanced literacy with teachers and children caught in the flanks. 

EU’s Global Gateway Initiative…not just the language but the content. 

Examining the theory of bullshit – “indifference to how things really are”

Language ‘science of reading’, ‘systemic phonic learning’, ‘synthetic phonics’, ‘phonics screening test’, balanced literacy. 

The content…polticians and Wonkpersons advocate children will not successfully read unless they have intensive grounding in phonics and phonological awareness. They advocate that evidence shows this. 

The reality is: 

The Rose Report, UK (2006), states various points to note: (1) phonics teaching does not teach other aspects of reading and writing (2) advocates of phonic learning downplay the complexity of reading and writing (3) no evidence that intense phonics learning is better than other methods. No evidence that reading improved. 

A study by, Metropolitan Achievement Test, 1980, (USA) has not contributed much information as to the readiness of first graders; it did not consider any methods that differed from Reading First (see below) in grade 7, instead coming to the conclusion that there are severe limits on how much phonics can be learned and applied because of the complexity of many of the rules. 

Direct Instruction's (DI) approach to teaching reading is based on training children in phonemic awareness, followed by drills on phonics. DI maintains that students need to know how to sound out words before they can actually read with understanding. When DI children are tested in the upper grades (three, four and five) on standardized tests that included reading comprehension, the results are extremely modest. 

The Clackmannanshire study (Scotland) has been cited frequently as a victory for systematic phonics instruction. In first grade (primary 1), two different ways of teaching phonics were compared. Synthetic phonics (“first and fast”) readers were followed up to grade 7. The children were found to be unusually good at pronouncing lists of words presented in isolation. The children's superior ability to read words out of context did not translate into better reading comprehension ability. 

The Reading First Impact Final Report, 2008, (USA), (‘Science of reading’, ‘systemic phonic learning’), found that children following an intensive, decoding-based curriculum do better on tests of decoding, pronouncing real words (cat) and nonsense words (fof) out-loud in grade one. Children’s reading comprehension was not superior in grades one, two, and three. Heavy Skills Instruction as the first step (Reading First) is not necessary. Studies show that children who have been given the opportunity to do a variety of interesting, comprehensible reading and have less decoding instruction perform as well or better than children in decoding-emphasis classes. 

Of course, a small amount of consciously learned knowledge of the rules of phonics can help in the beginning stages of children's progress to independent reading. The Reading First Final Report thus confirms the common-sense view that the path to reading proficiency is not through worksheets, nor commercial ventures such as Jolly Phonics (Letterland was a previous commercial venture) but through books; many attested cases of children who learned to read on their own with little or no explicit decoding instruction appear to be able to decode and comprehend quite well. 

Note: Many educators contributed to this article by Stephen Krashen (USA) Knowledge Quest 37 (4): 72-74, 2009. Balanced Literacy, continual assessment (base, diagnostic, formative, summative) informs planning. Whole class, new learning modelled with mainly, literature as the mainstay. Small groups and/or individuals with teacher guidance, reinforce the new learning. Children explicitly taught thinking strategies and meta-language that they use to become independent readers and writers. Feedback, conferencing/conversation lets children know what they can do, need to work on next. Teacher expertise is required. 

Anywhere politicians, and wonkpersons, gather tends to produce a surplus of bullshit – [they seem to have] power but little scrutiny…bullshit is unavoidable whenever circumstances require someone to talk without knowing what he [she] is talking about. How the EU’s institutions [politicians and those closely aligned with governments] work in theory and in practice, bullshitting is inevitable. A soporific consensus is the norm. As long as politicians are the policy makers and wonkpersons are the drivers, they will talk the ‘easy’ talk.

 Politicians can understand only so much and is not phonics learning the easiest to understand? [Politicians and wonkpersons] scramble to justify a sorry existence by shovelling] more bullshit into a system already overflowing with it. For years politicians have tried to interfere with ‘how to improve’ reading standards, to make the figures look good, not realizing that education is so wide, for example, reading encompasses, inferring, isolating main points, questioning, making comparisons, giving reasoned opinions, analysing, synthesizing, evaluating, knowing text and language structures. Young children will already be aware of some of this learning from home e.g. a parent reading to them and modelling questions they can ask themselves. When they begin school some children will have a love of ‘the story’: will be aware of story structures: will know all or most of their letters and can write their names, add 1 ice-cream and another ice-cream together and so on. But politicians sprout on about 'Synthetic phonnics being 'first, fast and only'. Note, 'only' which indicates 'exclusivity' and it is evidence-based. 

Come on, children come to school having all levels of knowledge, skills and ways of learning. Teachers will use that information when implementing appropriate learning. Yes! It is easy to test letter knowledge (evidence-based) but it must be acknowledged that teachers expose, stretch and support their childrens' abilities and they do that by taking them from the 'known' to related new learning. 

Ignoring how things really are…is the essence of bullshit. There is a worry about children’s test scores, ignoring what is really happening. Tests are based on what wonkpersons think should be a standard, not on what children have learnt at home and in the classroom. Are politicians and wonkpersons ignoring how human society really functions? Could it be poverty, isolation, social upheaval, English as a second language, that are being forgotten in striving for higher state/country literacy scores? 

Schools are divided into colleges, faiths and state government funding. Is the funding fair? Politicians and wonkpersons have ignored really effective, excellent teaching practices used by expert practitioners? 

Rather than wasting finances on training teachers in implementing intensive phonics in their classroom, training should be based on effective teaching practices. All bullshiters are winging it, but some get it right. They are winging it, because ignorance is out there in full flight. Academics have studied hard, they read ‘for and against’ arguments and build theories based on a great deal of knowledge and long experience. They experiment, they work with the teaching profession and not against it. Well-funded [wonkpersons] opining on whatever dominates the day…not always with insight. [Some] build a career on bullshit – an example in the article, UN regulating the bendiness of the banana. 

The reality is that this is what politicians do. They are given a portfolio regardless of expertise. Ambition to sit on the front bench has been fulfilled. Now what is out there for the polly to hang his/her political hat on? This is the politicians’ stance. 

                  Round and round we go!