A "Cutting Edge" Blog Entry

Two e-mails arrived yesterday which led me to computer research this afternoon. The first was from BER and it was the routine yearly request to update my brochures. What caught my eye was the suggestion that I might want to consider updating to "reflect current cutting-edge, state of the art best practices ".

The second e-mail was from a young teacher who had attended my recent Chicago area seminar. She had been to a faculty meeting at her middle school where they discussed an article titled A Prescription for Success. She wanted my opinion on a number of "best practices" and "research based techniques" that she feels she is now being expected to follow. I felt really stupid since I had never heard of ANY of these. Upon researching, I discovered they were all techniques for teaching struggling readers that have absolutely no relation to teaching beginning foreign language students. I reassured her (I hope) that she is doing the right things in her classes and gave her some ways to explain foreign language "best practices" to her administrators.

No Child Left Behind has created a need for Response to Intervention programs which use such gobbidy gook techniques as Reciprocal Teach, Anticipation Guides and Expert Driven Instruction. After more than 30 years in the education business, I just roll my eyes at each "new", "research based" educational panacea. Somewhere back in the 70's when the "Open Classroom" and "Individualized Instruction" were the "new" ideas, I realized that "this too shall pass.".

Of course, my teaching changed significantly from 1966 to 2006, but the changes were primarily external---no more purple dittoes and filmstrip projectors! Today the people who make a living by inventing such miracles as "Reciprocal Teach" are actually just tweaking the common sense ideas that I learned from my supervisor in the 1960's. It's a shame that newer teachers in our test driven environment have to kow-tow to whatever new technique is in vogue.

And it's a shame I'm going to have to use some "educ speak" in my brochure revisions. It sure would be easier and more truthful to tell them that I'm simply going to "show them some really cool ideas for foreign language teaching".