{"id":4064,"date":"2017-06-17T15:01:36","date_gmt":"2017-06-17T20:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=4064"},"modified":"2020-07-25T18:57:31","modified_gmt":"2020-07-25T23:57:31","slug":"gary-stager-on-direct-instruction-2004","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=4064","title":{"rendered":"Gary Stager on Direct Instruction (2004)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The following opinion column from the October issue of\u00a0District Administration Magazine\u00a0<\/em>caused the owner (and Editor-in-Chief) of the magazine to publish\u00a0an apology<\/a>\u00a0in the very next issue. The\u00a0mea culpa<\/a>\u00a0was published before any reader or advertiser complained. None did. This column never appeared on the magazine’s web site, so it is published here.<\/p>\n

In August 2004, District Administration Magazine published my harsh critique of Senator John Kerry’s education plan. It may be read\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In other words, the following fact-checked article was deemed unfair when an article critical of the political opponent two months earlier was fair game.<\/p>\n

I remain incredibly proud of this article because it was timely, witty, and predicted the\u00a0ultimate disaster<\/a>\u00a0caused by the policies I criticized.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Gary Stager on Direct Instruction<\/strong><\/p>\n

Perhaps it\u2019s time to end political social promotion
\n<\/em>From the October 2004 issue of\u00a0District Administration Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n

Michael Moore got it wrong.<\/p>\n

In his film, [easyazon_link identifier=”B00005JNEI” locale=”US” tag=”neweasyazon-20″]Fahrenheit 9\/11[\/easyazon_link]<\/strong>,\u00a0<\/em>Moore shows President Bush in a Florida classroom on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. The film’s narration said that while America was being attacked, the president read the book,\u00a0My Pet Goat, to\u00a0<\/em>a room full of young children. This is factually inaccurate in three important ways.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The story is actually titled,\u00a0The Pet Goat.<\/em><\/li>\n
  2. It is not a book, but an exercise in a heavily scripted basal.<\/li>\n
  3. The president did not read the story to the children.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Any perceptive educator watching this would quickly realize what was going on. The president was not in that classroom to demonstrate his love of reading. Being read to is a powerful literacy experience. Having a wonderful story read to you by the president of the United States could create a memory to last a lifetime.<\/p>\n

    Unlike his wife, mother and Oval Office predecessors, this president had a more important agenda than demonstrating affection for children or for reading. The trip was part of a calculated campaign to sell\u00a0No Child Left Behind<\/em>. In what Michael Moore rightly observed as a photo opportunity, young children were used as props to advance the administration’s radical attack on public education.<\/p>\n

    The Pet Goat\u00a0<\/em>is an exercise from a literary classic called,\u00a0Reading Mastery 2,\u00a0<\/em>by the father of Direct Instruction, Siegfried (Zig) Engelmann. In the 1960s, Engelmann invented a controversial pedagogical approach that reduces knowledge to bite-]sized chunks presented in a prescribed sequence enforced by a scripted lesson the teacher is to recite to a classroom of pupils chanting predetermined responses. Every single word the teacher is to utter, including permissible and prohibited words of encouragement, are provided. There is no room for individuality. The Direct Instruction Web site states, “The popular valuing of teacher creativity and autonomy as high priorities must give way to a willingness\u00a0to\u00a0<\/em>follow certain carefully prescribed instructional practices.”<\/p>\n

    Engelmann told\u00a0The New Yorker\u00a0<\/em>in its July 26, 2004 issue, “We don’t give a damn what the teacher thinks, what the teacher feels. On the teachers’ own time they can hate it. We don’t care, as long as they do it. Traditionalists die over this, but in terms of data we whump the daylights out of them.” It is easy to see how a man of such sensitive temperament could author more than 1,000 literary masterpieces such as\u00a0The Pet Goat.<\/em><\/p>\n

    While I am sure the Florida school visited is a fine one and the classroom teacher loves children, educational excellence was not being celebrated. This was a party on behalf of Direct Instruction. While Moore made a documentary [some suggest artful propaganda] about the Iraq war, he could have made a movie about the United States government’s ideological attack on the public schools.<\/p>\n

    The War on Public Education
    \n<\/strong>Engelmann’s publisher is a textbook giant with ties to the Bush family dating back to the 1930s. Company namesakes served on George W. Bush’s transition team and the board of his mother’s literacy foundation. The publishers have received honors from two Bush administrations and they in turn have bestowed awards on Secretary Rod Paige, who then keynoted their business conference. The same company’s former executive vice president is the new U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. Direct instruction has become synonymous with the “scientifically based methods” required by\u00a0No Child Left Behind<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    The War on Public Education has ratcheted up parental fear with cleverly designed rhetoric of failing schools, data disaggregation, underperforming students, unqualified teachers and clever slogans like, “no excuses.” If you turn public schools, even the best ones, into single-]minded test-]prep factories where teachers drone on from scripted lessons then more people will want that magical voucher. Repeatedly demonize teachers arid the public will lose confidence regardless of their personal experiences with their local school.<\/p>\n

    So, how are you doing? Is your job now more about compliance than kids? Are sound educational experiences being sacrificed for test\u00ad preparation? Has fear replaced joy in your classrooms? President Reagan might suggest we ask ourselves, “Is your school better off than it was four years ago?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The following opinion column from the October issue of\u00a0District Administration Magazine\u00a0caused the owner (and Editor-in-Chief) of the magazine to publish\u00a0an apology\u00a0in the very next issue. … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_wp_convertkit_post_meta":{"form":"-1","landing_page":"0","tag":"0","restrict_content":"0"},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[446,431],"tags":[651,1389,652,472,605,471],"class_list":["post-4064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-classic-stager","category-teaching","tag-direct-instruction","tag-education-policy","tag-george-w-bush","tag-literacy","tag-no-child-left-behind","tag-phonics"],"yoast_head":"\nGary Stager on Direct Instruction (2004) - Stager-to-Go<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=4064\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gary Stager on Direct Instruction (2004) - Stager-to-Go\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The following opinion column from the October issue of\u00a0District Administration Magazine\u00a0caused the owner (and Editor-in-Chief) of the magazine to publish\u00a0an apology\u00a0in the very next issue. …\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/stager.tv\/?p=4064\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Stager-to-Go\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/gary.stager\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-06-17T20:01:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-07-25T23:57:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/stager.org\/homepageimages\/garysignature.gif\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gary Stager\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@garystager\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@garystager\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Gary Stager\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/stager.tv\\\/?p=4064#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/stager.tv\\\/?p=4064\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Gary Stager\",\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/stager.tv\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/8bd320bea4758fc56f376ecdd9b8b184\"},\"headline\":\"Gary Stager on Direct Instruction (2004)\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-06-17T20:01:36+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-07-25T23:57:31+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/stager.tv\\\/?p=4064\"},\"wordCount\":852,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/stager.tv\\\/?p=4064#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/stager.org\\\/homepageimages\\\/garysignature.gif\",\"keywords\":[\"Direct Instruction\",\"education policy\",\"George W. 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