Cinnabar and Alabaster

Smith says many things that are obvious. Right? I get the feeling that he is belittling instruction. He believes, "We [instructors] put mechanisms and processes into their [the students] heads" (9). Earlier in the same chapter, he writes, "Children aren't usually confused by written language--until someone tries to instruct [sic] them how to read" (3). If children never have "instructors" to provide them with a means of learning to read (including parents because let's face it, they are instructors too), then we just allow children to grow up and learn what they can on their own? That's almost a Montessorian philosophy. Instruction is a necessary part of the reading "process", no matter how many concepts we, as instructors, decide to pack into their little brains.

what's wrong with montessorian philosophies? have you had bad experiences with them, or am i misreading you? i'm a montessori baby myself--'til i was 8 it was all i did, and i found the transition rocky & the practices of "normal" schools frustrating & bewildering indeed.

i see what you're saying, but i see what smith is saying too; i think, if i had to put my beliefs on the subject into a sentence, i'd say that learning to read does happen "on [learners'] own"--provided that they have the examples & interactive attention to help them a) see why it matters & b) see how others go about the sense-making process. smith goes too far, perhaps--i've heard others talk about students learning "in spite of rather than because of" schooling, and i get a similar sense from him. while a lot of the direct instruction we do probably is itself unnecessary, unhelpful, maybe even more confusing than less guided intervention would be, i see the crucial interaction of sitting down to read with children--for parents, teachers, siblings, other students--as irreplaceable. and since that type of interaction is the form so much of direct instruction takes, then even if he's right about the instruction itself being non- or even counter-productive, the necessary benefit of its method of delivery defends our continuation of the practice.

Winnie-the-Pooh is the I-Ching. It is the sum of all wisdom. It is the answer to any question. What should I take on my summer vacation? Leave the scholarship, take the honey-pot.....