Friday Musings: Aperture
The theme of this week was aperture. What do you miss when you focus so tightly and closely on one object or objective? What do you see and learn when you open your lens a bit wider and let a little more light in? It’s been a long time since I’ve dabbled in darkroom photography, but I think I basically have my metaphors right. Let me zoom out (yikes), and explain.
The most influential thing I read this week was James Kim’s “Research and the Reading Wars” from When Research Matters: How Scholarship Influences Education Policy. Kim traces our current debate about reading instruction to the 1960s when Jeanne Chall’s work challenged the conventional predictive “look-say” reading instruction method. Chall found that systemic phonics led to strong word recognition and stronger reading comprehension, compared to “look-say,” which emphasized reading entire words. From there, Chall’s work was challenged by Kenneth Goodman and Frank Smith, who argued that reading was a natural process that was developed by using context clues. Smith also did something unusual; he appealed directly to teachers, even writing two books aimed at convincing them to abandon phonics and embrace his methods. Kim then goes on to explore how various panels, education agencies, and eventually the federal government handled these competing theories about reading instruction. This is all very interesting context, and I’d love to read Kim’s accounting of the last 20 years of the reading wars.
Kim ends his chapter by exploring why high-quality research is not sufficient for high-quality reading instruction. He concludes that until teachers are invited and empowered to establish professional standards, to have seats at the table alongside scientists and policymakers, instructional practice will never change. Kim concludes his chapter by asking, “Will teachers belong to a sovereign profession that compels its members to meet norms of excellence agreed upon by a community of peers, applies scientific research in shaping professional standards, and serves its clients well? Or will teaching remain a partial profession where professors and lawmakers possess the primary authority to mandate policy and shape practice?”
I’ve spent a lot of time this week thinking about two things: 1. Competing theories of change in education and 2. How to grow the science of reading movement. Kim’s theory—that you’re nowhere without the teachers—makes me question: who is leading the movement now, who is perceived to be leading the movement, and who should lead the movement in the future? Where do the teachers, the ones who are going to have to enact the desired change, fit in? What do they need? What do they think? What do they want?
I’ve also spent time reading Districts That Succeed: Breaking the Correlation Between Race, Poverty, and Achievement this week (more on this another time; I’m still reading). In her book, Karin Chenoweth profiles five (very) different school districts that have broken the correlation between demographics and achievement. Chenoweth argues that culture, not program is key to breaking the connection between race, poverty, and achievement in these districts. Like Kim, Chenoweth challenges some of my thinking about the science of reading movement. She makes me wonder about what it’s missing and forgetting as it pursues change. Where do culture and leadership fit in? And, again where are the teachers?
Both Chenoweth and Kim have much more to contribute than I’ve shared here, and I hope to return to their work soon. But as I look to upcoming conversations with parent activists, school board members, and curriculum developers, I will remember to keep widening, broadening, and shifting my aperture, resist the urge to hyper-focus on one simple, and above all, remember the teachers .
