Greetings Nora and all,

This fantasy of yours (and mine - you wrote,  My fantasy is to join forces with others interested in deep and real and lasting change and move forward with that!  Thoughts?!)

My thought is: what a wonderful platform upon which to begin. I'd love to see a true partnership between public and private sectors, driven by people with backgrounds in education, and without any precepts as to what works and what doesn't, without either-or stances, and without political agendas, most especially hidden and smokescreen ones!

Might this be a way to reconstitute NIFL itself?

I may only be fantasizing, too, but I'll gladly join forces with you and whomever else!

Michael


Michael A. Gyori 
Maui International Language School 
www.mauilanguage.com




________________________________
From: "ooprc at comcast.net" <ooprc at comcast.net>
To: The Learning Disabilities Discussion List <learningdisabilities at nifl.gov>
Sent: Sat, November 7, 2009 7:15:26 AM
Subject: [LearningDisabilities 4293] Re: What have we learned?


Michael,
I so appreciate your insight and inquisitive mind.  I reread my email you referenced - my apologies for all the typos.  It was written on a breeak during a teacher training I was doing and my haste is obvious in the errors!  
 
Anyway, the disconnect is enormous between those who make the rules (politicians, college professors, administrators, etc) and those who attempt to enforce or implement the rules in the trenches.  I have a unique perspective in that my path to learning came through self education; reading of hundreds of books and research articles, attending many conferences, observing programs in schools, and connecting with those who were having substantial success in teaching reading as opposed to through a degree in education.  My degrees in nursing also influence how I looked at the information and practices I was exposed to about reading.  From that perspective, the disconnect in education between those in the ivory tower, as you call it, and those in the trenches trying desperately to help learners to read is quite unbelievable.  I often compare it to the story "The Emperor is Wearing No Clothes': I'm hearing and reading much about the tremendous
 funding and effort and research and programs that are in place to promote reading and the progress being made in those areas while my view and experience based on the clients in my center, training teachers, and working 2-3 days a week consulting - mostly consisting of teaching in K-12 classrooms in schools - reveal that the situation (students and adults learning to read) is not improving; over the past 2-3 years it actually seems to be getting worse.  It is obvious that the lowering of the bar has resulted in lowering of achievement.  As far as I can see, the emperor is naked!  
 
Many of the hundreds of books I read, and much of the discussion that goes on in circles that discuss this topic, the focus is on debating what tests are good or not, what research is good or not, what program is the one or not, and how not enough money is being committed to learining more about what needs to be done.  Since 1984, over $300 billion dollars has been dedicated to this problem and since that time, the 4th grade NAEP scores have been virtually stagnant.  I agree that NCLB was an overwhelmong failure.  However, I will also say that when I read the National Reading Panel Report early in 2001 (which is what NCLB was based on), I was thrilled and filled with hope.  The findings of that report were almost completely in line with how we teach reading at my center and what we teach teachers and what was working.  I traveled to DC that spring for a conference on NCLB, curious as to how a nation of teachers who were taught to teach reading
 almost completely the opposite of what the report recommended was going to be transformed to teach what was in the report.  At that conference, I asked the panel that question: how are the teachers and the literacy coaches who were teaching/coaching the teachers going to teach students this way when they had never used these methods with a student before and never been taught  how to use them.  The answer, from a very passionate member of the panel, was 'Well, it's kind of like building a plane while you're flying it'.  Wow!  I don't think anyone would ever sign up for that mission!  And, it didn't work. There was a lot of money to be had by a lot of individuals and basal publishing companies and other businesses selling educational 'stuff' and there was very heated debate about the efficacy of the NRP report and those who compiled it and there was a lot of training of teachers on theory from the report (training in practice was largely
 missing).  There was a whole lot of testing and, thanks to the DIBELS test that most schools use and that tests ability based on fluency, there is a lot of fluency focus.   So, now here we are 8 years later and there has been minimal, if any, improvement in reading ability of the students in this country.  
 
We do have an opportunity on this listserv to discuss and debate how meaningful change can happen in literacy.  In order to do so, we must take a good look at what is happening in the trenches and what needs to be done differently.   How it's been done up until now is not working to get the intended result.   The definition of insanity: doing the same thing and expecting different results.    I so hope we won't continue doing the same things that have not worked.  Yes, we do need to teach children to read in the early grades.  However, often that's not happening and they can and will learn to read after 4th grade if taught.  Yes, they can and will learn to read as adults if they are taught.  I expect many on this listserv have read 'The Teacher Who Couldn't Read' by John Corcoran - it is a must read for anyone who teaches reading as you get such a clear understanding from the perspective of the learner what it's like for children and adults
 who can't read.  Was he disabled until 48, when he learned to read and write and then was enabled?  No, he was not.  If he'd been taught to read at age 6 or 8 or 12 or 17 or any time after, he would've learned to read.  It just so happened that someone taught him at age 48!   Yes, Michael, lets get in the trenches and see what's happening.  Let's figure out what is working and replicate it.  Let's pioneer some deep, meaningful, lasting change.  There is so much brain power and passion and experience and insight in the members of this listserv.  My fantasy is to join forces with others interested in deep and real and lasting change and move forward with that!  Thoughts?!
Nora
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Gyori" <tesolmichael at yahoo.com>
To: "The Learning Disabilities Discussion List" <learningdisabilities at nifl.gov>
Sent: Friday, November 6, 2009 6:40:20 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: [LearningDisabilities 4289] Re: What have we learned?


Greetings Andrea, Nora, Tom, and all,

Firstly, I am very grateful that this discussion is being allowed to continue on the LD list. 

The following posts serve as the immediate backdrop to my own in which I expressed a series of wishes (see below).

Nora Chabazi's post on November 4, in which she concluded,

Who does one believe?   In the meantime [my summary: in face of all the seemingly conflicting claims about literacy development made by "experts"], the numbers of poor/non readers of every age continue to e[s]acalate.  How do those on this list deal with this?!
 
and  Tom Sticht comment in his post on November 2,

It seems the "experts" know what adults need without asking them, even if teachers don't.
 
as well as  a submission to Ed Week by Walt Gardner (at UCLA) that was forwarded by Steven Krashen at (USC) on November 3:

"Accept No Substitutes for Real Decentralization"
 
Submitted for publication to Ed Week
By Walt Gardner
 
Here we go again, allowing those who have never taught a day in public schools to hold themselves out as experts about school reform ("Accept No Substitute for Real Decentralization," Commentary, Nov. 4).  In case readers didn't notice at the end of his piece, William G. Ouchi's [see http://www.williamouchi.com/] specialization is corporate renewal. Not surprisingly, he wants us to believe that schools should be run like businesses. As evidence of his assertion, he recites the results of two studies that he and his staff conducted where principals were empowered to make decisions about budgeting, staffing, curriculum and scheduling.

If Ouchi's views are permitted to go unchallenged, then professors in schools of education should be given the same forum in business school journals on how to turn around AIGand other corporations being kept alive only by the infusion of billions of taxpayer dollars.  After all,  since these corporations have a defined structure and are run by managers overseeing subordinates, there are principles of leadership from public education that apply. We all know, however, that no study or series of studies conducted by these professors, no matter how prestigious, would be shown proper respect.

Ouchi needs to restrict himself to the field in which he is an acknowledged expert and leave public education to those who know it best.  There is little more demeaning to teachers than to have to listen to outsiders about how schools can be improved. They are largely theoreticians who use their marquee reputations as justification to promote their views.  Yet they continue to be given the limelight when others far more worthy are denied.  As one wag put it: "The beatings will continue until morale improves."
 
What has precipitated my wishes (a fantasy also by virtue of the virtual impossibility of congregating the universe of learners and those who guide them, for better or worse) is that blatant disconnect between those who teach in the classrooms on the one hand, and those who legislate systemic educational policy on the other. If we could truly behold the wealth of interactions between learners and teachers, observe how they do on assessments (with multiple pre-testing due to the regression to the mean issues), and how the assessments and instruction inform one another, we would have much to learn. 
 
The most ludicrous federal legislation that I can think of to date is NCLB.  The very notion that all children will be performing at "grade-level" by the end of the 2013-14 school year is an insult to the field of education and the numerous scholars and practitioners in the field who can demonstrate theoretical knowledge and practice what we might call "genuine evidence."  Further, nothing exhibits the total disconnect between policy-setters and practioners more clearly than NCLB, in my opinion.  What's even more insulting is that the intent of NCLB is not to make sure no child is "left behind" (whatever that may mean), but to impose a corporate model of education onto our schools so as to facilitate the "cherry picking" of those most molded and willing to participate in that model.
 
As for the United States, its public education system is known to lag substantially behind some other countries.  I attribute this in large measure to one characteristic of this country that I so dearly charish: the incredible sociocultural diversity displayed among its inhabitants. Not only are we faced with "learning disabilities" (oh how I cannot subscribe to this deficit-based term), but also with a student population in many places that many (most?) teachers have difficulty accommodating.  One reason has to do with the disparate common underlying proficiency levels of students learning together, the other with a widespread lack of cross-cultural awareness among educators.  In other words, the guiding principles of our system do not incorporate or reflect the incredible diversity to be found in our student population.
 
Finally, I am very concerned about the current drive for national standards in education.  With the current iteration of NCLB, all states needed to do was lower the bar to help schools look good.  Premised on what I consider to be flawed national education policy, raising the bar and holding states accountable for attaining them (at whatever prescribed levels), is tantamount to adding insult to injury.
 
Let's get back to the trenches and see what's really going on first.   And those who set policy should be the first ones to get out of their ivory towers and smell the flowers and also stench of "reality."  Yes, we do need to rebuild our schools.  Let's start at the bottom this time, and give schools the chance and wherewithal to expect and also attain the best performance commensurate with the characteristics of highly localized settings.
 
Michael

Michael A. Gyori 
Maui International Language School 
www.mauilanguage.com




________________________________
From: "andreawilder at comcast.net" <andreawilder at comcast.net>
To: The Learning Disabilities Discussion List <learningdisabilities at nifl.gov>
Sent: Wed, November 4, 2009 10:36:54 AM
Subject: [LearningDisabilities 4254] Re: What have we learned?


Michael,  we have a huge country and mostly local control of schools.  Teachers are not paid enough and are educated poorly.  But schools accept all (student) comers, speaking many different languages. We have only vague ideas of how learning skill develops--what paths learners take.  Three paths in reading I know of have been identified. 
Other countries do it differently, other countries ARE different.
-We are just beginning to talk about national standards, some way of pulling us all together. Other countries have already done this.  We simply have to keep moving with any skills we have.

Andrea

---- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Gyori" <tesolmichael at yahoo.com>
To: "The Learning Disabilities Discussion List" <learningdisabilities at nifl.gov>
Sent: Wednesday, November 4, 2009 2:30:48 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
Subject: [LearningDisabilities 4252]  What have we learned?


Greetings everyone,

I wish we could congregate the universe of learners who struggle (for whatever reason and speculative cause).  I also wish we could congregrate the universe of teachers, tutors, counselors, parents, supportive community members, and, perhaps, neuroscientists, too.  

Once they are all congregated, I wish we could create baseline measures of everyone's skills and (affective) dispositions.  If we were able to do so in an indisputably valid manner (a scientific impossibility), the debates among scholars would be silenced.

Then, I wish we could create interim measures of both the learners and those who work with them in a longitudinal fashion, and perhaps administer a "final" measure say five or ten years later.

It would be a marvel to behold what will have become of that universe.

In the meantime, despite all the research, and despite how much of it may have had an impact on practice, I fail to discern any gains in overall literacy (and how shall we define that term in today's world?). On the contrary, some would have it that 95 million adults in the U.S. are not "functionally literate" (whatever that means).  Have we risen to the 30-40% mark? How can other countries claim 99% literacy levels?

Michael


Michael A. Gyori 
Maui International Language School 
www.mauilanguage.com


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