Insult to Intelligence: The Bureaucratic Invasion of Our Classrooms
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Book Overview
Common sense tells us that drilling, testing, and grading have nothing to do with how babies, children, and adults really learn. And research backs this up. Students who had been asked to write regularly without being taught to punctuate, for instance, ended a term not only writing but punctuating much better than students in a neighboring class who had been regularly drilled, tested, and graded solely on punctuation. This must be the most tedious, least rewarding, and least effective teaching that students have to endure. But false theory, political pressures, business opportunism, and harried administrators have persuaded us to accept this bureaucratic travesty of teaching as the real think. Insult to Intelligence focuses particularly on children learning to read and write, the area in which Smith has made his reputation. But his six-point manifesto on learning and teaching is applicable at every level of education, and in the context of America's ongoing struggle to upgrade the teaching profession and to raise national standards of literacy, his book is nothing less than a call to arms.
Format:Paperback
Language:English
ISBN:043508478X
ISBN13:9780435084783
Release Date:May 1988
Publisher:Heinemann Educational Books
Length:284 Pages
Weight:0.99 lbs.
Dimensions:0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"
Age Range:10 years and up
Grade Range:Grade 5
Customer Reviews
1 rating
A Critique of Dunderheaded Bureaucrats
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 24 years ago
Teachers are the gasket between two opposing forces. On one side, crushing teachers into pressure performance situations, is the top-down reform that has jinxed State Legislative bodies, pressing for accountability from teachers(when were teachers NOT accountable? I want to know) and giving them the tests to measure it, and on the otherside are the parents in the community who want the best for less. Everyone is fighting over the heads and minds of students, a large, mostly voiceless class.Smith's book provides an excellent account of the step-by-step disintegration of our schools from the integration of organized testing. Take note of the chapter on SAT testing, and the new arsenal of state sponsored testing. The new discrimination comes from white-collared bureaucrats using statistics and bell curves to establish their own Meritocracy. Now the chapter on computers is already a little dated, but don't let that dissuade you. Read it and then pass in on to someone else. This is a must read for anyone who cares even a little about education today. It should be on the same shelf with Neil Postman and Alfie Kohn's books.
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