The one thing I’d want everyone to know about Direct Instruction is that the methods, materials and routines are far less important than the underlying drive behind it: the unswerving belief that EVERY child can achieve, regardless of circumstance. DI is based on a deeply held conviction that if a child didn’t learn, it was because the teacher (or curriculum) didn’t teach them properly. In that sense, it is a movement rooted in social justice but one which takes responsibility for outcomes. In the 60s and 70s, there was a view in the education academic establishment that formal academic work was premature for 4-year-olds, and doubly so for poor ones; so what they needed was enrichment and play. Worse still, in the early 70s, some academics described DI as a racist enterprise*. Engelmann's own memoir notes that he and Bereiter were called “Nazis” and “kid-haters.” Despite this, Engelmann taught disadvantaged 4 year olds to factor and to solve simultaneous equations, and filmed it. Bereiter and Engelmann’s argument, set out in ‘Teaching Disadvantaged Children in the Preschool’, was that the disadvantaged child was not “behind” in some general developmental sense but behind in specific, teachable things, that all kids could learn with the right scope and sequence. The preschool they opened in the mid 60s ran for two hours a day, with three twenty-minute lessons in language, arithmetic and reading, taught to small groups by a teacher following a specific DI sequence. Those kids made huge gains which faded when they went to normal public schools. DI has its limitations like everything but the drive behind it is sincere. As #SoldAStory season 2 will show, it has been portrayed as something very different to what it actually is and the animating principles behind it. *Baratz and Baratz, ‘Early childhood intervention: the social science base of institutional racism.’

Discovery learning only really works when students paradoxically have little to actually discover. Carefully constraining the problem space can make exploration more intellectually productive, not less. Interesting new paper on cognitive load and element interactivity suggests that whether exploration before instruction helps or hinders learning may depend on how much complexity students are expected to manage at once. link.springer.com/article/10…

We had a model of instructional design that demonstrably worked for teaching early reading/Math since the late 60s. Then education academics spent the next 50 years demonising it and training new teachers to do the exact opposite - skills-based/choose your own adventure curriculum design, minimally guided instruction, contempt for standardised testing etc and now we are where we are.

"Math needs a phonics-style reckoning: Teachers should teach students how to do stuff correctly." - @mattyglesias slowboring.com/p/math-needs-…

Up next…MATH.

A new review of texts from US grad schools of education asks: what are new teachers actually being taught? Some of the advice is quite concerning. aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2…

A week later, I'm still thinking about NHJ's article on NYC schools. It was courageous but a huge missed opportunity to call for real reform. She blames school choice, inequality, segregation, the wealthy and herself. But she seems reluctant to criticize the actors and policies implicated by the failures she documents, perhaps because those conclusions would be uncomfortable for many of her ideological allies. - She describes absentee teachers, poor instruction, unresponsive administrators, and students who graduate without mastering the material. But she never calls for greater accountability at the district, school, principal, and teacher levels. - She documents teachers failing to fulfill basic responsibilities but doesn't explore whether tenure and other employment protections allow chronic teacher absenteeism and poor performance to persist. - She laments the concentration of disadvantaged students but doesn't consider whether NYCPS should consolidate under-enrolled schools, thus allowing more resources towards instruction and increasing socioeconomic diversity. - She describes her daughter earning As in honors classes despite substantial gaps in her knowledge. Yet she doesn't consider the value of standardized testing as a check on grade inflation and identifying learning gaps before they compound. - She describes how experienced teachers choose to work in better schools but doesn't salute the districts that have had “reform superintendents” like DC, Dallas, Denver, and Houston that have used cash bonuses to incentivize the best teachers to work in the most disadvantaged schools. - She notes that eliminating homework harmed her daughter, but doesn't examine how the movement against homework is largely driven by equity advocates who argue that it can turn unequal home circumstances into unequal academic outcomes. - She condemns school choice yet uses it to secure a better school fit for her daughter, without noting it’s the only realistic escape valve for families who can’t move or afford private school. - She describes the “impossible balancing act” of teaching students at vastly different levels but doesn't explore how academic tracking can help students at both ends of the academic spectrum. - She describes disruptive students who harm the classroom environment but doesn’t ask for stronger disciplinary actions to protect other students. - She documents a school that lowered academic expectations in pursuit of equity but doesn't acknowledge how doing so perpetuates the very achievement gaps those policies seek to eliminate. Hannah-Jones’ story was powerful. She supplied the evidence for a broad examination of why schools are failing disadvantaged students. It could have been the strongest call in a generation for urban school district reform. Segregation and poverty are real obstacles. But they cannot become explanations that absolve everyone else of responsibility. We can’t wait to solve all societal issues before demanding higher performing schools.

It's difficult to overestimate how damaging this view of teaching and learning has been for so many kids. Virtually every teacher trained over the last 50 years was taught that knowing stuff is the least important part of thinking. This image taken from Utica University's assessment resources for faculty: utica.edu/academic/Assessmen…

There is just a ton of institutional resistance in ed schools and teacher training programs to telling teachers they should give kids explicit instruction. We’re rolling the bad ideas back on phonics but they’ve moved on to math and it’s grim.

Let’s all commit to minimising burglary arrests by putting the burglar first. This will reduce burglary. It will empower young burglars. It will save young burglars and enable them to have positive lives. Burglary arrests are failures.

Good grief. Trump Derangement Syndrome has hit urban schools hard.