StickWithANose

This article in EdWeek makes note of this years winner of the ever prestigious Broad Prize for Urban Destruction Education: Aldine, Texas… a state well known for its fancy book learnin’. The Broad Foundation is one of many philanthropic organizations pushing hard for the corporatization of schooling and the relegation of learning to the cognitive basement through “scientifically proven methods” like Direct Instruction.

Direct Instruction is a general term for a teacher centric approach to instruction, however, in today’s educational lingo, DI most often refers to scripted curricula produced by publishing houses in coordination with their instructional materials that are geared toward accomplishing one goal: teaching students the skills required to pass standardized assessments.

Below are a couple of examples of DI in action. Note that the teachers are literally reading out of a script and that all activities are centered around teacher commands. To me, it looks painfully boring for students.

Driven by pop psychology and a behaviorist logic, today’s DI is what passes for a progressive education, and it is an example of the inner contradictions of American education par excellence…  It reduces all complexity down to the easily assessed and measured. It is sequential and standardized; all difference is eliminated. It is boring; it kills all curiosity and desire to learn. It requires no special training to teach… just follow the directions.

Here is a good summation of the larger debate around Direct Instruction that is evidence based. And then you can watch the propaganda… Enjoy!