“...when the truth is that the successful teacher down the hall is probably ignoring all the BS about teaching modalities and instead using proven pedagogical practices like direct instruction.”

Brought up a memory, when my youngest was in JK. The parent-teacher interviews at the time was a 15 to 20 minute affair, with a two page written summary of my child. At the first one, I was asked to checked off the boxes of learning styles. Being the oldest mom, I looked at her, saying, are you serious?  The teacher with well over 25 years practice under her belt, said to me, it is part of the administration requirements but I don’t pay any attention to it, because I believe all children learn best by seeing, listening and doing. She went on, however the list, does give me a way on how parents see their children, and a starting point for further discussion.

The short story is, the JK teacher was using proven pedagogical practices. In grade 7, I was asked to checked off the items in learning styles. Being a lot more knowledgeable, I turned to the teacher of well over 25 years of experience, and told her, my child learns best seeing, listening and doing. I never did filled out the sheet, but we did have an interesting conversation on the benefits of seeing, listening and doing and what I was doing at home versus what was happening in the classroom.

My point is, teachers with years of experience that my children had, I just realized that they do have a tendency to ignore the fads.

However, when fads become part of the regular practice as learning styles has, it becomes another layer, another obstacle for both the teacher and student. The learning styles are now officially at the senior secondary grades. The students are asked to checked off boxes of preferred learning style modes, usually at the beginning of the year. In one course, the students were held hostage where grades of assignments were not be released until the sheet was filled in. My youngest, came home ranting over it, the check boxes still blank, saying over and over, I learned best by listening, seeing and doing. And she wasn’t the lone wolf.  I had a good chuckle, and then asked her to check off all the boxes, and in the space at the bottom of the sheet, write I learned best by listening, seeing and doing. My child exclaimed, “Why did I not think of it myself?” I responded, I am your mother.

On the more serious note, the learning style sheets, the data gleamed on the sheets are being interpreted by the guidance teacher of a high school, whose role has changed dramatically since the 1980s, and more so since the year 2000. Where learning issues have become mental health issues, and as such, it is not the content to extract meaning that manners, nor the weaknesses in reading, writing and numeracy skills. As for the student who are doing well, they speak about their preferred learning style. For my youngest child, who is doing well and has learning issues, she has become a target by the younger, less experienced teachers and the guidance teacher as having self-esteemed issues, and not the underlying reason, hidden from view - her below average reading ability, due to poor word decoding.

What is needed are cognitive scientists in the teacher faculties, but that would mean a change at the top and the thinking of education leaders, who think that teachers are born, and not made.

This true at least to a significant extent. Teachers generally use a very eclectic mix of strategies.

Conrad Black’s take on the current state of affairs in education from his column in today’s Financial Post:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/12/01/conrad-black-of-warplanes-the-homeless-teachers-unions-oil-drugs-immigration-and-monetary-policy/

“While education is not a federal matter, it receives a great deal of federal assistance, which should be conditionalized on countering the negative influence of teachers? unions. Teachers cannot expect to be accepted indefinitely as a learned profession while intermittently behaving like an aggressive industrial union.

I accept that the labour market requires, and the importance of their work justifies, that teachers be well-paid. But people in public service must not strike, and teachers should be compensated in some reference to the performance of their students, who have to be tested disinterestedly, and not in a self-serving re-enactment of a children?s sports-day, whereby everybody wins to make the teachers look better than they are.”

IM not sure I would want to site a convicted felon with no educational background other than cheating at UCC as a source.

Joe, he offers a unique perspective - Black was well like by the inmates because he helped them to expand their writing and reading skills. The foundation needed to learned about new knowledge and navigate in the world.

Black during his stay, actually wrote an article. He goes on to say, that he never thought much of his education, the act of learning how to read and write, his school days, until the day he stood in front of the classroom, in charge of a writing class.

“I was given a table and a chair at the back of the Vocational Training pavilion, where, for a few weeks, my reading of newspapers and other material was sporadically interrupted by improbable scholars wending their downcast way toward me on a forced march: I was the last resort before they were effectively declared inaccessible to higher education.

I hadn?t liked teachers when I was at school, except for a few that I remember with gratitude, and as I generally prepared myself for examinations, was never much convinced of their importance beyond elementary education. The last thing I wanted was more intimate contact with them.”

Further down - “None of this prepared me in the slightest for the cynicism, skepticism and defeatism I encountered when well past retirement age and in the most unpromising circumstances, I, involuntarily and with no professional formation, launched my pedagogical career with unpromising, and, to say the least, chronically unenthused charges…....I devised tactical essay-writing techniques for special needs, urging spelling- and grammar-challenged candidates to memorize 20 polysyllabic words for timely insertion and commending Hemingway?s Snows of Kilimanjaro as illustrative of the virtues of short, simple sentences…...I found myself becoming an impassioned champion….........the Puerto Rican fisherman from Key West who was illiterate when he began with me, .....................................”

“But many are victims of legal and social injustice, inadequately provided for by the public assistance system, and over-prosecuted and vengefully sentenced. The greater competitiveness of the world makes the failures of American education, social services and justice unaffordable, as well as repulsive.

In tens of millions of undervalued human lives, as in the consumption of energy and the addiction to consumer debt, the United States pays a heavy price for an ethos afflicted by wantonness, waste and official human indifference. In other advanced countries, the custodial system is dedicated to the sort of work that has almost accidentally flourished here.”
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/07/30/archive-conrad-black-on-teaching-fellow-inmates/

Black did something that most teachers with education degrees say it is impossible - got down to the hard work of teaching his follow inmates what the education system never did - give them the foundation in reading and writing.

I would never site such an,unpopular fellow unless i was trying to undermine my own case. He is a disgrace and about to lose his OC.

Regardless of a person’s past, Black does have valid observations and experiences. He comes from a unique perspective. Would you discard, Nelson Mandela who spent 27 years in prison? 

Just remember neither has an education degree, and what one person opines using words as a disgrace, does not mean what they are stating, are not valid.

“Black did something that most teachers with education degrees say it is impossible - got down to the hard work of teaching his follow inmates what the education system never did - give them the foundation in reading and writing.”

Worth repeating, since many others like Black have gone down a road, discovering the fault lines of the education system. ” There’s a cave at the quarry where prisoners relieved themselves. It was in this cave that some of the more educated prisoners would teach others how to read and write by scratching in the dirt. History, politics and biology were also subjects that were taught at this “prison university”. It was the only place that prisoners were able to escape the watchful eyes of the guards. It is said that a good part of South Africa’s current constitution was written in that cave.”
http://goafrica.about.com/od/capetownatravelguide/a/robbenisland.htm

Mandela had to start somewhere, and the first step was teaching the other political inmates that were in need of reading and writing lessons. All done without education degrees, but still men who had education, like Black, using their own knowledge banks to accomplished their goals. All done without education degrees behind their names.

Nelson Mandala is an innocent hero. Black is a guilty disgrace to Canada. I am surprised you want to associated with him.