Entry #8: "Why Johnny Can't Read" - Myth and Truth in "Failing" American Education

[Source: fauxels]

 Recently, I've taken to reading and listening to information about education here in the United States and I noticed the frequency of conversations coming (back) into the mainstream about supposed flaws and incompetencies in American education. After doing some preliminary searching, I came across a podcast led by Emily Hanford, where I was fascinated by the ways reading has been introduced and
taught differently, especially among the youngest generations. This particular podcast was named Sold a Story (Apple Podcasts), detailing how seemingly helpful advice towards teachers may have backfired due to incorrect (or disproven) theories on how learn to read.

For some background on myself, I always had the suspicion that something was slightly off about learning, but I always chalked it up to individual learning styles and my unwillingness to cooperate at a younger age, and I found that I actually learned math and how to read the same way most of my generation (and their parents, even grandparents) were taught. I might've been partially right, except I realized that my parents forced me to read outside of school all the time and I always found something to skim through in my freetime. Maybe this only applies to people younger than me, I thought, and my fascination faded as I went back to focusing on my current classes.

But there was something to what all these people were saying about American education. I was hearing anecdotes about new teachers struggling with students falling far behind their grade level, boosted by similar stories all over platforms like TikTok, and a lot of blame was put on the recent COVID-19 pandemic, or how parents are too stressed, or some other deeper cause. To me, this made perfect sense. Maybe a lot of schools just use inefficient teaching strategies for earlier grades, or there's a lack of resources, or there's just some deeper problem coming out of isolation. I was so quick to take this with a grain of salt and no further thought, but something was just off. These explanations were just insufficient. I didn't go to a private school or super rich major public school growing up, and I was taught the way people tend to expect. I slacked off a lot and refused to do homework, so any deficiencies just make sense. Plus, I was doing just fine on tests, so there must've been something working there, right?

Well, the part that made me hesitate to accept these claims at face value without reviewing all the material was the fact that I already heard similar complaints when I was a child reading about the experiences that parents had with educating their kids in unique ways due to some supposed failure with the education system. How is it possible that so many claims were being made so many years before COVID-19 with the same exact fears and consequences? The thoughts dissapeared into my mind until I was recommended a video on YouTube while watching some video essays. Elliot Sang uploaded a video - only a couple of days ago - with the title "Are Students Getting Worse?", where he discussed themes like learning loss. Interestingly enough, his guest Zoe Bee argues that the recent pandemic only exacerbated what was already present in the education system.

[Source: nappy]

As you might be familiar with from the title, there was even a book (or, according to Wikipedia, a book-length exposé) titled "Why Johnny Can't Read-And What You Can Do About It" published in the 1950s about the idea that students are not learning how to properly read. This was several decades ago, and even predates the Reagan Era cuts that so many are quick to mention when holding these conversations. The book itself was mentioned in the particular video essay I watched with Elliot Sang and Zoe Bee.

In all honesty, the hype has been overblown year after year about some presented failure or failing going on in America, but, as the video here and my rudimentary research suggests, this has been talked about for so many decades that I can't even believe I fell for it being someone who used to care so much and hear the same arguments dating back decade ago in my life (ironically) while watching YouTube in elementary school.

What appears to be the problem, according to Sang's guest Zoe Bee, almost seems contradictory. She professes that discipline, rigor, and higher standards are rendered ineffective in the early years. The conclusion aside, since I have no means to corroborate these claims at the moment, I do think a good point was made when discussing how these failures are far from unique or new. I also have to admit that stricter schools just seem to weed out students by punishment, explusion, ingraining harmful stereotypes to push "bad" students as far away from campus as possible, and implicitly encouraging students to just give up and accept whatever low-paying job is out there waiting, just to get it all over with. And then, I think back to the music I used to listen to, recalling Ice Cube's introduction track to The Predator (1992) calling "First Day of School" with audio reminicent of getting into a prison, referencing the school-to-prison pipeline.

Again, none of this is new. We talked about this in the 1800s, the early 1900s, the 1950s, the 1980s, the 1990s, the early 2000s, and now the COVID era. Revisiting these ideas once more with a refreshed mind, one that already finished all of elementary, middle, and high school, I was hooked back in as if there was unfinished business - other angles I just didn't quite consider when I was a kid. I was right to reconsider.

All in all, I think a lot could be said about how we can improve early education in the United States, and across the globe. What I learned the most here is that there hasn't really been a time, post-Industrial Revolution, where education was specifically better for young students in the U.S. or the U.K. With so much going on, it seems like we cloud our critiques of people claiming that all children have an individiual responsibility for their education (else matters fall on some idea of a failure of a parent) with the idea that a deeper issue is rooted in external conflicts and crises like a pandemic, when this clouding in fact could be unveiled to go far beyond both sides and instead into the territory of bringing up old debates. Maybe the solution was simple all along, and we've just been recreating the same problems under different conditions when our initial assumptions are flawed. Perhaps we've been chasing something that just can't be, and no amount of competition will correct course. It might be time to abandon our industrial education roots, and especially our old-school British school roots, and favor something entirely unthinkable in American society - the creation of a truly open, creative, and innovative learning mechanism that makes it impossible for a given student to neglect their studies. An innovative, creative, and open learning mechanism that makes every F in school turn into a mastery of subject matter, where students are encouraged to learn by failing rather failing to learn.