Yeah I think we're kidding ourselves if we think there's not some level of aesthetics involved here. I would imagine most teachers (not all but most) would like it if teaching were a holistic, organic journey of learning and discovery--I'm not disparaging here, that sounds nice to me too--to the point they'll really try to make those approaches work over more proven/grounded ones that are more assembly line and impersonal. And I buy that a fair amount of animosity against NCLB played a role too.
> I would think better of it if it had laid out the sort of strong, pragmatic argument you made here about teachers' autonomy
I wouldn't mind something more concrete either. There's educational research out there, but not a ton, and what I've read is pretty non-committal and not very prescriptive. I don't know if that's in deference to "trust teachers" or what have you. I do know that from time to time, teachers who are trying very hard to teach their kids using old, busted techniques they learned in school and are--rightfully so--super bitter when they discover "new" techniques that are decades old and proven more effective, so it's not like there's not an audience for this stuff.
Mostly I think this argument is just two sides that don't trust each other at all, and they're lobbing whatever they can over the wall to try and win the argument (you don't care about dyslexia, you're dooming children to illiteracy to stick it to Bush, blah blah blah). I think that's a big problem. Education in the US is super messed up despite costing a ton, everyone knows it, and it's probably impossible to fix because of the political and bureaucratic structures involved. But it definitely doesn't help when our educators are rejecting government educational research because of (earned) political/cultural mistrust.
> I would think better of it if it had laid out the sort of strong, pragmatic argument you made here about teachers' autonomy
I wouldn't mind something more concrete either. There's educational research out there, but not a ton, and what I've read is pretty non-committal and not very prescriptive. I don't know if that's in deference to "trust teachers" or what have you. I do know that from time to time, teachers who are trying very hard to teach their kids using old, busted techniques they learned in school and are--rightfully so--super bitter when they discover "new" techniques that are decades old and proven more effective, so it's not like there's not an audience for this stuff.
Mostly I think this argument is just two sides that don't trust each other at all, and they're lobbing whatever they can over the wall to try and win the argument (you don't care about dyslexia, you're dooming children to illiteracy to stick it to Bush, blah blah blah). I think that's a big problem. Education in the US is super messed up despite costing a ton, everyone knows it, and it's probably impossible to fix because of the political and bureaucratic structures involved. But it definitely doesn't help when our educators are rejecting government educational research because of (earned) political/cultural mistrust.