The degree to which a comprehension based class succeeds or fails is often determined by the number of socially capable kids in the class. This success or failure can be a function of the social makeup of the class, which can take many forms depending on the school we teach in.
In schools where many of the kids are from a middle or, very often, an upper class background, the high engagement of the parents manifests as a most ugly phenomenon of putting teachers down out of sheer stupidity and need for power. This pathology trickles down into their children’s attitudes towards what they are experiencing as learners in our classrooms. This phenomenon can ruin careers.
Colored by their own experiences as language learners when they were in language classes twenty five years earlier, such parents, who thought that they were good at languages because they could memorize verbs, take CI teachers to task in what amounts to a true crime in education, the crime of hubris driven by ignorant criticism of those trying to align with current research by plowing new ground in a rotten field.
This phrase by Robert (Diana commented on it also) a few days ago:
…the sharing and compounding of ignorance…
was used by Robert to describe how the “coaching from the side” thing inside the classroom doesn’t work for us who use CI instruction. It applies as well to these misguided parents who occasionally sweep down like harpies on teachers who use comprehensible input when they learn that their child actually has a class where they have to function in a human and not robotic capacity, a class where there is no book nor are there any memorization requirements.
There are probably other examples of how society produces this pathology of disengagement in classrooms, but one thing is certain. When we in this learning community try to engage our kids using comprehensible input in our classrooms, we must absolutely remember that our failures come far less from any shortcomings within ourselves than from outside of us. It is all a part of a complex social illness that is now producing children who in some cases are almost uneducable in the real way and yet whom we are told that we must educate.
We can improve on the CI we deliver to our kids, but we can do so much faster if the kids we teach can open up their hearts to us as we openly ask for their help in this new way of teaching. It’s a big deal.
How do we reach kids who are trapped in social ignorance, who spend, on average, 8.5 hours per day interacting with machines, as jen shared with us a few days ago here?
We must accept the limitations put upon us by the school setting.