Señor Wooly and others (Elvira, Annabelle, etc.) differ with my post on homework, which I also posted on CI Liftoff, a site that Tina and I started a while ago in an effort to have a safe place to say things. I guess this PLC remains the only safe place to speak freely so I will post my response to those people here, just to be able to post it somewhere. Those new to the group here need not read this, since there is a lot of history here, not all nice.
Here is what Jim W/Senor Wooly said:
Brutal honesty can be a good thing, but it’s a dangerous game you’re playing. Why? Because unsolicited brutal honesty alienates the very people who need to hear your words the most, and also because, in the quest to be the person who “tells it like it is”, it becomes very easy to simplify a problem to the point of mistruth.
Do I agree with your message? Absolutely. Do I think that any teacher who ever assigns homework can be easily categorized into one of your four bullet points? Hardly.
There are a ton of amazing, hardworking, fearless teachers out that who give homework every night. And they don’t need to be told that they’re crappy teachers. They need a kind, guiding hand who can show them a better way.
My response that I probably won’t post on FB, but originally intended to respond to those people:
This is to those flaming me above – Jim and others. O.K. flaming may be too strong a word. Mildly flaming. Whatever. I’ve been teaching since 1977. I don’t care if people’s sensitivities are offended when I make obvious off-based cockeyed generalizations. I make them anyway. Of course my comments are flawed. I am flawed, deeply, and I write not from any consideration of Señor Wooley’s and others’ feelings, but out of passion for what I have seen in my endless years in the field – suffering children – waves and waves of them, year after year, being given homework that they can’t do, that they don’t want to do, that weighs their young hearts down and that, above all, don’t respect the equity piece. So get off my case, is my general comment to you. And I would add in here that the flames coming out of the mouths of Karen and Terry for the past year and a half – not allowed on Liftoff because Tina and I won’t let those two and others on (our group here is closed, theirs are open, so there is no hypocrisy) – need to stop as well. Let me say this now. It’s o.k. You are adults. You can handle it and rightly brand me as weird and off base if that is what you want to do. I AM weird and off base. But is there room for that? One of the above experts – and I proudly say that I am no expert if they are the (self-proclaimed) experts, recently went down to Atlanta to present to 150 teachers on my Big CI Book without having read it. Sound good? As Krashen said to Terry he is a troll if Tina and I are trolls. I have zero concerns about what you and those who support you in their comments above think, Jim. Your nuanced thoughts about my thoughts accomplish what, exactly? The above is what I think about homework. I will continue to post here on things I feel strongly about. It’s my list with Tina. We started it, ironically, in an effort to be able to speak freely in an increasingly judgmental and soul-wearying cyberspace. I suggest that we drop on this particular site – mine and Tina’s – the increasing nuseless cross talk noise that resembles all the other CI sites but that has not helped us much in our efforts to change the only thing that matters in our profession – the way the kids are being instructed. And I won’t post this on Fight Club – I don’t like their premise – Tina and Chris only started that site to be able to joke around and fight between themselves, the two of them! – and look how great the need to fight is that there are now over 200 people on there after only a month who should be working on developing better strategies for kids instead of talking incessantly, nervously, haughtily about theory and their own professional stances. Who cares? Develop strategies that work! New strategies that work are the only thing that will count in the new post-Trump era of brightness in education that we are preparing, frantically tilling the fields for, now. I can’t and have no desire to post this on FB iFLT because Karen kicked Tina and I off there a year ago when we tried to defend our new non-targeted ideas when they hadn’t even read our new book. Those were dark days for Tina and I. And I won’t post this on the more list because it is essentially a dead list that has changed greatly since the days 20 years ago when we knew how to talk to each other in a more civil manner. Where are the great ones like Robert Harrell in these discussions? Think about it. They choose to not weigh in. And Tina Hargaden? Tina has more knowledge about teaching languages in her big toe than some of the so-called experts. She is the one to lead the future of this work, if you ask me. Flame on, brothers. I am ending my 7th decade on this planet. I don’t care what you think. An overly strong reaction, perhaps, to Jim’s comment? Forgive me. It’s been building a long time and Jim’s comment is spot on but just happened to spark this response, overdue now for at least ten years. The experts in this profession are not the experts. The real experts are the teachers slaving away quietly beings closed classroom doors trying to make this crazy shit work in their classrooms. That is all I have ever claimed to be – a classroom teacher with ideas to share. We should be forever focused on doing WHAT IS BEST FOR KIDS in the most practical way, which is on the level of the heart, on the level of what STRATEGIES work, not who is right one some stupid point of theory. Please open up your hearts and forgive the obvious generalizations and overdue protestations of an old man here. There is too much work to be done, and we can do much better if we place our attention where it must go now – not on each other’s flaws but on what is best for the kids. And to those who have been stealing my own ideas for the past twenty years, stop it. Just stop. I know we are all doing our best. My prayer now is that we finally pull ourselves up to the next level, to the level of the heart, by finding and developing strategies that actually work, as we stop all this useless bickering about whether Ben’s comments and observations on homework and shit like that have any merit. One word of advice – listen to Tina and do what she says. You won’t regret it.