For well over 25 years, we in the CI movement have been grabbing onto CI like it’s some kind of special prize that if we only work hard enough to master, we can turn our teaching around and have a great career with super-engaged students and everything will be wonderful.
Now, I propose that we stop the clutching and realize that the change is being held up by the very system – schools – that is supposed to be helping it get a foothold. This is because there is a fundamental disconnect between what schools do, how they operate, and CI. They’re not compatible.
I propose a new attitude towards CI when used in schools. More grammar. I never thought I would suggest that, but I can see now that fighting the way schools are set up, their very design, has – and this is really an important point – changed the way we use CI in our classrooms.
In other words, the research has been carved up by the way schools function. The most egregious deleterious factor, of course, has been testing. But we could make a long list from circling to targeting (I have made such a list: https://benslavic.com/blog/45-reasons/) and conclude, upon proper inspection of the research, that CI and school settings are strange bedfellows indeed.