Ben Slavic in response to Terry Waltz:
I know your work has had a great effect on many people. I am very happy to be working side by side with you and so many other fine people to bring change to our field. Just for the record, I am the inventor of the One Word Images (and about twenty other strategies) that have “been around for a long time”. I have gone to conferences and sat in the back of the room and heard people present sessions on ideas that I have shared online for more than fifteen years now, but often without crediting their source. The Classroom Rules charts used in so many classrooms did not just materialize out of thin air. I have to say with respect that I have worked far too hard at this work, and been met with so much opposition simply for expressing my ideas, to be publicly dismissed by your callous and critical words. Are differences in how we all approach this work to be tolerated? Or is there just one way? Bless your heart, but the feeling that you project in your comment here, as well as your clear lack of interest in properly crediting sources and actually reading or educating yourself about new ideas in the comprehensible input world before publicly commenting on them, is most unwelcome. Of course we both know that there can be no new ideas in this work. Dr. Krashen and others have laid it out and there it is. However, the Invisibles represent a particular and new combination of three elements: (1) working from images drawn by the kids instead of from words from a list (this is very, very powerful and the engine of the Invisibles), (2) a particular combination of eleven student jobs of my own invention that have in fact not been around for a long time, and (3) a particularly new combination of asking questions during a story. Together, the three elements combine to create a genuinely new and far easier way of asking stories without all the stress. Yes, it is a new representation of comprehensible input. It has resulted in some amazing things. As Tina said, it gets kids much more involved. I have been looking for this breakthrough in my own teaching for so long. It is finally here for me and is working for others as well. Why would you dismiss that? Why would you want to put down Kathrin Shechtman’s words? How does that help her? Kathrin learned about the Invisibles in Agen and has now tested them through the fall and she is happy and wanted to share her happiness.
Related: K’NAAN – Wavin’ Flag (Coca-Cola Celebration Mix)
