A repost for Keri:
A person I know recently brought up some concerns about the 1950’s style of textbook based/thematic unit memorization of lists teaching going on in a certain school. This person made all the arguments in favor of CI and Krashen, all arguments that I have made myself in similar situations.
After a strong letter to the principal describing errors in alignment with standards by the foreign language staff in this school, my friend received the following response. I would like to be clear that in my own personal opinion the principal’s response reveals serious ignorance, but it also gives us an excellent opportunity to be shown exactly when to back down, when not to battle, because to do so would be stupid and put our jobs in jeopardy. What the principal said is below, and below it, my response to my friend:
Dear —,
I waited to respond until I had a chance to meet with the department today to discuss some of these topics.
As I mentioned in my last e-mail, I believe we will agree to disagree on this topic. Our department philosophy differs from your expectations in that we are designed to teach the whole language of reading comprehension, writing conventions, and oral delivery of language acquisition. In fact, it was revealed in the meeting that whole language development is supported in this model by English Language Learners as well as the UC/CSU system in recent research. We have discussed having a Native Spanish Speaker section in future years because students who have learned the language in the model you are suggesting having significant gaps in their writing and reading abilities.
I have observed all of our world language classes and am confident in their delivery of instruction. I don’t see the need to meet with our department members at this point as they have weighed your concerns and agreed that their methodology is effective. I would agree and support them at this point.
My response:
It’s a sign to stop. They are in a bubble. The air in there sustains them. If you poke a hole in the bubble, they have three choices:
1. find a way to keep the air from escaping from the bubble.
2. partially embrace something radical and new by learning how to breathe the new air outside the bubble and slowly integrate it into what they are doing.
3. die to all that they currently believe about teaching languages.
They chose choice #1. Therefore, you will get nothing, nothing from this principal and his employees. I hesitate to call them real teachers – I prefer to call them deliverers of instructional services (Ted Sizer’s term) in that they organize activities that drain away time that could be spent on actually acquiring the language. These people will neither accept nor embrace even the remotest bit of what you are saying. They don’t know what you know and they don’t want to know. How, then, can they be expected to hear it and act on it?
Read my own post on Why I Shut Down the Blog (it’s a category here). Same thing. Put on the breaks, my brother, and kick it back a notch. We are not here to war on others. I have gotten if very clear from Jody and Susan Gross, and I have seen it modeled daily for years by Diana Noonan, that we can only love and embrace our own work and those who believe as we do about what is best for our kids.
We can’t change others. Especially obtuse others. For the two of us, and Chris and Grant and a few of the others in this PLC, it is a lot easier said than done because we have grown some claws lately. But we have to learn to quell our anger and draw in our claws. It’s just that way. We can’t go around breaking all the china in the carefully constructed shops of people who teach in the manner of a bygone era. What would they think? How else could they be expected to react?
Even two years ago I couldn’t have even gotten the above out of my mouth, and I am proud because it shows growth in me.