In December, on the day before I was going to India for winter break, I received a telephone call from the irate (only word to describe it) principal of a Denver area high school. He told me, along with some unprintable things, to “cease and desist” from [messing with peoples’ minds] on this blog.
He stated, as well, that my blog content offended his teachers and that they, in particular, were very upset about what has been written here. One, the teacher of the student described in the next paragraph, asked me to apologize. I needed to stop or face legal action, the principal told me.
The guy’s specific beef was about the student who had, over the past two years, written some incredible and wonderful things here about her own experiences in learning languages in both my classroom in middle school for two years, and then for two more years in the IB program of his school, and how they differed in her mind.
According to this principal, the student was impressionable and I had influenced her via this blog into thinking that was incorrect and biased. I had “gotten inside her head”. He was really irate about that.
This principal told me about the “flock” of wronged IB language teachers under his leadership and his need to protect them from people like me. By that I assume he was referring to those among us who fearlessly espouse and implement Krashen’s views in the belief that doing so provides the best possible expression of all the current unfolding research, and who aren’t afraid to say it out loud.
I knew, of course, that the barking noise I heard on the other end of the phone that day had no possible legal bite, but I shut the blog down since I was leaving the country anyway. I needed some time to think.
On my trip, I reflected on the level of anger expressed in that hour on the phone. I had to admit that it got to me emotionally, and deeply. Why all the enmity? Why is the discussion around Krashen such an emotional one?
My purpose has never been to piss off educators but rather to open up a dialogue about the absolute importance of the input skills over the output skills, especially in the early years of a language program.
The principal’s phone call was not the first time I had gotten into a situation like that, although it was by far the ugliest. I truly never want to experience that level of pushback and antagonism again.
The Problem with CI
Jeffrey Sachs was asked what the difference between people in Norway and in the U.S. was. He responded that people in Norway are happy and
