The example of phonics vs. sight reading shows that professional educators are just the blind leading the blind. Parents have known for years that phonics work, but institutionalists dismissed their complaints as spouting off from the sidelines. Challenging established authority is the engine of progress in science and society. Appeal to authority is the last resort of those who have no other ground to stand on. If you want to elevate the discourse, engage with what people are actually saying, with their ideas, instead of dismissing them as idiot outsiders.
During Korean War, 1950-54, the was an alarming increase of inductees failing the reading tests.
Was this real, or a new form of draft dodging?
The Army had psychologists look into to this, and it was determined that it wasn't faking. The young men really had poor reading skills.
And the interval between 1945 and 1950 was, backing up till the 20 year olds were 5 or 6 years old, the time when sight reading was first introduced into schools in a big way.
Now, English spelling is more complex than many other languages, but there are maybe 100 rules that cover the overwhelming majority of cases.
The phonic issue is absurd, can you imagine if an entire industry followed a fad for years with minimal pushback? Now, if you'll excuse me I've been in a cave for a few years and need to check my crypto balances.
> Appeal to authority is the last resort of those who have no other ground to stand on. If you want to elevate the discourse, engage with what people are actually saying, with their ideas, instead of dismissing them as idiot outsiders.
I'm not appealing to authority, I'm appealing to evidence/experience versus ignorance and Big Important Feelings. As a scholar and an educator, I'm the first person to say how important it is to cite your sources and to argue from evidence.
So if you're going to write 12,000 words about how the education system sucks and how to get through it, wouldn't you say that some of those words should be devoted to citations? Or at least the recitation of facts? Or barring that, at least establishing the background of the author to dispense such advice? Is a single citation asking too much?
There is one external authority cited in this entire 30 page blog post: Paul Graham. I guess that really says it all though, doesn't it? 14 year olds don't know who Paul Graham is. It really tells me the intended audience of this is not 14 year old kids, but for HN.
But but but but there's a single instance of teachers being pushed to do things the wrong way and doing it (because all "educators" are the exact same rank right) for quite some time even though it was wrong so that means we have carte blanche to call the whole system broken.
