Lyon takes a bite out of Education Mediocrity

Nancy Salvato

I read with enthusiasm today about a private venture involving G. Reid Lyon, who is going to be developing a "for profit" teacher education program. I saw his name associated with the project and thought to myself, where do I sign up?

I was encouraged to read that, in this teacher training model, the courses would be evidence based. What got me even more excited was that half of the instruction would take place on a campus in a suburb of Chicago and the other half of the program is to be offered on line. How convenient it would be to obtain a degree in education leadership or curriculum and instruction under these circumstances!

But disappointment set in when I read that the first group of students would consist of veteran teachers working for the same school district or new teachers who are going to be working in the same school district. In either case, the common denominator is that those enrolled have classroom instructional positions so that new ideas can be implemented with their students. Since I no longer work in an instructional setting, I would not be eligible for what sounds like a very promising opportunity.

I envy any teacher who gets accepted into this program because it is with almost complete certainty that they will be learning among colleagues who realize that much of the mediocrity that passes for educational pedagogy, and is the basis for instruction in most educational settings, is a bunch of … well … crap. Yes, I said it. In my estimation, teachers who enroll in the American College of Education are finally going to be learning tried and true methods for instructing students and proven management techniques for maintaining control of the classroom, colleagues, and subordinates.

How can I be so sure of my assessment? Because Mr. Lyon has been at the forefront of a movement to bring research based instruction to the classroom and he has almost single handedly discredited the whole language approach to reading, a methodology which can be implicated for the inability of countless numbers of children to achieve a level of reading at or above grade level.

As previously mentioned, I am no longer a classroom instructor. As much as I would have liked to continue teaching, I took a semi permanent leave of absence for a number of reasons –one of which was that I refused to take more courses from mediocre teachers espousing mediocre methods for instruction to maintain the established mediocre standards on which my teaching credentials are based. I would have had to pay my hard earned money to be the beneficiary of more ideologically based research, which I've found to be ineffective. Frankly, I have found better ways of expanding horizons and honing the instructional approach.

While I have stepped away from the front lines, it pleases me to see that those fighting the war on illiteracy will be sent into the trenches with better tools for meeting the needs of the students they will likely encounter. They will be given proven techniques for actual situations. Ivory tower ideology has no value in the real world.

Copyright © Nancy Salvato 2005

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Nancy Salvato is an Independent Contractor with Prism Educational Consulting. A teacher, she has worked with students ranging from preschool through college. Her credentials are in History, Language Arts, and Early Childhood Education. Nancy serves as the 6th Congressional District Coordinator with the Center for Civic Education, the Education Liaison for Illinois Senator Ray Soden, and is a member of the DROE Strategic Planning Process to Promote a Countywide Community of Learning. Nancy is currently developing a Constitutional Literacy Program which the DROE hopes to pilot upon completion. Her columns can be found in American Daily, The Common Voice, Education News, GOP-USA, Opinion Editorials, TheRant.us and The Washington Dispatch. She has been published in The Washington Times, Townhall.com, Iconoclast, & Free Republic Network, as well as other nationally and internationally published media outlets.

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