Believing in forces of change

One of the boons and the banes of reading widely in a particular field is that knowledge chips away at and replaces notional thinking.  It's good, I guess to have specific knowledge, but it is a curse at the same time.  It's nice to know, for example, that schools in Canada can teach in a dual language setting all day long and successfully graduate students year after year from their version of elementary school.  Journals are replete with examples from other countries as well, like the Netherlands and South Africa, of successful methods of dual language teaching that turn out students annually fluent in two languages.  

Then I hear a principal of a Texas school say that she can't guarantee that a student will know one of the languages in her dual language setting after going from 1st through 6h grade.  I can't even bear the thought of such gross negligence on the part of general practitioners who are in charge of something that they have only notions about.  And in the case of this prinicipal, she doesn't even know that she should be able to accomplish year after year the feat she is in charge of.  Something is really fouling up the air here.

Other examples exist.  I hear of state standards that dictate to teachers, and thus make them think it is possible, to instruct their students in oral conventions of a language.  Linguistic literature is again replete with studies showing the variational nature of language.  Language is not static and has conventions that are dictated by its speakers.  Conventions are not dictated by laws and school instruction and standards and tests.  But general practitioners don't even know to make a cursory scan of any research and try what is doomed from the start because it is not the way language works.

 

Other disciplines face the same problems.  It's just amazing that any semblance of learning takes place in American schools.  But then, in another 20 years, I think the notional approach will begin showing up because our country is ever increasingly competing in a global marketplace.  Students emerging from schools in other countries don't have such systems and practitioners that ignore substance or specific knowledge in favor of notional teaching and incomplete learning.

But I believe in the adaptability of the human spirit.  By 2017, this problem will be spotted and the current system will have given way to something so much better.  We will see that we are headed for second world status and take a course of correction.  Those stuck in the current system will be bitter, but the nation will move forward. Children below grade 4 are in for some great times ahead.  I look forward to putting the future in their hands for they will take civilization to a whole other level upward.