Are there materials that abuse children? Yetta Goodman on polarized educational viewpoints.

I think that a lot of teachers are probably in what you might call a middle road {on education viewpoints}, but I do believe also that when you have a strong belief system you have strong views. For example, we know a lot about how kids learn.  We know a lot about how kids read. So if you're knowledgeable about learning and reading, and you see the kids having to work in materials and with programs that control teachers so that teachers can't make decisions that control learners so that learners can't make decisions, then your belief systems are saying to you wait a minute.

I always say that I think there are materials that abuse children. I think that scripted programs abuse students and teachers. I think that very rigid workbook materials that focus only on letters or sounds or words that don't let kids read before certain principals and skills are learned; I think that's abusive.

It's like saying to a group of kids: You can't learn to ride a bicycle until you know how to turn the pedal. Once you learn how to turn a pedal on a bicycle, once you learn how to brake or once you know how to balance then I'll let you ride.

Well everybody who has ever learned to ride a bicycle knows that you can't balance without riding and that's what I believe about reading. You can't learn to read without using real books and real materials that you want to read because you have to answer your questions. And so I believe that there really are materials that abuse children so I hold some very strong views, which are based on my research, the research of others, and I can discuss those ideas.  And I want teachers to be able to do that not to know what I know but to know for them. And I work with teachers all the time who are like that who are knowledgeable teachers and they are going to have very strong points of view.

Transcribed November, 2 2009.