Multiculturalism & the Loss of Americanism

Posted on July 7, 2022 by Meg Rayborn Dawson

Exploring the Homeschooling Arguments of the 80’s & 90’s –

Reviewing old Editorials in the Light of our Present Day

The Blumenfeld Education Letter Revisited

Vol 1, No 1 (pt. 1) – Sept. 1986

(NOTE: The following editorial has been quoted verbatim from the original. This is intended to be treated as an historical document without opinion or comment.)

MULTICULTURALISM: A Prescription for Moral Anarchy

Samuel Blumenfeld
author of “Is Public Education Necessary”
“N.E.A. Trojan Horse of American Education”
“Alpha-Phonics”

by Samuel L. Blumenfeld, author and critic of the American education system

Professional educators write a great deal these days about multicultural education but few among the lay public actually know what it is. Despite this widespread public ignorance, multicultural education is now an integral part of the American government school curriculum. In fact, our humanist educators now consider multicultural education to be so important that the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) has given it a very prominent place in teacher education programs.

What is Multicultural Education?

The NCATE’s publication, Standards for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (July 1982), states:

“Multicultural education is preparation for the social, political, and economic realities that individuals experience in culturally diverse and complex human encounters… this preparation provides a process by which an individual develops competencies for perceiving, believing, evaluating and behaving in differential cultural settings.

“Provision should be made for instruction in multicultural education in teacher education programs. Multicultural education should receive attention in courses, seminars, directed readings, laboratory and clinical experiences, practicum, and other types of field exercises.

“Multicultural education should include, but would not be limited to experiences which: (1) promote analytical and evaluative abilities to  confront issues such as participatory democracy, racism and sexism, and the parity of power; (2) develop skills for values clarification including the study of the manifest and latent transmission of values; (3) examine the dynamics of diverse cultures and the implications for developing teaching strategies; and (4) examine linguistic variations and diverse learning styles as a basis for the development of appropriate teaching strategies.”

Although NCATE’s requirements for teacher training, which became effective in January 1979, are quite explicit, nowhere in the NCATE’s publication is there a definition or description of what multicultural education really is.

We get hints in the requirements. We are told of “culturally diverse and complex human encounters” and “differential cultural settings.” We are also told that multicultural education has something to do with racism, sexism, parity of power, values clarification, the transmission of values both manifest and latent, the dynamics of diverse cultures, linguistic variations., etc.

(See also, by Sam Blumenfeld: ORDER HERE:               N.E.A. Trojan Horse in American Education

How is it Defined?

But what does it all mean in language that you and I can understand? What does it mean to parents whose children will be subjected to multicultural education? What does it mean to the local school board which will be required to implement a state-mandated multicultural education program in the local school?

A rather comprehensive treatment of the subject can be found in the Spring 1984 issue of Theory Into Practice, the journal of the College of Education at Ohio State University. That issue contains 13 articles on multicultural education covering many aspects of the subject.

Multiculturalism is based on the notion that the traditional Judeo-Christian model of American values is no longer valid as the model to be held up to children in the public schools. These values are generally associated with white Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture, usually referred to as WASP culture by its critics. The educators believe that WASP culture is in decline and is not being replaced by another dominant model. In fact, the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE) statement on multicultural education is entitled “No One Model American”. Ergo, many models will take its place.

A multicultural society is one made up of many equally valid ideals that can serve as equally valid models for young Americans. No one is required any longer to conform to the once dominant Judeo-Christian ideal, and the public schools are not required to convey this message to the students.

For decades the compelling rationale for public education was that it provided the means of Americanizing the millions of different immigrants who came to these shores. It provided a common body of values for all Americans. But apparently that rationale no longer holds. According to Charles A. Tesconi, dean of the College of Education at the University of Vermont:

“We all know by now that homogeneity has not and does not characterize American society. We know how great a myth the ‘melting pot’ turned out to be … American society, then is best characterized as a mosaic of an extensive, highly diverse array of cultural elements.

“As a descriptor, multiculturalism points to a condition of numerous life-styles, values, and belief systems.”

How is it Taught?

And how is multiculturalism, therefore, to be taught, and what will be its desired results?

“By treating diverse cultural groups and ways of life as equally legitimate, and by teaching about them in positive ways, legitimizing differences through various education policies and practices, self-understanding, self-esteem, intergroup understanding and harmony, and equal opportunity are promoted.”

Thus, multicultural education embraces much more than mere cultural pluralism or ethnic diversity. It legitimizes different lifestyles and values systems, thereby legitimizing moral diversity. The concept of moral diversity directly contradicts the Biblical concept of moral absolutes on which this nation was founded.

Yet, our public schools, in order to be accredited, are now required to teach that there are no moral absolutes, that every individual has the right to freely choose his or her morals, and that ethics are situational. The result has been moral anarchy.

Thus, American public schools are no longer to be used to inculcate a common set of moral and spiritual values based on our Judeo-Christian heritage but are to be used to promote a plethora of competing values systems, with Christian fundamentalist values cleverly excluded from competition. In other words, the public school is now a market place of competing pagan and anti-Christian belief systems. The students have a choice, but the market is rigged. That, in a nutshell, is multicultural education.

How is multicultural education taught? It is not a course which is taught separately from the rest of the subject matter. It is, in reality, a world view which, in the words of Theresa E. McCormick, specialist in multicultural education at Emporia State University, “must permeate the total educational environment.”

Moral Anarchy Starts Early

That means that multicultural education, in the words of Sandra B. DeCosta, associate professor at West Virginia University, “must be carefully planned, organized, and integrated into all the subject areas. But most emphatically it must begin when children first enter school.”

Thus it is now official policy in the government schools to inculcate moral anarchy in American children beginning with grade one. It is now official policy of the government schools to deny that there exists a common value system known as Americanism – unless by Americanism you mean moral anarchy.

Yet we know that Americanism does exist and does constitutes the basis of American consciousness: the conviction that this nation was created with God’s help and blessings to demonstrate to the world that with the true God all good things are possible, and that without Him we will be consigned to the same tyranny and misery that now afflicts the millions who live under paganism or atheistic communism.

During the recent celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty that concept of Americanism was expressed over and over again in song and speech in three simple words: God Bless America. Those three words acknowledge the existence, efficacy, and sovereignty of the God of the Bible. They express the essence of Americanism, the peculiar consciousness that makes us different from other peoples.

America’s Way is for Everyone

While that consciousness was given to us by our founding fathers who for the most part, were indeed white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants, one does not have to be white, Anglo-Saxon, or even Protestant to accept it. There are many blacks, Hispanics, Latins, Slavs, Catholics, Jews, etc., who accept it.

Becoming an American does not mean aping WASPS. It never did, and it never will. It means accepting the essence of what the founding fathers stood for and died for. That essence is founded on Biblical principles which include the concept of moral absolutes. The public schools now presume that blacks, Hispanics, Indians, Asians and other immigrant children are incapable of understanding or unwilling to accept the philosophy of the founding fathers. Therefore they won’t even teach it to them.

The Results of Multiculturalism

What kind of Americans will the public schools turn out? Americans ignorant of their nation’s founding principles, incapable of defending their country against foreign ideologies, adrift in a sea of moral and cultural anarchy, at the mercy of fears, slogans, and nuclear blackmail.

Multiculturalism is also an important stepping stone to globalism, that concept of a future world government which the public schools are now promoting more aggressively than ever. In an article entitled “Multicultural Education and Global Education: A Possible Merger”, Donna J. Cole of Wittenberg University writes:

“A multiculturalized global education would address the basic concern of where the individual fits into the mosaic of humanity and where others fit in the same mosaic… [It] would aid students in understanding that our membership in groups affects our values and attitudes… [It] would assist students in recognizing the need to be flexible and adjustable citizens in a rapidly changing world.”

The National Education Association (NEA) of course endorses multicultural-global education. Its resolutions of 1986 state:

“The National Education Association believes that multicultural-global education is a way of helping every student perceive the cultural diversity of the US citizenry so that children of many races may develop pride in their own cultural legacy, awaken to the ideals embodied in the cultures of their neighbors, and develop an appreciation of the common humanity shared by all peoples of the earth.”

Notice that the NEA recognizes no American culture that the student may take pride in. He is to take pride in his own racial “cultural legacy” and learn to appreciate the cultures of others, but nowhere in sight is there an indigenous American culture based on peculiarly American values to appreciate, take pride in, or identify with.

The purpose of globalism is to prepare young Americans to accept as inevitable and desirable a world, socialist government in which American national sovereignty will be surrendered for the greater good of “world peace and brotherhood”. In any case, multicultural global education is another good reason why parents must remove their children from the public schools. Social studies professors have rewritten American history to play down patriotism and national pride, and multiculturalism even denies the existence of such a thing as Americanism. Is this what American parents want their children to be taught in public schools? Probably not. But the sad truth is that they don’t even know it’s going on.

reprinted by Meg Rayborn Dawson

MS, Exceptional Student Education (Univ. of W. Florida) emphasis on Applied Behavior Analysis

MA, psychology (Grand Canyon University)

Bachelor of Arts (Northwest Nazarene University)

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Did you know every year many 1,000’s of parents teach their own children to READ? Many of them have used  Alpha-Phonics because they have found it can easily be used to teach their children to read. Your Kids can make a lot of headway in only a couple of weeks with this proven program.  Alpha-Phonics is easy to teach, is always effective and requires no special training for the Parent.   It works !  And it is  very inexpensive.  You CAN DO it !!  Follow the links below to know all about the time-tested (37 + years) Alpha-Phonics program

 

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Posted in Americanism, education, education reform, God Bless America, homeschooling, Multicultural Education, multiculturalism, Phonics, Reading, teaching, Teaching Moral Anarchy, The Blumenfeld Education Letter, tutoring | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How to PREVENT or HELP a Child Discover READING

Posted on July 1, 2022 by Meg Rayborn Dawson

I found an old self-printed book which has some very useful information about teaching reading and I think some of the ideas presented there are worth sharing. The book contains a list of things you shouldn’t do when teaching reading. Many of the items seem wrong at first sight. Some are more subtle. This list represents concepts that are often contained within reading instruction according to the sight method (also called whole word, whole language or look-say).

The first list explains WHAT NOT TO DO when teaching your child to learn to read. It is taken from the book How the Alphabet Works: a handbook for teaching someone to read based upon the 15th century hornbook by EA Albert. I added the question marks and responses

After reading the list of NOT TO DO’s,

Read the list of YES, DO!’s which I have added below it.

  1. Train the child to look at each word as a chunk, a whole word at a time? Use flash cards? NO!
  2. Encourage guessing? Use pictures to interrupt the left-to-right sequence of the text? NO!
  3. Accept false readings such as “pony for horse;” “dish” instead of “bowl”, etc.? NO!
  4. Do not let the child point to the letters, left-to-right? Have him sit on his hands to prevent pointing? Excuse reversals (was/saw; b/d) by calling these birth defects? ABSOLUTELY NOT!
  5. Conduct the class as silent reading? (Oral reading exposes errors?) NO!
  6. Reward speedy reading with flash cards and timed tests? Offer only brief selections for short attention? NO!
  7. Delay teaching the short vowel sounds till second or third grade on the grounds that these are too difficult? NO!
  8. Offer an early mix of words based, not on phonics principles, but on frequency-of-use? This will ensure that there will be a higher-than-normal proportion of phonic irregularity, right at the start? NO!
  9. Do not let the child watch the page while you read aloud? Sit facing him as in a schoolroom, not side-by-side as with mother-and-child? WRONG!
  10. Give him first-reading books with simple-minded sentences where the “story” is told in the pictures? NOPE.
  11. During this time, to prevent home interference, send home report cards telling parents that the child is doing just fine, is up-to-grade-level, etc.? If parents complain about his not reading, explain that the school is using advanced knowledge about children’s Readiness, that you are carefully protecting the child from being pushed? Warn parents not to interfere? I DON’T THINK SO!!!

The Alternative:

Essential Elements of Phonics Instruction

(YES DO’S!)

1. Train the child to see words as a combination of sounds, intended to be blended, moving from left-to-right across a word? YES!

Avoid exercises which center on recognizing words as individual blocks (pictures)? YES!

This will cause the child to stop sounding out words and return to guessing. The result will be a lack of sufficient decoding skills.

2.Teach the child to extend his attention span by keeping his eyes on print and keeping them moving, left-to-right, across words, over sentences, from line to line down the page? YES!

This works as a strengthening exercise for the child’s eyes.

It helps increase his ability to focus and helps the brain to begin laying down the neuro-networks which are necessary for reading. The practice of reading in this manner increases the brain’s  building-up of myelin coating on nerve cells within reading networks. As myelin coating on these nerve cells is “thickened” (each time the skill is practiced) reading fluency and automaticity are improved.

3. If a child misreads a word by replacing it with a synonym of the word, this is an indication that the child has memorized the word as a single, whole unit and is not sounding it out? YES!

Remind the child to read the word from sound to sound. If it helps, use a piece of paper or finger to cover up the word and move the paper of finger to uncover the letters (and/or combinations of letters which join to make a single sound), as the words are read.

For example if the child is reading the word “light”, first cover up all the letters, then move the cover (or your finger) to expose the first letter (l), and have the child make its sound, then uncover the “igh”, and remind if necessary that these letters together make the long i sound (as in Idaho), then blend the “l” and the “igh” sounds to say /ligh/, finally uncover the “t” and have the child make the t sound. Then blend the three sounds from left to right (l-igh-t, light)

4. When a child moves his finger across the word as he reads, this helps him keep his focus on sounding out words letter by letter in the correct sequence (from left to right)? YES, YES, YES!

5. Listening to a child read to you can have amazing benefits? IT SURE DOES!

First, he practices his new skill in a way that promotes the correction of errors, before they become ingrained. Second, the relationship between the reader and the listener, interacting in this way, provides many personal benefits as well. The experience of reading out loud to a supportive listener is as beneficial to the reader as it is to the listener.

6. A teacher must choose which skills should be reinforced (rewarded)? OF COURSE!

Reinforcement, by definition, predicts the recurrence of a behavior. Skills which should be reinforced are: identifying letter sounds which match the letters and/or groups of letters, blending those sounds into words, recognizing the meanings of words just read, reading a sentence as a whole and explaining what it said, etc.

7. The first and most crucial skill for successful reading is the ability to sound out words? YES! ABSOLUTELY!

This should start from day one and continue as the sounds of letters and/or letter combinations are learned. The simplest words to decode are words beginning with a consonant (non-vowel) sound, a short vowel, and an ending consonant sound. Each short vowel sound should be introduced separately. When new short vowel sounds are taught, the ones which are already learned should be reviewed. For example, the short a sound (as in cat) can be taught using word lists such as: cat, hat, map, sap, man, pan, etc. Once these lists are mastered, the short e sound (as in met) can be added in lists like: pet, met, pen, hen, hem, fed, red, etc. The next step would be to join these words together to improve the differentiation of vowel sounds. A sample list would be cat, pen, fed, hat, pan, pet, met, etc. Then add the short i (as in pig), the short o (as in hot), and the short u (as in mug). Once the five short vowels sounds are learned, practice lists should include them all together in a random order. Here is a sample list containing all the short vowel sounds: hat, mug, pen, hit, map, red, rod, bug, bit, bin, ham, cut, etc.

Secondary advise for teaching short-vowel-sound words: I recommend having the child read the first two letters of the word first, then adding the third. For example: When reading the word red, read “re” and then “red”; for the word top read “to” then top. I have found this especially useful when a child who was previously trained to read words as whole units has trouble differentiating the vowel sound in the middle. For example, he may read hat as hot, or bun as ban, etc. Always reinforce the decoding (sounding-out) process. Every sound must be read correctly, in order from left-to-right as they are then blended and words are recognized.

8. It is helpful for the reader to review the sounds of letters or combinations of letters? OBVIOUSLY YES!

This can be done by using reading lists of words containing those combinations. For example, if a child has just been taught the sound made with the letters ou (ou as in couch), it is beneficial for him to read a list of words like: couch, slouch, mouth, sound, bound, found, around, etc.

I have found it beneficial to review sounds which haven’t been read much, with lists like these, at the beginning of a reading lesson. This alerts the mind and establishes the focus which is necessary for decoding. I liken this to the way a musician may begin a practice session with “warm-up” exercises like practicing scales and chords before beginning work on his repertoire of pieces.

9. When reading to the child, as early as he is able to sit still for even a very short time, move your finger across the words from left to right as you read them? YES! It doesn’t need to be constant, but, to the degree that the listener accepts it, is good. Building the child’s tolerance of this is also good.

The child will begin to train his eyes to move from left to right across the words as he watches your finger. I even suggest reading text without pictures. This will reinforce the concept that letters make sounds and sounds make words. If your child allows you, even briefly, to hold his finger and guide it across words, this will boost his skill to a higher level. When the child has learned to decode the simplest of words, you might stop your reading when you recognize a word which he is able to sound out and help him read the word. Then continue moving forward.

10. Picture books may have their benefits for teaching skills other than reading, but they should be supplemental rather than central to the reading program? THAT’S RIGHT!

I am not completely opposed to picture books, interspersed with word-only texts for reading aloud to your child. I recently found a picture only book which I used to model individualized story telling using the pictures as cues. I explained that since there were no words, I needed to look at the picture and use my own words. I find this to be a beneficial way to introduce creative story telling on the part of the child. This, however, should be seen as a separate skill, added as an alternative way to use books when teaching. Recently, after using this method with a student, she independently decided to make her own book by drawing pictures and she “read” it to me. I helped her add some words to the book which I knew she was able to read.

11. The parent/caregiver should stay involved and informed about his child’s progress? ABSOLUTELY!

Parents/caregivers should be kept informed about what is being taught and about progress as well as upcoming expectations. In my own experience, I am especially delighted when the parent or caregiver continues the teaching process when I am not there. Learning to read requires practice just like learning to play an instrument. For example, if a child is given a piano lesson once a week, he is expected to practice on his own during the days in-between. When a parent becomes involved with the child’s practice time at home, even on a minimal level, he will show faster progress. Involving parents is always a plus, when they are willing to try their hand at it.

By the same logic, it is important that a parent establish a report with teachers. This can be done by asking questions and knowing what is being taught. Sometimes this requires a little extra courage, but the parent who becomes part of the teaching effort is a true blessing to both student and teacher.

by Meg Rayborn Dawson  (homeschooling mom of 9)

MS, Exceptional Student Education (Univ. of W. Florida) emphasis on Applied Behavior Analysis

MA, psychology (Grand Canyon University)

Bachelor of Arts (Northwest Nazarene University)

 

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Did you know every year many 1,000’s of parents teach their own children to READ? Many of them have used  Alpha-Phonics because they have found it can easily be used to teach their children to read. Your Kids can make a lot of headway in only a couple of weeks with this proven program.  Alpha-Phonics is easy to teach, is always effective and requires no special training for the Parent.   It works !  And it is  very inexpensive.  You CAN DO it !!  Follow the links below to know all about the time-tested (37 + years) Alpha-Phonics program

CATHY DUFFY REVIEW

OTHER REVIEWS

AWARDS 

HOW TO ORDER

Posted in Dr. Neil Alexander-Passe, education, homeschooling, left-handed punishment, Phonics, Reading, Stigma of
Posted in Christian education, classical education, Functional Illiteracy, grandmother teacher, Home Schooling – Why Do It?, homeschooling, How not to teach reading, How to teach reading, Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Reading, teaching, tutoring | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

States Can’t Bar Religious Schools From Tax-Based Tuition Funds (MRCTV.org)

Posted on June 27, 2022 by Meg Rayborn Dawson

SCOTUS Rules States Can’t Bar Religious Schools From Tax-Based Tuition Funds

P. GARDNER GOLDSMITH | JUNE 23, 2022
(www.mrctv.org)
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled late Tuesday that the state of Maine has been acting unconstitutionally by offering tax-subsidized tuition assistance to parents sending their children to non-sectarian secondary schools while denying the same assistance to parents sending their children to religious schools.

The Roberts-written majority decision in the case “Carson et al v Makin” saw the Chief Justice side with Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Sam Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh over Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan, and wades into constitutional and historical waters rarely touched in U.S. jurisprudence.

Samuel Blumenfeld
author of “Is Public Education Necessary”
“N.E.A. Trojan Horse of American Education”
“Alpha-Phonics”

At issue was the fact that the government of Maine has, since 1873, operated a tax-subsidized “near-voucher” system of tuition assistance for “qualifying” parents. Roberts’ majority decision offers an overview:

“Maine has enacted a program of tuition assistance for parents who live in school districts that neither operate a secondary school of their own nor contract with a particular school in another district. Under that program, parents designate the secondary school they would like their child to attend, and the school district transmits payments to that school to help defray the costs of tuition. Participating private schools must meet certain requirements to be eligible to receive tuition payments, including either accreditation from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) or approval from the Maine Department of Education. But they may otherwise differ from Maine public schools in various ways. Since 1981, however, Maine has limited tuition assistance payments to non-sectarian schools.”

The plaintiffs saw this as unfair, adds Roberts:

“Petitioners sought tuition assistance to send their children to Bangor Christian Schools (BCS) and Temple Academy. Although both BCS and Temple Academy are accredited by NEASC, the schools do not qualify as ‘nonsectarian’ and are thus ineligible to receive tuition payments under Maine’s tuition assistance program. Petitioners sued the commissioner of the Maine Department of Education, alleging that the ‘nonsectarian’ requirement violated the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as well as the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The District Court rejected petitioners’ constitutional claims and granted judgment to the commissioner. The First Circuit affirmed.”

Roberts and the majority offered certiorari in reversal of the circuit court.

Of course, there’s more to this than the mere mechanics of the Maine issue being brought to the SCOTUS on appeal and the majority making a ruling one way or another. The keys pertain to the First Amendment — and they go deeper, to the contemporary misreading of the “Equal Protection Clause” of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the fundamentally unworkable nature of government-funded pedagogy itself.

To give us important context, we move to 1877, when James G. Blaine, a Maine congressman from 1863 to 1883 (who actually rose to the level of Speaker, became a Secretary of State under Presidents Garfield and Arthur, and tried to run for President in 1884) proposed a constitutional amendment to block federal funds going to religious schools. Blaine was a Presbyterian and this was a period in U.S. history when many politicians and members of the budding education bureaucracies around the U.S. searched for ways to separate Irish Catholic immigrants from their church-based schools.

Blaine’s nation-wide constitutional amendment failed, but it was adopted by state after state.

As Gary Rayno writes for NHInDepth, last year, New Hampshire politicians debated a bill that would have led to dropping the Blaine-style amendment NH added to the state constitution in the 19th Century. The new bill was called CACR3, and sponsored by state Rep Glenn Cordelli (R):

“‘Blaine is a relic of anti-religious bigotry,’ he (Cordelli) said, and ‘has no place in our constitution.’
He said Blaine was a Maine Senator who hoped to ride the anti-Catholic sentiment that was at the heart of the amendment, to the presidency but he was not successful.”

Indeed, as I’ve noted for MRCTV education scholar and historian Samuel Blumenfeld noted in his book “Is Public Education Necessary?” that one of the earliest eras when American politicians moved to cripple private education and get kids into government schools came as Irish immigrants flocked to these shores in the late 1800s. The goal was to split the kids from Catholicism and make them, as many Fabian Socialists soon began reciting, “good supporters of the state.” (See also, by Sam Blumenfeld: N.E.A. Trojan Horse of the American Education System)

The Blaine concept was adopted in 38 states – and that includes Maine, which, as Roberts notes in his decision, adopted its own version of Blaine’s amendment concept much, much later, in 1981.

And the plaintiffs involved in yesterday’s “Carson” decision objected, citing the First Amendment and the “Equal Protection” clause of the Fourteenth.

Writes Roberts:

“This case concerns two families that live in SAUs that neither maintain their own secondary schools nor contract with any nearby secondary school.”

Given that context, and citing the Maine Constitution’s requirement that the legislature “require… the several towns to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the support and maintenance of public schools,” Roberts and the majority viewed the state’s prohibition of parents using their tax-funded subsidy on religious schooling as an infringement of the First Amendment protection of religious liberty.

But there’s a problem with that.

The First Amendment only applies to the federal government, prohibiting it from infringing on freedom of speech, religion, and free assembly. For many decades in U.S. history, states actually ran numerous religious schools, and, as we can see, it was not even until 1981 that Maine ended the practice of offering tax cash to a system that might see the money spent to religious schools.

As I have noted for MRCTV, many collectivist jurists claim that the “Incorporation Doctrine” — a legal practice adopted by many judges after the Civil War – saw the First Amendment “folded into” state constitutions, thus, as they argue, preventing them from making these sectarian vs non-sectarian distinctions and engaging in other activities bearing on speech and religion.

As much as freedom advocates like me might wish that were the case, it is false, and even if it were true, the First Amendment specifically cites only CONGRESS in its prohibition against the establishment of religion or speech codes. If states had “incorporated” the First Amendment into their constitutions, they would have incorporated a provision that, of course, specifies only the U.S. Congress.

Which is why the state of Maine continued to offer the funds to parents between 1873 and 1981.

As much as conservative Americans might like it, the First Amendment argument on which Roberts and the majority stand is unsound, both historically and constitutionally. And the argument that these parents are not being protected equally under the Fourteenth Amendment is absurd, prima facie.

A handout of tax cash is not “protection.” It’s treatment, and the manner in which even “conservative” Justices repeatedly misread this clause tells us a great deal about how vast numbers of Americans misunderstand the role the Founders believed government was supposed to play in our lives.

The provision of education is not protection. It is a handout – a handout that is, by its nature, politicized and draws people into the Tragedy of the Commons, where almost everyone is forced to pay, but not everyone can see the publicly-run “resource” directed towards the goals he or she desires.

This causes dissent, arguing, and a lot of damaged lives.

The only way to change this problem is to stop looking to the courts or even the U.S. Constitution for some magic answer. That continues the cycle of political fighting over not just the poorly-run government education system, but over “interpretive” courts, themselves.

The answer is to remove as many aspects of life as possible from the influence of government – period.

The Roberts-penned decision in “Carson” might appear to be a victory, but it repeats numerous grievous errors in jurisprudential history, misinterprets the history of US education, and overlooks the strict wording of the US Constitution, even as it perpetuates the problems created by government-ties to education

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Did you know every year many 1,000’s of parents teach their own children to READ? Many of them have used  Alpha-Phonics because they have found it can easily be used to teach their children to read. Your Kids can make a lot of headway in only a couple of weeks with this proven program.  Alpha-Phonics is easy to teach, is always effective and requires no special training for the Parent.   It works !  And it is  very inexpensive.  You CAN DO it !!  Follow the links below to know all about the time-tested (37 + years) Alpha-Phonics program

 

CATHY DUFFY REVIEW

OTHER REVIEWS     

AWARDS      

HOW TO ORDER

******************************************

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The Stigma of Dyslexia

Posted on May 16, 2022 by Meg Rayborn Dawson

Sometime, somewhere, within the history of American education, it was decided that it was not good to write with the left hand. Writing this way was often punished.

I learned of just such an example, in the most unusual of settings, and discovered that one woman’s intimidating childhood experiences were still sorrowfully remembered years later. When recounting her story, I am reminded of another group of students who currently face intimidation in school. These are the children who, for some reason, have been unable to learn to read.

Knuckle Slaps at Six — Tears at Sixty

While raising my large group of children, I had a favorite spot to stop and shop. (Hmmm spot, stop, shop – sounds like a phonics lesson.) We referred to the place as “Pinto Beans”, because that’s what was painted on the large warehouse-type building. Inside were the owners, whose names I’ve forgotten. Basically, they were an aging Ma and Pop who limped endlessly across concrete floors, showing their newest bargains to hungry customers.

These two saints did more than their share in solving the problem of world hunger. It seemed to me that their primary customers were parents like me, dragging themselves into the warehouse with dangling stair-steppers following behind. You could buy bulk popcorn there, and pinto beans. Those were the lure, and the word popcorn was also painted across the green store front. They must have had some connection with restaurants, or grocery stores, but whatever it was, they would always offer great food items at prices large families could afford. Oftentimes, some treat would be thrown in, “just because”. Like a baker’s dozen.

One afternoon I’d escaped, on my own, to Pinto Beans. Ma was working alone, and the shop was empty. So, we talked. She asked about my children, and I answered with stories about our homeschooling. For some reason, she shared a story with me about her own education. I don’t remember the whole conversation, but there was one comment she made which I have never forgotten, “I didn’t know why.”

She had attended grade school during a time and place when it was believed that all children should use their right hands to write, and in some classrooms, using the left-hand was a punishable offence. She told me that she was never able to understand why the teachers were angry with her. She tried to write with the other hand, but it was not comfortable, so she would change back to the left side, sometimes without even being aware that she had done so. When her teacher caught her off guard, she would use a ruler to slap her knuckles — as a reminder. She was being reminded that she was bad. But she couldn’t understand why.

Her story is not unique, but I was struck by the heavy emotion that came with its telling. I vividly remember the tears welling up in her eyes, so much so that the story was over. She couldn’t continue talking about it. Since it was closing time, I left with her and discovered that she was walking home. I walked with her, hoping to change the subject, and leave her in a more positive state. When we reached her home, she invited me in. A new person was revealed during my visit there, and my admiration and respect for her grew that day.

Imagine this sort of insensitive and sometimes cruel treatment within the rapidly growing community of illiterate students. Students, who seem to be fine at understanding other subject matter, don’t understand why they can’t read. Their experiences often culminate to mental health symptoms which become part of the diagnosis. They are no longer hindered only by their inability to read, but they are now victims of things like: anxiety, attention problems, low self-concept, and more. And it seems that those who flounder through ineffective reading programs for longer periods of time tend to suffer the most.

Today’s researchers, and psychologists are beginning to look at dyslexia as a conglomeration of symptoms, many of which are now being linked to mental health. Ma’s pain was resting just under the surface, and when she recalled the knuckle slapping, it erupted. It was as if the experience had happened only yesterday. Its impact was still residing in her soul.

Nature versus Nurture

Nature versus nurture is a phrase which is used when considering the source of an ailment. What caused it? Was it a result of how children were raised (nurturance), or were they born that way (nature)?

Dr. Neil Alexander-Passe, a great advocate for people facing mental health problems, as bi-products of dyslexia, asks the nature-nurture question in his book: Dyslexia and Mental Health: Helping people identify destructive behaviours and find positive ways to cope.

The book is a masterpiece of research with a reference list of nearly 500 peer-reviewed studies, showing the correlation between dyslexia and a long list of mental health symptoms. It addresses stress and anxiety, poor self-concept, shame, avoidance mechanisms, secrecy, learned helplessness and more. And in many instances, it seems that the nurturance side of the question takes precedence. The behaviors of parents, teachers, peers, and others may be causing an increasingly complicated list of symptoms.

Early 20th century teachers, by slapping left-handed wrists with rulers, may have created long-lasting sorrow. Tired and discouraged teachers, care-givers, and loved-ones may reveal their annoyance, even without intending to. They may simply sigh, or discontinue an in-place lesson, or even make some incidental comment. Competitive peers may be overheard whispering negative, or even insulting comments behind the backs of struggling students. Bullies, who are more bold and deliberate in their attacks, may cause irreversible harm. The compilation of negative and unsuccessful reading experiences may increase the likelihood of mental health problems.

One particular area of concern for Alexander-Passe is stigma.  The word stigma originally defined a mark or a tattoo. It has been used to refer to the scar left by a hot iron, or a brand. Society often brands people with their disabilities.

Defining the Problem – Not the Person

We may say: “He’s bi-polar.”; “She’s schizophrenic.”; or “They’re dyslexic.”

Wouldn’t it be better to say: “She has her ups and downs.”; “He gets a bit confused sometimes.”; or “They struggle with reading.”? Phrases like these, define the problems – not the people. They avoid the brands – the stigma. When we define a problem, we begin problem-solving. When we define people, we ostracize them.

Who is this author, Neil Alexander-Passe? What motivates him? He describes himself as a dyslexic. (I would rather say he struggles with dyslexia.) He spent years studying and writing about how to cope with the mental health outcomes, reported by many adults who have also been diagnosed with dyslexia. He once feared that when he had children, he would face the same dyslexia monster again, with them. So he prepared himself by studying the problem academically. Thankfully, the monster never appeared.

His children had no trouble learning to read. Yet his books, with their thorough investigation, interpretation, and reporting about dyslexia and mental health, are extremely beneficial. He has redefined the problem with a new, positive outlook. He has given us great resources which are useful and effective.

Dr. Alexander-Passe addresses dyslexia-related downfalls and encourages others to discover and reverse them, by transforming their attitudes and learning alternative, positive behaviors. Within his work, Alexander-Passe shares information about a master’s level psychologist who uses a similar approach – a counselor and teacher who creates resources for mental health practitioners — Pennie Aston.

Aston is another self-proclaimed dyslexic with a dyslexic family, whose work involves teaching other psychologists and counselors about this multi-dimensional view of dyslexia. Her website, www.groOops.org (retrieved March 16, 2022), opens to the words: “Dyslexia Aware Counselling, Coaching, Training and Support.

Her goal is to create and arm a workforce of counselors within our schools, homes, and communities. She starts the process by creating awareness and by teaching about the emotional outcomes of the dyslexia experience.  Here is an example of her work, taken from a post on her LinkedIn page, The Emotional Repercussions of Dyslexia.

“The emotional side of coming to terms through the life course with all the elements of dyslexia is one of the most commonly missed areas. Teachers and parents are very good at noticing problems in their children with reading, writing, spelling and even math. What they can miss is the growing element of lack of motivation, low self-esteem and upset which develops as the child goes through school and the pressures grow greater and greater… 

“If nobody tells the person that there is a reason for their difficulties, there is a tendency to label themselves as dumb, thick, and stupid. The difficulties can become harder to manage in secondary school and when children begin to fail, they can become very vulnerable and on edge. These feelings can stay throughout life.

“The frustration of prolonged failure on a range of curriculum subjects at school, resulting in feelings of insecurity and lack of confidence, can have profound effects upon social status, friendship patterns, and acceptance and adjustment in new settings. Aggressive and antisocial behaviour may result from these tensions. Stress and insecurity can lead to a prominence of information processing difficulties. When dealing with problems, the dyslexic may adopt strategies of avoidance and self-blaming.”

This is the new face of the dyslexia dilemma. Hopefully, we will quickly see the positive impact of the work of individuals like Alexander-Passe, Penny Aston and more. The problem has expanded. The solutions need to expand also.

Coming next:

Chapter Ten —  Young Mary Burkhardt Becomes a Global Change Agent

from Dyslexic no More: Saved by the ABC’s

by Meg (homeschooling mom of 9)

MS, Exceptional Student Education (Univ. of W. Florida) emphasis on Applied Behavior Analysis

MA, psychology (Grand Canyon University)

Bachelor of Arts (Northwest Nazarene University)

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Miss Cora & the Kentucky Mountain People

Posted on May 11, 2022 by Meg Rayborn Dawson

The Kentucky Girl

(commencement speech on graduating from teacher’s college) 

While other girls were posing, their charms being exhibited, their characteristics discussed. There has lived and walked, among the evergreen pines and the sturdy oaks, of the mountains of Kentucky, a creature with more depth of soul.

More nobility of character, more perfection of face and form than any that Gibson’s brush or Sarah Orme Jewett’s pen have ever flaunted in the face of the public…

She has not walked on velvet carpets, or surveyed herself in costly mirrors. But God made rare provision for this superb creature, which art can never approach.

And she treads softly on carpets of green, velvety moss. Which the rich, with all their wealth, can scarcely imitate. And she gazes without cost in the mountain spring, which gives back a more perfect reflection than any mirror constructed by man…

The mountain girl is not a girl of the past, of whom no new thing can be said, but she is a rare, radiant creature of the future. Others have reigned and passed from view, their triumphs forgotten and their songs echoing but faintly back through the distant ages.

But the mountain girl stands today on the mountain top, her gaze fixed still higher. She is entering into the possession of her own a highly, carefully cultivated mind. And when this is accomplished, when the crown of learning is set upon her head, she will reign queen of all the earth.

Reaching out her hands beneficently to struggling humanity everywhere.

Cheering the faint and fallen, leading the blind, supporting the feeble, teaching the illiterate,

And doing God’s service to all mankind.

(Missionary Tidings (1904) from the Moonlight Schools Collection at Morehead State University)

Miss Cora & the Kentucky Mountain People

Cora was a mountain girl with the upbringing of a city girl; and though she became recognized and honored in the city — throughout America — and around the world — her heart never lost its first love –- the mountain folk in Kentucky.

She loved the mountain children, and taught them in her self-made school, when she was merely 5 years old, while insisting that her friends call her Miss Cora. She listened and observed her father, the country doctor, when he treated the victims of local, sometimes deadly, feuds. And she sat at table with him, when he invited honored visitors from strange and interesting places outside their mountain home.

She helped her faithful mother (who brought her to church and taught her to pray) with the upbringing of younger siblings when her father was away, at the Kentucky School of Medicine.

She became a schoolteacher at age 15, a duty which she performed while attending a teacher’s school which was supported by the Christian Woman’s Board of Missions, (Morehead Normal School). And she continued in her educational pursuits, reaching higher levels, both as a student and as a teacher.

She listened when her younger brother, a lawyer, and member of the Kentucky House of Representatives, encouraged her to run for the office of Superintendent of Rowan County Schools. And she won.

In her various jobs, schooling, and political work, she continually met people who couldn’t read or write, and she often volunteered to help and encourage them with their writing needs. The number of illiterate adults in her county was astounding, and she decided to do more about it.

Then, in 1911, Superintendent Cora Wilson Stewart opened her “Moonlight Schools”, for adult literacy classes. In her book, Moonlight Schools for the Emancipation of Adult Illiterates, (1922), Mrs. Stewart introduces her colorful adult students, the volunteers who helped recruit and teach them, and the motivating factors that led to the opening of these schools.

The Fulfillment of a Dream

“In the mountains of Kentucky there has been buried a treasure of citizenship, richer far than all its vast fields of coal, its oil, its timber or mineral wealth. Here live a people so individual that authors have chosen them as their theme, and artists as their subjects, to interpret to the world a people with a character distinctive, sturdy, independent and rugged…

“Of all the [authors and artists] who have chosen them as their theme, none have seemed to catch, or at least, all have failed to portray, the dominant thing in mountain life, the strongest urge of the mountaineer’s soul – his eager, hungry, insatiable desire for knowledge.” (Moonlight Schools)

These were Cora’s People. The one’s she foresaw in her 1904 oration (Kentucky Mountain Girl). Her opportunity had come. And now, seven years later, she began to fulfill her dream of “reaching out her hands beneficently, cheering the faint and fallen, leading the blind, supporting the feeble, teaching the illiterate, and doing God’s service to all mankind.”

In her book, Mrs. Stewart describes three specific individuals who, with their combined stories, created her motivation to begin teaching the mountain men and women of Kentucky.

While serving as county superintendent, she also volunteered as a secretary to several illiterate folk. She described three of them. One was a mother, whose daughter sent her letters which she was unable to answer. Another was a stalwart, intelligent middle-aged man, who confessed to her that he couldn’t read, adding that he would give twenty years of his life if he could read. And the third was a talented young songwriter who often forgot the lyrics to his songs, because he had no one to write them down for him. These three people, and those who shared similar stories, were the powerful force behind her establishment of night schools in the one-room schoolhouses of Kentucky.

She was beginning to see the fulfillment of her dream.

Moonlit Schools Begin their Classes

Mrs. Stewart called together the Rowan County teachers. She asked them to extend their teaching days into the evenings. After teaching children in the daytime, they would welcome adults. On a voluntary basis.

“To their everlasting credit be it said that not one of those teachers expressed a doubt or offered an excuse, but each and everyone of them, without a single exception, volunteered to teach at night after she had taught all day, and to canvas her district in advance to inform the people of the purpose of these schools and to urge them to attend.”

Adults were invited to come and learn. She chose to hold classes on moonlit nights, since so many had treacherous paths to cross on their way.

“They had rugged roads to travel, streams without bridges to cross, high hills to climb, children to lead and babes to carry, weariness from the hard day’s toil; but they were not seeking excuses, they were seeking knowledge, and so they came… Walking for miles, they came carrying babes in arms, they came bent with age and leaning on canes.”

Twelve hundred students arrived for their first class, at schoolhouses scattered throughout the county. Though she had anticipated about 150. (Their ages ranged from 18 to 86 years.) “On September 5, the brightest moonlight night, it seemed to me, that the world had ever known, the moonlight schools opened for their first session.”

“Just to learn to read my Bible!” was the cry of many a patriarch and many a withered dame.”

“Just to write my children with my own hand, and to read their letters with my own eyes! Was the cry of the mother’s heart.

“Just to escape from the shame of making my mark! was the appeal of the middle-aged man.”

“Just to have a chance with the other folk – to be something and to do something in the world!” was the expressed desire of youth and maid.”

Volumes could be written about Mrs. Stewart’s ongoing work. In fact, they have been. And much of them are written by this great teacher herself. Both Morehead State University and the University of Kentucky have wonderful collections.

(Just as an example of the magnitude of her work, the U of K collection, “The Cora Wilson Stewart Papers”, takes up 17.13 cubic feet of library space. There are 70 document boxes, 4 flat boxes, 6 oversize folders, and 3 items. There are letters, speeches, pamphlets, scrapbooks, notebooks, posters and more.)

Her work demonstrates her gifts of writing, organizing, campaigning and, especially, photography. On the backsides of photos are handwritten descriptions.  And because of this, they serve as reliable documents of the lives and times of the Kentucky Mountain People. My favorite of all the photos is one of an elderly woman sitting on the front porch of her new home. Her neighbors built the home for her, to honor her newly gained ability to read and write.

If I were to follow all the many roads through which Mrs. Stewart’s research might take me, I would never finish this book. So, instead I am limiting myself now to some of the methods she used.

Written Names Replace “Marks” 

Many of the adult students couldn’t sign their names. Instead, they drew an X or a scribble on a signature line. Since they were unable to sign checks, they seldom held bank accounts. They could neither read nor sign legal documents. Soldiers were unable to sign draft cards. This was a first priority for Mrs. Stewart. It was taught the first night, and the learners were delighted.

“Some were so intoxicated with joy that they wrote their names in frenzied delight on trees, fences, barns, barrel staves and every available scrap of paper; and those who possessed even meager savings, drew the money out of its hiding place and deposited it in the bank, wrote their checks [which is another skill which was taught early on] and signed their names.”

Mrs. Stewart designed grooved writing pads on which students could trace all the letters of the alphabet, in cursive, and write their names. Once they were able to write, she encouraged them to write letters, send them to her, and in exchange they were given a Bible.

“The tablet contained, first, a white sheet of blotting paper into which the name of the student was to be written in indented letters a number of times, that his first writing exercise might be his name, the thing which he craved most to learn.

Next, there were sheets of delicate pink, violet, yellow and green blotting papers filled with sunken letters which the students traced in grooves to gain form quickly, having already acquired facility of movement in their daily duties, by constant use of fingers for manual work. In this respect they had the advantage of the child who must learn movement as well as form, from the start.

Age-Appropriate, Practical Textbooks — In the early years, a newspaper was published, distributed, and used as a beginning reading text and recruitment tool. The Rowan County Messenger contained a simple vocabulary, drills, and news, announcements, and stories of interest to the community. Eventually, these were replaced with textbooks written by Mrs. Stewart, Country Life Readers, books 1, 2 and 3. Later, she added The Soldier’s First Book and The Soldier’s Tablet.

“Someone had to provide the tools with which these men and women could dig their way out of the mental dungeon in which they were imprisoned. A reader was prepared for them and brought out as quickly as possible.”

Mrs. Stewart’s readers were modeled after the McGuffey Readers, which were commonly used textbooks of the times. The difference between them was content. The Country Life Readers were more age-appropriate, and they addressed the needs of this population.

Like the McGuffey’s, lessons contained word lists, instructional stories, and sentences in cursive to be copied repeatedly in order to gain writing skills. In the back were lists of words for the purpose of correct spelling. And also like in the McGuffey books, sample letters were provided for students to copy. One of Mrs. Stewart’s earliest lessons shows how to address a letter, and not much farther on is a lesson in writing checks, with a sample of a handwritten check. The words of the lesson are:

I have my money in the bank.

Now I will write a check for my father.

I write the date.

I write the name of my father.

I write the amount of money in figures and in words.

I write what it is for.

I sign my name.

Now I will read my check to see that it is correct.

Sample letters proved invaluable, and, as a result, Mrs. Stewart received and saved many handwritten letters. She has published many of them, and others are stored in University archives. Photos of the letters show correct letter form, and a remarkable accuracy in spelling.

Mrs. Stewart was especially pleased with the textbooks she designed for young soldiers. Teaching them to read and write letters to and from home was a great help in the problems of homesickness and loneliness. Mrs. Stewart was quick to point out that soldiers, upon enlisting, were given Bibles which they couldn’t read. She changed that!

Not only were soldiers able to write letters to home, but they began receiving letters written by family members who were previously illiterate. This was a great booster of morale for many.

Social Conscience, Practical Skills, & World Affairs — The textbooks also contained stories about the proper management of property, care of livestock, growing of crops, personal hygiene, and more. The texts encouraged patriotism and morality. They also contained Bible passages and hymns.

Other course work was covered, but not all were required to take all the courses. (Reading and writing were prioritized.) Courses were offered in civics, English, health and sanitation, geography, home economics, agriculture, horticulture, and good roads. Four were chosen from this list, based on their suitability to specific districts. Lessons in these areas were also included in the Country Life Readers.

Drilling Words and Sentences — The subject of English was quite popular, and this was where students learned to discern between dialect and proper English. When using careful pronunciation, it is easier for students to sound out words.

“The letter ‘g’, so often ignored by illiterates, in ‘ing’ was reinstated to its proper dignity and use, through drills on such words as ‘reading’ ‘writing’, ‘spelling’…

Other common mispronunciations, of words like crick and skeered, were corrected through continual drilling. Mrs. Stewart also required the repetition of sentences. This served a double purpose. Not only was pronunciation improved, but lessons were being taught. What a joy this much have been to watch. It reminds me of the Broadway Musical, My Fair Lady, when Professor Henry Higgins taught the flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to speak better English.

Students were also encouraged to recite and to memorize poetry, and Mrs. Stewart selected poems very carefully. These were instructive as well as beneficial to pronunciation and memory. One choice was a stanza from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s, which follows.

What a legacy this mountain girl has left for us!  She was a true lover of literacy.

The Ladder of St. Augustine

(H. W. Longfellow)

The heights of great men reached and kept

Were not attained by sudden flight,

But they, while their companions slept,

Were toiling upward in the night.

Coming next: Chapter Seven — Trials of a Classroom Therapist

from Dyslexic no More: Saved by the ABC’s

by Meg Rayborn Dawson (homeschooling mom of 9)

MS, Exceptional Student Education (Univ. of W. Florida) emphasis on Applied Behavior Analysis

MA, psychology (Grand Canyon University)

Bachelor of Arts (Northwest Nazarene University)

 

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The Irish Mom who gave her Son a Voice

Posted on May 2, 2022 by Meg Rayborn Dawson

Tragedy Leaves a Young Girl without a Family

“At the time many children were playing on the street as several women from the tenements sat on the pavement watching on. Yet within minutes the scene was one of screams and dust and rubble, seven people had been killed, dozens of people had been injured (eight seriously), and over a hundred people had been left homeless.” (James Curry, www.thejournal.ie, Sept. 2013)

 

Following the collapse of her home, eleven-year-old Bridget Fagan was alone. Not only was she orphaned, but she had lost her brothers and sisters as well. She was adopted by an uncle, and she lived with his family until her marriage, five years later. Orphaned at eleven, after suffering severe trauma and loss of loved ones, and married at sixteen, would not be considered the best preparation for managing a home nor for child rearing, yet Bridget Brown didn’t let this set limits for her. She began the process of bringing life into the world, again and again, year after year.

In another 14 years her 12th child was born. He suffered from cerebral palsy. He would ultimately be one of over twenty children born to Patrick and Bridget Brown. The doctors’ prognoses were grim, but despite recommendations to put him in a home, she stubbornly chose to raise him herself. She was determined to treat him just like all the others.

He was carried throughout the home and propped up on pillows so he could be with the rest of the family, where he could observe all the household activities and share in with his siblings through family ordeals, their joys and sorrows, births of new children, and stories brought home from school. He was one of them. Mealtimes were especially spectacular.

In our house the great thing was food. To us children mealtime never came too soon. We’d all wait patiently till mother laid the table, then we’d make a bee-line for it. I [scrambled] between them on my bottom and usually [managed] to get there first by throwing myself across a chair to show it was engaged, till some of the bigger ones would lift me on to it. Then the fight began – to see which one of us would out-do the rest in eating… My mother or father would sit by me and feed me.

As was her custom with the other children, Bridget talked to him, she read to him, and she played with him. His brothers and sisters were instructed by their mother to do the same. They brought him with them as they went outside to play, pushing him along in a makeshift carriage. He loved that thing.

The old go-car was my chariot, and I went about in it like any royal king. It was an ugly, battered old thing that nobody ever treated well. It was always being kicked, knocked over, shoved about and trampled on. Everybody joked about it. But to me it was something lovable, almost human. It seemed to have some queer dignity of its own that nobody but I could appreciate. I called it Henry.

I had seen my first glimpse of out-door life sitting on its seat with the feathers sticking out of it. I can remember the wet wind on my face that day as they raced me along through busy streets. I can remember sitting in it as my brothers sat playing cards with their pals under a streetlamp on a dark winter night when the gutters on the road were running with water and the lamplight was reflected in them so that they looked like little rivers of gold in the dark.

Bridget continued to insist that her son was not an idiot. Then the first miracle happened. One day as the family was gathered around the fire and his older brother and sister were doing their homework, using chalk on slates, his uncontrollable body suddenly moved in a way that was to change his life.

“It was the chalk that attracted me so much. It was a long, slender stick of vivid yellow. I had never seen anything like it before, and it showed up so well against the black surface of the slate that I was fascinated by it as much as if it had been a stick of gold.

“Suddenly I wanted desperately to do what my sister was doing. Then – without thinking or knowing exactly what I was doing, I reached out and took the stick of chalk out of my sister’s hand – with my left foot.”

This ambitious five-year old had plunged, awkwardly, onto the road to reading.  His dedicated mother did not hesitate to join. This was the moment she had been waiting for. A sign. Seizing the opportunity, she got down on the floor next to Christy and drew the letter A, telling him to copy it. She held the slate still for him while he tried. With great difficulty he was able on the third try to draw one side of the letter, and half the other side. Even after the stick of chalk broke, he continued to struggle with the task, feeling his mother’s encouraging hand on his shoulder. And he succeeded in drawing a letter A with his left foot. In the days that followed Bridget continued to teach him to recognize, understand, and draw the other letters.

Christy’s handicaps were so severe, that he was never able to attend school. So, Bridget devoted every spare moment to teaching Christy how to read. An older sister helped when she was busy, and she used readers from the schools the others attended. When she wasn’t available, he would study his brother’s readers. One day he surprised his dear mother by writing something very special for her. He later recounted this as a second miracle. He spelled the word M-O-T-H-E-R on the slate. He was then seven years old.

Christy Brown later wrote about how he saw her at the age of five, in My Left Foot (1954). His ability to use words allowed him to communicate to others what it was like living in his body, from his very unique vantage point. His descriptions are seeable.

“While my father was out at bricklaying earning our bread and butter for us, mother was slowly, patiently pulling down the wall, brick by brick, that seemed to thrust itself between me and the other children, slowly, patiently penetrating beyond the thick curtain that hung over my mind, separating it from theirs.

“It was hard, heart-breaking work, for often all she got from me in return was a vague smile and perhaps a faint gurgle. I could not speak or even mumble, nor could I sit up without support on my own, let alone take steps. But I wasn’t inert or motionless. I seemed indeed to be convulsed with movement, wild, stiff, snake-like movement that never left me, except in sleep. My fingers twisted and twitched continually, my arms twined backwards and would often shoot out suddenly this way and that, and my head lolled and sagged sideways. I was a queer, crooked little fellow.”

Bridget’s son began a journey through books which continued throughout his life. Reading was his preferred pastime. It was his exposure to the world beyond his neighborhood. As he learned to speak, though quite awkwardly, and difficult to understand, he was a great conversationalist, as though he had grown up in the most sophisticated of households. His knowledge and education, in areas that interested him, extended beyond the education he might have been given by the local schools. Bridget had provided a way out for him. He was liberated by reading and writing, and his skills expanded far from that humble beginning.

Using agility, which he had developed in his left foot and toes as he practiced the writing portion of his mother’s lessons, he began to paint. This skill was practiced and hone into a demonstration of artistic ability that began to match the abilities of recognized masters. His paintings were not ordinary. With the help of others, they began to be shown through outside exhibits. They were ultimately admired by viewers around the world. But that was not all.

Christy was given a typewriter, and he began to write. In 1954 he published his autobiography. This book inspired the screenplay for an award-winning movie by the same title, and some of his paintings were featured there. Paintings and books became his livelihood, and he was able to help provide for his mother and siblings after his father’s death.

Among his writings are many poems, and among the poems is one written in honor of his beloved mother, Bridget Brown. It was written to be read at her funeral – a literary masterpiece. An homage so well deserved by this amazing woman, whose love and energy catapulted her once helpless son into fame and a livelihood – the fulfillment of her goal for him. Independence.

For My Mother, by Christy Brown

Only in your dying, Lady, could I offer you a poem.  

 So uncommonly quiet you lay in our grieving midst

your flock of bereaved wild geese

pinioned by the pomp and paraphernalia of death

for once upon a rare time wordless

beyond the raw useless grief of your nine fine sons

The quiet weeping of your four mantled daughters

gathered in desperate amity around your calm requiem hour

and almost I saw you smile in happy disbelief

from the better side of the grave.

Only in your dying, Lady, could I offer you a poem.

Never in life could I capture that free live spirit of girl

in torn and tattered net of my words.

Your life was a bruised flower

burning on an ash-heap

strong and sure on the debris of your broken decades

unwilting under a hail of mind-twisted fate

under the blind-fisted blows of enraged love

turning ever toward the sun of a tomorrow

you alone perceived beyond present pain.

Only in your dying, Lady, could I offer you a poem.

You were a song inside my skin

a sudden sunburst of defiant laughter

spilling over the night-gloom of my half awakenings

a firefly of far splendid light

dancing in the dim catacombs of my brain.

Light of foot and quick of eye for pain

you printed patterns of much joy upon the bare walls of my life

with broad bold strokes of your Irish wit

flaming from the ruins of your towers.

Only in your dying, Lady, could I offer you a poem.  

 With gay uplifted finger you beckoned

and faltering I followed you down paths

I would not otherwise have known or dared

limping after you up that secret mountain

where you sang without need of voice or words.

I touched briefly the torch you held out

and bled pricked by a thorn from the black deep rose of your

courage.

From the gutter of my defeated dreams

you pulled me to heights almost your own.

Only in your dying, Lady, could I offer you a poem.

 I do not grieve for you

in your little square plot of indiscriminate clay

for now shall you truly dance.

O great heart

O best of all my songs

the dust be merciful upon your holy bones.

Coming next: Chapter Six —  The Mountain Girl 

from Dyslexic no More: Saved by the ABC’s

by Meg Rayborn Dawson (homeschooling mom of 9)

MS, Exceptional Student Education (Univ. of W. Florida) emphasis on Applied Behavior Analysis

MA, psychology (Grand Canyon University)

Bachelor of Arts (Northwest Nazarene University)

 

***************************************************************

WEBSITE     TESTIMONIALS    

CATHY DUFFY REVIEW

OTHER REVIEWS     AWARDS     

HOW TO ORDER

For Parents who are concerned about assuring a solid base for their Children’s education. READING is the bedrock.  One good way to assure the best results is to teach your OWN children to read.  And it is much easier than you ever dreamed.  All you need is a good program like ALPHA-PHONICS.  Alpha-Phonics has been  used by tens of thousands of Parents, easily and successfully FOR 38 YEARS.  Most Parents find they only need 15-30 minutes a day and can complete the course in only a few Months.  Parents need NO experience or special training to teach their Children to become excellent readers. This may sound impossible, but, if you read the reviews and testimonials below, you will learn it is true.

 

 

Posted in Cerebral Palsy, Christy Brown, education, homeschooling, My Left Foot, Phonics, Reading, Reviews of Alpha-Phonics, schools, special education, teaching, tutoring | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Censorship & Propaganda – The Theft of Voice

Posted on April 29, 2022 by Meg Rayborn Dawson

If you have spent much time around children, especially quarrelling children, you may have observed disputes over who gets to explain what just happened. Here are some examples which I have witnessed.

  • Children rushing toward me with their mouths full of words, each wanting to be the first to arrive at my feet and spill out the correct version of the story. And the fastest child wins.
  • One child covering the mouth of another child to silence the other who is obviously speaking lies. And the toughest child wins.
  • The well-spoken, using-a-gentle-voice child, explaining the right side of the story with a lawyer-like defense justifying whatever just happened. And the cleverest child wins.

I’m sure there are many variations of these premature attempts at censorship. They don’t bother us much, and most of the disputes are resolved without any problem. The more worrisome examples of censorship are much less innocent.

  • The Italian dictator who used his experience as a newspaper editor and journalist to redefine truth, stifling the freedom of the press during his fascist reign.
  • The murderous, Austrian-born German politician, and his minister of propaganda, who oversaw the use of newspapers, radio and even phone lines. And who stole and destroyed, or hid, thousands of paintings, drawings, sculptures, and books representing the culture of an undesired group of people.
  • Present day social media giants who make decisions about what is or isn’t true, disallowing the sharing of ideas which they don’t like.
  • The government officials in an Eastern nation who are destroying crosses, burning Bibles, and closing churches.
  • Harsh and punishing southern plantation owners who abused the people who to them were chattel.

Our voices are valuable because they represent who we are. Before a people group is destroyed, their voices must first be taken away. Slave narratives, such as that of Frederick Douglass, amplified the voices of slaves and described the events they encountered in clear detail, thereby preserving, and empowering that voice.

Stenographers from the Field: Personal Stories to Emancipation

I shall never forget my first attempts to learn to spell. I was about thirteen years of age, when I nearly lost my life because I made an effort to gain this kind of knowledge. Josiah Henson

Learning to read and write helped American slaves on their journey. It moved them out from the most horrible of institutions, by giving them their voice. They were enabled to tell their side of the story. Those stories were shared, creating a sympathetic audience.

Josiah Henson’s life story was successful in this endeavor. Although his first autobiography required the help of Samuel Atkins Eliot, to whom Henson dictated his story, it’s impact was still very significant, in that it influenced the writing of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

As a young boy Henson attempted to learn to read, but his opportunity was stopped short. This story is included in his later book Uncle Tom’s Story of His Life: An Autobiography of Josiah Henson (1876).

Henson met another slave boy, William, who had been assigned the task of transporting his master’s children to and from school. This lad had learned to read while listening to the children discuss their daily lessons with their father, as he drove their wagon. When he learned that William could read, he arranged to be taught by him. William instructed him to buy a Webster’s spelling-book. So, Henson gathered cull apples, that had fallen to the ground in his master’s orchard, and he sold them to raise the money for the book which he bought and kept hidden under his hat.

The next day, he was attempting to harness his master’s horse, but the horse jolted, and he had to run to catch it. During the scuffle, his hat fell off, and the reading lesson book was exposed. I’ll let him tell you the rest of the story.

 After I had harnessed the horse my master exclaimed, “What’s that?” “A spelling-book.” “Whose is it?” “Mine.” “Where did you get it?” “Bought it, sir, when I went to market.” “How much was it?” “Eleven cents.” “Where did you get the money?” “I sold some apples out of our orchard.” “Our orchard!” he exclaimed, in a passion. “I’ll teach you to get apples from our orchard for such a vile purpose, so you’ll remember it. Give me that book.”

I stooped to pick it up, and as I saw his big cane coming down. I dodged. “Pick up that book,” he cried, using an awful oath. At last I was obliged to do it, when he beat me across the head and back till my eyes were swollen and I became unconscious. My poor mother found me in this state, and it was some time before I was able to be about my work again.

When my master saw me after I recovered, he said, sneeringly, “So you want to be a fine gentleman? Remember if you meddle with a book again, I’ll knock your brains out.” The wonder to me is, why I have any brains left. I shall carry to my grave a scar my master made that day on my head. I did not open a book again till after I was forty-two years of age and out of the land of slavery.

The dedication of men and women, like Fisher, Douglass, and Henson, shown through their true-life records, must certainly be respected. They have preserved this shameful bit of history, and the echoing stories of the atrocities they faced will continue to guard against similar cruelties. Their words have been preserved in libraries and online, and they are still being heard today. Through them we can recognize the importance of having a voice, and the dangers that people groups encounter when their voices are lost. We must work to preserve the art of reading and writing among our citizenry, or we will be no better off than they were.

Ain’t I a Woman 

by Sojourner Truth (former slave, abolitionist, and suffragist), 1851

That man over there say
a woman needs to be helped into carriages
and lifted over ditches
and to have the best place everywhere.

Nobody ever helped me into carriages
or over mud puddles
or gives me a best place…

And ain’t I a woman?

Look at me
Look at my arm!
I have plowed and planted
and gathered into barns
and no man could head me…

And ain’t I a woman?

I could work as much
and eat as much as a man —
when I could get to it —
and bear the lash as well

And ain’t I a woman?

I have born 13 children
and seen most all sold into slavery
and when I cried out a mother’s grief
none but Jesus heard me…

And ain’t I a woman?

That little man in black there say
a woman can’t have as much rights as a man
‘cause Christ wasn’t a woman
Where did your Christ come from?
From God and a woman!

Man had nothing to do with him!
If the first woman God ever made
was strong enough to turn the world
upside down, all alone
together women ought to be able to turn it
right-side up again.

Coming next: Chapter Five — The Irish Mom who gave her son a Voice

from Dyslexic no More: Saved by the ABC’s

by Meg (homeschooling mom of 9)

MS, Exceptional Student Education (Univ. of W. Florida) emphasis on Applied Behavior Analysis

MA, psychology (Grand Canyon University)

Bachelor of Arts (Northwest Nazarene Univ.)

Be a HERO:  Teach a Child to READ

Did you know every year many 1,000’s of parents teach their own children to READ? Many of them have used  Alpha-Phonics because they have found it can easily be used to teach their children to read. Your Kids can make a lot of headway in only a couple of weeks with this proven program.  Alpha-Phonics is easy to teach, is always effective and requires no special training for the Parent.   It works !  And it is  very inexpensive.  You CAN DO it !!  Follow the links below to know all about the time-tested (38 + years) Alpha-Phonics program:

WEBSITE     TESTIMONIALS    

CATHY DUFFY REVIEW

OTHER REVIEWS     AWARDS     

HOW TO ORDER

 

 

 

 

Posted in education, homeschooling, Homescoolers academically perform very well, Phonics, Reading, schools, teaching, tutoring, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Reading, Writing & Endangered Voices

Posted on April 24, 2022 by Meg Rayborn Dawson

I shall never forget my first attempts to learn to spell. I was about thirteen years of age, when I nearly lost my life because I made an effort to gain this kind of knowledge.

Josiah Henson

A Murderous Uprising

August 21, 1831 was a horrible night, with more horrors to follow. A young man, by the name of Nat Turner, led an uprising among his fellow enslaved men in Southampton County, Virginia. That night saw the beginning of a savage massacre. A rebellion ultimately claiming around sixty free men, women, and children to whom they were enslaved. The retaliation was just as awful.

Turner was captured, along with sixteen others, and they were executed for their crimes, yet the aftermath of that night continued. Many slaves were randomly killed throughout Southampton County. Some were beheaded, and their heads were scattered on Virginia roads as a warning to potential rebels.

The Culprit?

Reading!

Reading was blamed for this. It was assumed that many slaves had used forged passes which allowed them to leave their premises and travel freely. To prevent any further atrocities, several states adopted codes which made it illegal to teach a black man to read. Punishments included excessive fines, imprisonments, and whippings.

Reading became known as the “great emancipator”. The skill was so highly valued that many put themselves into great danger to learn it. Those who learned took further risks, choosing to teach others. A former slave, James Fisher of Nashville, Tennessee wrote this:

“I . . . thought it wise to learn to write — in case opportunity should offer to write myself a pass. I copied every scrap of writing I could find, and thus learned to write a tolerable hand before I knew what the words were that I was copying. At last, I found an old man who, for the sake of money to buy whisky, agreed to teach me the writing alphabet, and set up copying. I spent a good deal of time trying to improve myself; secretly, of course. One day, my mistress happened to come into my room, when my materials were about; and she told her father… that I was learning to write. He replied that, if I belonged to him, he would cut my right hand off.”

How did they learn with scarce resources? Many ex-slaves tell of learning the alphabet and going forward from there. Once they learned the alphabet code, they would study any written word they could find. Sometimes they used Bibles or hymnbooks, or even newspapers and posted notices. They searched for clues and studied them, slowly learning to interpret written words.

Anti-Literacy Sentiments Perk a Young Boy’s Interest in Reading

Young Frederick had been brought to the home of Hugh and Sophia Auld in the waterfront district of Fell’s Point in Baltimore, Maryland. He was to become a playmate and “body servant” for their son Tommy. In their home he learned a lesson which propelled him into a life of literacy, freedom, and notoriety. The lesson came, not from what was taught him, but from what wasn’t taught him.

Mrs. Auld had begun teaching him to read, so he was familiar with the alphabet. When Mr. Auld learned of this, however, he demanded that the lessons be stopped. Frederick later wrote that the instruction was not only stopped, but it was stopped abruptly with great emotion. This is the story of Frederic Douglass, told in his autobiography.

“She not only ceased to instruct but had set her face against my being instructed by anyone else.” He also noted a personality change in her about which he said, “Slavery proved as injurious to her as it did to me.”

“Nothing seemed to make her more angry than to see me with a newspaper. She seemed to think that here lay the danger. I have had her rush at me with a face made all up of fury, and snatch from me a newspaper, in a manner that fully revealed her apprehension. She was an apt woman; and a little experience soon demonstrated, to her satisfaction, that education and slavery were incompatible with each other.”

 How Frederick Douglass Learned to Read

Armed with the knowledge of the alphabet, Frederick found help from another source. Here is his explanation of how he converted young boys on the streets into teachers:

“With their kindly aid, obtained at different times and in different places, I finally succeeded in learning to read. When I was sent on errands, I always took my book with me, and by doing one part of my errand quickly, I found time to get a lesson before my return. I used also to carry bread with me, enough of which was always in the house, and to which I was always welcome; for I was much better off in this regard than many of the poor white children in our neighborhood.

This bread I used to bestow upon the hungry little urchins who, in return, would give me that more valuable bread of knowledge. I am strongly tempted to give the names of two or three of those little boys, as a testimonial of the gratitude and affection I bear them; but prudence forbids: —not that it would injure me, but it might embarrass them; for it is almost an unpardonable offence to teach slaves to read in this Christian country.”

Another Event Pushed Douglass Toward Freedom

Douglass obtained the book, The Columbian Orator, which contained a dialogue between a master and his slave, a slave who had run away three times. Reading this account became another impetus for his desire to become free.

“The dialogue represented the conversation which took place between them, when the slave was retaken the third time. In this dialogue, the whole argument in behalf of slavery was brought forward by the master, all of which was disposed of by the slave. The slave was made to say some very smart as well as impressive things in reply to his master—things which had the desired though unexpected effect; for the conversation resulted in the voluntary emancipation of the slave on the part of the master.”

Frederick Douglas described the connection between literacy and freedom, which was proved in his own life. He acknowledged that it was a gift when his reading instruction was stopped with such deliberateness. This alerted him to the idea that literacy was valuable. It could be his ticket to freedom. Otherwise, it may have never mattered. And what a loss this would have been to the world.

His work was instrumental in the abolitionist movement. His writings give insight to the plight of the slave in America. He taught many like himself to find their way out of slavery. Without the drive to learn to read, all this would have been missed. His life is summed up by his simple quote:

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”

Censorship & Propaganda – The Theft of Voice

If you have spent much time around children, especially quarrelling children, you may have observed disputes over who gets to explain what just happened. Here are some examples which I have witnessed.

  • Children rushing toward me with their mouths full of words, each wanting to be the first to arrive at my feet and spill out the correct version of the story. And the fastest child wins.
  • One child covering the mouth of another child to silence the other who is obviously speaking lies. And the toughest child wins.
  • The well-spoken, using-a-gentle-voice child, explaining the right side of the story with a lawyer-like defense justifying whatever just happened. And the cleverest child wins.

I’m sure there are many variations of these premature attempts at censorship. They don’t bother us much, and most of the disputes are resolved without any problem. The more worrisome examples of censorship are much less innocent.

  • The Italian dictator who used his experience as a newspaper editor and journalist to redefine truth, stifling the freedom of the press during his fascist reign.
  • The murderous, Austrian-born German politician, and his minister of propaganda, who oversaw the use of newspapers, radio and even phone lines. And who stole and destroyed, or hid, thousands of paintings, drawings, sculptures, and books representing the culture of an undesired group of people.
  • Present day social media giants who make decisions about what is or isn’t true, disallowing the sharing of ideas which they don’t like.
  • The government officials in an Eastern nation who are destroying crosses, burning Bibles, and closing churches.
  • Harsh and punishing southern plantation owners who abused the people who to them were chattel.

Our voices are valuable because they represent who we are. Before a people group is destroyed, their voices must first be taken away. Slave narratives, such as that of Frederick Douglass, amplified the voices of slaves and described the events they encountered in clear detail, thereby preserving, and empowering that voice.

Stenographers from the Field: Personal Stories to Emancipation

I shall never forget my first attempts to learn to spell. I was about thirteen years of age, when I nearly lost my life because I made an effort to gain this kind of knowledge. Josiah Henson

Learning to read and write helped American slaves on their journey. It moved them out from the most horrible of institutions, by giving them their voice. They were enabled to tell their side of the story. Those stories were shared, creating a sympathetic audience.

Josiah Henson’s life story was successful in this endeavor. Although his first autobiography required the help of Samuel Atkins Eliot, to whom Henson dictated his story, it’s impact was still very significant, in that it influenced the writing of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

As a young boy Henson attempted to learn to read, but his opportunity was stopped short. This story is included in his later book Uncle Tom’s Story of His Life: An Autobiography of Josiah Henson (1876).

Henson met another slave boy, William, who had been assigned the task of transporting his master’s children to and from school. This lad had learned to read while listening to the children discuss their daily lessons with their father, as he drove their wagon. When he learned that William could read, he arranged to be taught by him. William instructed him to buy a Webster’s spelling-book. So, Henson gathered cull apples, that had fallen to the ground in his master’s orchard, and he sold them to raise the money for the book which he bought and kept hidden under his hat.

The next day, he was attempting to harness his master’s horse, but the horse jolted, and he had to run to catch it. During the scuffle, his hat fell off, and the reading lesson book was exposed. I’ll let him tell you the rest of the story.

 After I had harnessed the horse my master exclaimed, “What’s that?” “A spelling-book.” “Whose is it?” “Mine.” “Where did you get it?” “Bought it, sir, when I went to market.” “How much was it?” “Eleven cents.” “Where did you get the money?” “I sold some apples out of our orchard.” “Our orchard!” he exclaimed, in a passion. “I’ll teach you to get apples from our orchard for such a vile purpose, so you’ll remember it. Give me that book.”

I stooped to pick it up, and as I saw his big cane coming down. I dodged. “Pick up that book,” he cried, using an awful oath. At last I was obliged to do it, when he beat me across the head and back till my eyes were swollen and I became unconscious. My poor mother found me in this state, and it was some time before I was able to be about my work again.

When my master saw me after I recovered, he said, sneeringly, “So you want to be a fine gentleman? Remember if you meddle with a book again, I’ll knock your brains out.” The wonder to me is, why I have any brains left. I shall carry to my grave a scar my master made that day on my head. I did not open a book again till after I was forty-two years of age and out of the land of slavery.

The dedication of men and women, like Fisher, Douglass, and Henson, shown through their true-life records, must certainly be respected. They have preserved this shameful bit of history, and the echoing stories of the atrocities they faced will continue to guard against similar cruelties. Their words have been preserved in libraries and online, and they are still being heard today. Through them we can recognize the importance of having a voice, and the dangers that people groups encounter when their voices are lost. We must work to preserve the art of reading and writing among our citizenry, or we will be no better off than they were.

Ain’t I a Woman 

by Sojourner Truth (former slave, abolitionist, and suffragist), 1851

That man over there say
a woman needs to be helped into carriages
and lifted over ditches
and to have the best place everywhere.

Nobody ever helped me into carriages
or over mud puddles
or gives me a best place…

And ain’t I a woman?

Look at me
Look at my arm!
I have plowed and planted
and gathered into barns
and no man could head me…

And ain’t I a woman?

I could work as much
and eat as much as a man —
when I could get to it —
and bear the lash as well

And ain’t I a woman?

I have born 13 children
and seen most all sold into slavery
and when I cried out a mother’s grief
none but Jesus heard me…

And ain’t I a woman?

That little man in black there say
a woman can’t have as much rights as a man
‘cause Christ wasn’t a woman
Where did your Christ come from?
From God and a woman!

Man had nothing to do with him!
If the first woman God ever made
was strong enough to turn the world
upside down, all alone
together women ought to be able to turn it
right-side up again.

Coming next: Chapter Five — The Irish Mom who gave her son a Voice

from Dyslexic no More: Saved by the ABC’s

by Meg (homeschooling mom of 9)

MS, Exceptional Student Education (Univ. of W. Florida) emphasis on Applied Behavior Analysis

MA, psychology (Grand Canyon University)

Bachelor of Arts (Northwest Nazarene Univ.)

Be a HERO:  Teach a Child to READ

Did you know every year many 1,000’s of parents teach their own children to READ? Many of them have used  Alpha-Phonics because they have found it can easily be used to teach their children to read. Your Kids can make a lot of headway in only a couple of weeks with this proven program.  Alpha-Phonics is easy to teach, is always effective and requires no special training for the Parent.   It works !  And it is  very inexpensive.  You CAN DO it !!  Follow the links below to know all about the time-tested (38 + years) Alpha-Phonics program:

WEBSITE     TESTIMONIALS    

CATHY DUFFY REVIEW

OTHER REVIEWS     AWARDS     

HOW TO ORDER

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in education, homeschooling, Phonics, Reading, Reviews of Alpha-Phonics, teaching, tutoring | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

My 5th Graders Like Taking Math Tests

Posted on April 14, 2022 by Meg Rayborn Dawson
ASSESSMENT

My 5th Graders Like Taking Math Tests

By rebranding exams as ‘checkpoints’ and administering them every two weeks, this school has seen a dramatic decrease in testing anxiety.

By Steven Goldman
April 7, 2022
Elementary student works on a fractions activity in class
ZUMA Press Inc / Alamy Stock Photo

I wasn’t the first one to notice it. One of my colleagues who also teaches fifth-grade math commented during our planning meeting, “The students come in and ask whether it’s a checkpoint day, and they are excited when it is!” Excited might be an overstatement, but I had seen it too. Rather than seeming nervous or worried or disappointed, students looked forward to checkpoint days. This was surprising for one obvious reason: Checkpoints are what we used to call tests. Our students were now looking forward to exam day.

FROM TESTS TO CHECKPOINTS

Two years ago, we adjusted our assessment schedule from a traditional model with a test at the end of every unit to giving slightly smaller assessments every two weeks or so. Rather than testing only the current material, each “checkpoint” includes both current and past topics with a fair amount of repetition, especially for the most important skills. In class, we often tackle large, difficult ideas. The purpose of the checkpoint isn’t to provide the opportunity to stretch. We give students lots of chances to do that elsewhere. Instead, it is about showing that students are mastering key content.

Giving checkpoints every two weeks freed us from having to time our tests around finishing specific content. We would go through all kinds of contortions to finish a unit before a break or on a Thursday so that we could give the test at the right time.

More important, our primary goal was to provide more feedback and to gain more opportunities to see progress. We were experimenting with incorporating more retrieval practice into our classes, following up on what we had learned from resources like Make It Stick and retrievalpractice.org. These resources encourage using tests and quizzes as learning instead of simply seeing them as assessment of learning. The idea is that having lots of opportunities to remember an idea or to practice a skill strengthens the memory. Tests become chances to strengthen memory, an inherently beneficial activity aside from whatever the teachers might learn from it. Instead of an exam, which wasted valuable class time, these checkpoints provided needed practice to students. Every two weeks, we got a period of sustained, focused work from pretty much every student. It seemed to be working.

STUDENT BUY-IN

Although we anticipated a positive shift in learning, my team didn’t expect that the students themselves would see it as a positive change in practice. The biggest difference between our old tests and the checkpoints is a marked reduction in student stress levels. We don’t see the same anxiety we often saw on our previous math tests. The tests are given frequently and predictably. They share a consistent format, which may also improve the student comfort level.

We spend a lot of time in fifth grade trying to foster a positive environment. We begin the year with establishing our math community standards, and we encourage a growth mindset about mistakes. We even have a “favorite mistakes” month, where all of us, including the teachers, share where we goofed up and acknowledge that we all do. But performance anxiety persists, and students often use tests to judge themselves harshly. You could see it in the way they erased furiously when they weren’t sure or sat staring sadly at the page as if an answer might magically appear. I’m seeing fewer skipped problems and a decrease in “IDKs” where the answer should be. Checkpoint days aren’t a party, but I’m not seeing the same frustration.

ASSESSMENT

Importantly, we also changed the way these assignments were assessed. We don’t score the checkpoints like tests. There is no percentage correct given or grade attached. We do mark where students make mistakes and write comments that we hope will be helpful when students correct their work. We ask students to go back and revise their work based on our comments. Similar problems reappear on future checkpoints, so students get a chance to learn from revision.

A student might miss a concept the first, second, and sometimes even a third time they see it. However, if they are later able to demonstrate the skill consistently, we count only their current proficiency. This gives them time to improve without penalty. Our school does not assign letter grades at this age level, but if I needed to give grades, this approach fits well with a standards-based approach and would adapt easily to rubric scoring.

More than anything, giving a checkpoint in the same style every two weeks normalizes the idea of pausing and taking time to see where we are and what we need to work on more. Because checkpoints are a mix of both new and older material, students are able to answer most of the questions pretty easily, which fosters a sense of accomplishment. I think the student acceptance of the frequent checkpoints is probably mostly about that sense of competence. Rather than focusing on what students can’t do, it celebrates what they have achieved. And why wouldn’t a student look forward to that?

SHARE THIS STORY

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Did you know every year many 1,000’s of parents teach their own children to READ? Many of them have used  Alpha-Phonics because they have found it can easily be used to teach their children to read. Your Kids can make a lot of headway in only a couple of weeks with this proven program.  Alpha-Phonics is easy to teach, is always effective and requires no special training for the Parent.   It works !  And it is  very inexpensive.  You CAN DO it !!  Follow the links below to know all about the time-tested (38 + years) Alpha-Phonics program:

WEBSITE     TESTIMONIALS    

CATHY DUFFY REVIEW

OTHER REVIEWS     AWARDS     

HOW TO ORDER

 

Posted in My 5th Graders Like Taking Math Tests | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Suits Challenging Book “Banning” May Be Better Politics than Law

Posted on April 14, 2022 by Meg Rayborn Dawson

Suits Challenging Book “Banning” May Be Better Politics than Law

School boards can’t suppress ideas they dislike but do have “broad discretion”

Joshua Dunn

A man reads a copy of Maus by Art Spiegelman
The McGinn County Board of Education voted to remove Maus from its curriculum.

America is experiencing another spasm of conflict over book banning in public schools. In January 2022, the McGinn County Board of Education in Tennessee provoked a nationwide uproar when it unanimously voted to remove Maus, a graphic novel about the Holocaust, from its curriculum. The school board said that the book wasn’t appropriate because of certain language and a drawing of a nude woman. For the book and its author, Art Spiegelman, the flap generated the kind of publicity that money can’t buy.

This episode illustrates how the label “banning” is thrown around too easily. Even if one disagrees with the McGinn County Board’s reasons, removing a book from the curriculum is not the same as banning it. In 2020, a Massachusetts teacher boasted that she helped remove Homer’s Odyssey from her school’s curriculum. That, too, was not book banning but an attempt to make her school’s curriculum conform to her pedagogical agenda. Similarly, many school districts have removed Huckleberry Finn from the curriculum because of its liberal use of an offensive racial epithet. Again, that is not banning. School districts must have the authority to curate class readings. If not assigning a book constitutes banning it, then every time an English class syllabus changes, a book is being banned.

School districts have the authority to make these kinds of curricular choices. There are, however, instances where limiting students’ access to materials, particularly in libraries, violates the law. Such questions are already being litigated. Despite assertions of unconstitutional censorship, the scant case law that we have indicates that schools can remove material if they do so out of concerns about its appropriateness for school-age children and not to suppress ideas. That means that most alleged instances of book banning are likely lawful and that restraints on school districts are political rather than legal.

The central case addressing the issue is 1982’s Board of Education v. Pico. In 1975, the Island Trees Union Free School removed from the school library several books that it regarded as “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Sem[i]tic, and just plain filthy.” It also decided that access to a few others should only be allowed with parental approval. In response, several students sued, claiming the board’s action violated their First Amendment rights. When the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, the justices were badly fractured. Four of them ruled that the action of the board violated the First Amendment because “the right to receive ideas is a necessary predicate to the recipient’s meaningful exercise of his own rights of speech, press, and political freedom.” But four justices ruled that the board had not violated the First Amendment, and Justice Byron White argued that the case should be resolved without reaching the First Amendment question. White concurred with the four justices who ruled against the school district but wrote his own opinion arguing that, because there were still unresolved factual questions, it was premature to address the constitutional issue. This makes the precedential status of the decision ambiguous.

It is not clear that today’s court would treat such a splintered case as binding precedent. Even if it did, school officials have broader latitude under the Pico decision than one might think. The plurality opinion, written by Justice William Brennan Jr., held that “the First Amendment imposes limitations upon the exercise by a local school board of its discretion to remove library books from high school and junior high school libraries,” but also that “local school boards have broad discretion in the management of school affairs.” The opinion also made it clear that the ruling affects “only the discretion to remove books,” not a school board’s discretion “to choose books to add to the libraries of their schools.” A board’s discretion, the court held, was only constrained by the principle “that local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books.” Thus, schools can legally remove books over concern about language or content, as long as the action isn’t motivated by a desire to suppress the book’s ideas.

Those angered by decisions to remove books are still likely to sue. After all, litigation can be useful for generating publicity and applying political pressure, even if a case never makes it to court. For instance, in February 2022 the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri sued the Wentzville School District because the school board had decided to remove eight books, including Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, from school libraries. The ACLU accused the board of removing the books “because of the ideological disagreement members of the District’s school board and certain vocal community members have with the ideas and viewpoints that the books express.” In its filing, however, the ACLU did not provide any evidence that the four board members who voted to remove the books were in fact motivated by a desire to discriminate based on viewpoint. Instead, the ACLU pointed to the alleged viewpoint-based motivations of parents who complained about the books. Even then, the evidence they cited only showed concerns about graphic depictions of sex, incest, and rape. Unless the ACLU could find other evidence of an attempt to discriminate based on viewpoint, the decision was almost certainly within the board’s authority. Even so, the board reversed its decision to ban Morrison’s book after the lawsuit was filed—proving that litigation can get results even if it might not prevail in court. The board did leave the bans on the other books in place, at least for the time being.

While school boards have significant authority, the Wentzville case reveals the fraught nature of these choices. Just because a board can remove a book does not necessarily mean it should. If the standard is graphic depictions of sex, or rape, or incest, then it is only a matter of time before someone calls for the Bible to be banned. And if a school district obliges, you can be certain that someone will sue.

Joshua Dunn is professor of political science and director of the Center for the Study of Government and the Individual at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs.

Last updated April 12, 2022

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Joshua Dunn

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eg (homeschooling mom of 9)

MS, Exceptional Student Education (Univ. of W. Florida) emphasis on Applied Behavior Analysis

MA, psychology (Grand Canyon University)

Bachelor of Arts (Northwest Nazarene University)

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