Our Education Establishment has always been fast on its feet sophistrywise.

If saying the sky is blue will help push through some new gimmick, the sky is blue. But if saying the sky is gray will help the cause, then the sky is gray. These people are very expedient. Isn't that the correct word for someone who will shamelessly do whatever it takes?

 Automaticity has been one of the central themes throughout the last hundred years. Sometimes it's very very good. Sometime it's very very bad. That's according to our Education Establishment.

 Consider for a moment our multiplication tables. Everyone needs to memorize these with automaticity. However, New Math, Reform Math and Common Core Math are unanimous in agreeing that memorizing the multiplication tables is bad. Children should not do it and that's that.

However, when it comes to the teaching of reading, it is thought advantageous for children to memorize all the most common words, sometimes known as high-frequency words, sight-words, etc. Children are supposed to memorize these words with – are you ready? – automaticity.  Even more disingenuous,  our Education Establishment pretends that this task is easy. It is anything but easy. Only the exceptional child can memorize  even a few hundred sight-words with automaticity.

For an article explaining this schizophrenic divide, see "Automaticity: how can it be sometimes bad, sometimes good?" on Edadvocate: http://www.theedadvocate.org/automaticity-how-can-it-be-sometimes-b...

twitter: @educatt

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