Ah, the three 'R's!

Okay, I'll be the first to admit that education has some silly fads. So does medicine. So does management... my God, does the business admin culture come up with some weird stuff!

The very best teachers teach children according to the learning style of the child. If you're not familiar with the theories of personality put forth first by Jung and later by Meyers and Briggs, and most recently David Keirsey... there is a lot of evidence that children learn in different ways. Teachers, and school administrators, teach in different styles. You can have good matches and bad matches.

Most teachers and school administrators are SJ Guardian types. They are traditionalists, who believe in phonics and workbooks and memorization. A large minority are NF Idealist types. These are the folks who like to teach by discussion and oral presentations and unusual methods. School district policies and curriculum tends to reflect the beliefs of whichever group is in power, so to speak.

Kids need a balance. Yes, they need to learn to read. But the result may be more important than the method. A precocious child who already knows how to read isn't going to find 'phonics' very interesting; she probably is a visual reader by the second or third grade. Kids need to experience the JOY of reading as well as the drudgery.

Frankly, I consider myself lucky to have started the first grade in 1972, in a school that was flexible. In addition to the 'basics' (which I learned very well) I learned music (learned to play the ukulele in the third grade!), calligraphy, story writing, how to use a microscope, how to keep an ant farm... oh, so many magical things. We learned all about Transactional Analysis, the 70's 'warm fuzzies and cold pricklies' analogy to teach kids how to be nice to each other. And yes, there was plenty of time for math and spelling and reading.

I digress. The best teachers have many tools in their teaching toolbelt. If one method does not work, they pull out another. Good teaching is done on the fly, by the seat of the pants, almost by instinct. Anybody can get a class to repeat phonics ad nauseum; a real teacher knows when to chuck the lesson out the window -- once in a while -- to give students some magical experience. I ask you all: think back to your own school days, and remember which teachers you loved.