The War Diaries of Jesse Singal, Day 53:
“I hate it out here. All day, all I can hear is the damned pigeons. Raining fire down on us with their artillery. The rest of my squad laughed at me today for not being up to date on Greta lore. Then they laughed at me for not being able to read. If only the culture war hadn’t taken phonics away from us…
War is hell.”
This week:
* Jesse gets reinforcements in World War Coo
* The pod gets schooled in Greta lore
* Updates on Jack Monroe, a.k.a. Scuffed MacGyver
* America’s new system of teaching kids to read is… not good
The episode on Jack Monroe
The Guardian’s interview with Monroe
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/07/jack-monroe-interview
Her publisher’s statement on the controversy
https://www.panmacmillan.com/thrifty-kitchen-statement-january-2023
The reading wars
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1997/11/the-reading-wars/376990/
The NAACP’s reaction
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/12/27/phonics-reading-virginia-naacp/
Calkins defends her method
https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-lucy-calkins-revisits-and-revises-her-reading-curriculum/2022/11
People had a lot to say to her
https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-readers-had-a-lot-to-say-about-lucy-calkins-essay-heres-a-sampling/2022/12
Further reading
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/22/us/reading-teaching-curriculum-phonics.html
https://thehill.com/opinion/education/579750-many-of-americas-black-youths-cannot-read-or-do-math-and-that-imperils-us/
Image credit: Getty
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free