[MOSAIC] Patrick's comments

[Christine Halliday]

Reply to Patrick:

I, too, have struggled mightily with what works/helps/teaches best.  This 
summer I am reading Richard Allington's "What really matters for struggling 
readers".  He spends much of the book going over what the research in 
reading shows.  It has been very helpful in clarifying what I should be 
spending the day doing with the students.  I hope you get a chance to read 
it.  This is a never ending journey of discovery; welcome aboard!
Chris


>>Message: 1
>Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 13:53:24 EDT
>From: Creecher12 at aol.com
>Subject: [MOSAIC] Question from future teacher-Patrick
>To: mosaic at literacyworkshop.org
>Message-ID: <bfb.1d0a8ebf.33e8ba14 at aol.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
>
>
>
>Here is my Question  For Mosaic Listserv Group. Thank you very sincerely.
>-Patrick J.  Monette
>When  I was a kid, I had very little interest in reading and making rich
>contextual  connections, but now I love to read and I don't know why this
>happened. Though  I'm mostly ignorant of the reasons behind this outcome, 
>I'm almost
>certain that  what happened was in virtual absence of most of the inscribed
>methodologies - in  their calculated form - presented in Mosaic. My 
>question,
>thus, is, How do  we discard things that we might consider to be antiquated 
>or
>outdated methods of instruction when they clearly worked for so many  in 
>the
>past? For example, reading groups that were divided by different reading
>ability levels. I was part of many a lower reading level in my day and I 
>feel  like
>I came out of these mostly unscathed. Further, I don't think that my
>self-esteem suffered all that much, but it's my opinion that self-esteem is 
>  immensely
>overrated anyway. Some of most terrible and evil tyrants in history,
>including Hitler and Mussolini, and some of the most notorious mob bosses 
>and  gang
>leaders, had - each of them - VERY high levels of self-esteem. I believe  
>that
>one's values are a much greater determinant of one's character and  
>goodness,
>and should anything be given higher precedents than these? Also, if my
>self-esteem did take a hit, who's to say that this didn't benefit me in any 
>way?  -
>that it didn't give me thicker skin, make me stronger, build character in 
>me,
>etc.? But back to the regularly scheduled program? Although I?m not sure if
>I  enjoyed looking up vocabulary words in the dictionary and writing down
>their  definitions when I was a young bucking bronco, I?m not quite ready 
>to
>dismiss  this method of instruction as unprofitable because I think that 
>much of
>the  learning that was impressed on us in our younger days did so in such 
>subtle
>ways  that it would be impossible - indeed, unprofitable and maybe even
>harmful - to  say, simply, that this and other methods are either great or
>worthless. Further,  I don?t think that they necessarily have to be one or 
>the other.
>Each alone may  just serve as another piece of the puzzle that, combined 
>with
>the many other  pieces, contributes to the mosaic, but by no means 
>completes
>it. That being  said, in all its presumptive vigor, I love what I've read 
>of
>Mosaic thus  far ;).
>
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