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TITEC & Ichinaga
Posted:
Aug 9, 2000 4:22 PM
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It has been suggested that the following may have been lost in the sheer
volume of my post exposing some connections between the extreme Right and
certain educational programs and personalities much beloved among our own
"liberal Democrats" from California. (Excuse me while I regain my composure
after contemplating the implications that "liberal Democrats" will be voting
for George W. Shrub, and Lon Chaney on the strength of the Bride of
Frankenstein).
My "mystery quotation" about the elementary school providing computer-based
instruction to give otherwise failing kindergarten students "reading
readiness" was made about Bennett-Kew and its principal, the sainted Nancy
Ichinaga.
It would appear that Dr. Bishop plans to remain silent on this. It doesn't
take a Ph.D in mathematics to figure that he would like to ignore the fact
that, having claimed both that her school and policies are a Holy Grail for
school reformers (or should be) and that computer instruction isn't worth a
hill of beans in most cases, he is caught between a rock and a hard place on
this one.
That the assertions in the quotation were made by a person clearly hyping
not the computer program but Ms. Ichinaga and how she runs her school don't
make those claims true, of course. But the mere fact that St. Nancy would
approve their use should, using Bishop logic (it isn't the practice or the
book or the research or the data, but whether one's preconceptions are
matched that counts) cause some 'cognitive dissonance' for the
self-appointed czar of American education. That he is silent is no surprise.
That he will no doubt seek, should he broach the subject, to show that
there's no contradiction, that he never said it, that black is white, up is
down, that anecdotes are evil unless they support his views, that objective
data is golden unless it contradicts his prejudices will be even less
astonishing.
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