Over on I Speak of Dreams, Liz Ditz has an entry based on a speech by Michael J. Petrilli about the reasons educators continue to use relatively less effective means of teaching reading. Liz’s comment on the excerpt from Mr. Petrilli’s talk echoes one of my favorite themes, dyspedagogia as a cause of reading problems. She wrote,
I wish that every resistant teacher could be made to face the consequences for his or her students of “whole language”. There’s a word for illnesses caused by doctors — iatrogenic. “Whole language” -tainted teaching, especially in K-3 classrooms, is a cause of pedagogenic learning disabilities.
“Pedagogenic learning disabilities” reminds me of dyspedagogia. I first encountered the term dyspedagogia in a chapter by S. Alan Cohen. It’s a delightful spin on our penchant for creating scientific-sounding names for phenomena. Cohen suggests how to address dyspedagogia that would be pretty consistent with Mr. Petrilli’s and Liz’s arguments.
It would be wonderful to have in place the kind and quality of instruction that would substantially reduce—if not eliminate— reading problems caused by dyspedagogia. maleducation, dysteachia, or whatever. Once we can separate the instructional casualties from the students who have unique learning disabilities, then we can start to do serious research about what makes those learners unique.
Link to Liz’s entry and a link to a reference list where one can find the reference to Cohen’s chapter.
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