[NLA] Scientific logic in the era of Bush II

[AWilder106@aol.com]

Colleagues,

I want to reply to my own emai. Why would I read a book "Dyslexia, Fluency 
and the Brain," by Maryann Wolf?

1)  I was at the conference, "Learning and the Brain ," last spring.  I heard 
Maryann Wolf speak.  I bought the edited book.  At this conference I also 
heard Reid Lyon speak, I have heard him before, the studies he/NICHD supports 
are pre-post-test/intervention.  It is the model used for testing drugs, 
medicines, the durability of roofing materials and many other phenomena. The 
knowledge about how children learn has been tapped by adult educators to 
"inform" the discussion.  Now we are moving the studies into the adult arena, 
that's what the new grants are about.

2)  I believe that unless you have some idea of what you are doing in the 
classroom you shouldn't be there.  I call this in my own shorthand "mastering 
the core technology." I took the phrase from a book on organizational 
behavior. Reading is a technology.

3)  Information often has to be translated into usable knowledge. 

4)  Is this the whole story?  Not to my thinking, there are at least five 
other parts which need study.

a)  What actual teachers are doing in actual classrooms.
b)  What adult students are like.
c)  What goals you want to achieve.
d)  What you judge to be the purpose of adult education
e)  How you plan to make this happen    

Andrea          
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