Just finished reading an article about the reading wars-- the wars between the proponents of the phonic and whole language approaches towards the teaching of reading.
The beginning of the article was like any other articles you could expect in reading one of those literatures.
Somewhere in the middle, when he was starting to discuss the relationship between reading research and politics, I burst out laughing. Realizing my laughing at the reading, I burst out laughing the second time.
There is nothing funny about wars anywhere on or outside of this planet.
The wars I was laughing at involve a lot of intellectuals with their pens as the fiercest weapons. The purpose of their attack--- teach reading by focusing on phonics such as skills in sounding out words or by focusing on giving students the literatures so as to foster their motivation and fluency in reading.
I laughed for the first time because the discussion about politics and research was starting to sound like the plots in the movie "the conspiracy theory."
For the second time, I laughed because I could not believe I was laughing about contents in THAT kind of reading… 8-O
Then, while I was looking for the URL of the article to be included here, I found another article talking about the math wars.
It seems to be so very absolutely beyond my understanding that how people could choose their sides in these wars for such beliefs and such convictions are required.
Then, it occurred to me that my laughing at their battles--- what kinds of beliefs and convictions does it take for me to laugh? (And, no disrespect, experts.)
