Paul Horton: In Defense of Books
Guest post by Paul Horton.
"The purpose of the storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon."
Brandon Sanderson
In the Corporate Common Core's rush to create a snippet curriculum that separates reading comprehension from the acquisition of knowledge, book lovers are panicking all over the world.
Textbook publishers, the sworn enemy of book lovers everywhere, are doing everything they can to collaborate on the new book burning: the digitization of all books. Pearson Education, the new Grand Inquisitor/Savonarola, has worked very hard to corner this market with help from Microsoft, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, many Governors past and present, and many Broad Foundation Superintendents.
Many innocent superintendents and schools boards are streaming/screaming the siren song of a Gates/Pearson seduction without being tied to the next available mast. The result is a Dionysian love fest that makes many of us aching to hurl.
They seem to be intoxicated with a "Jetson's" idea of the future where people are happy and technology solves all human problems.
I can remember a boss eight years ago waxing poetic about digital classrooms and an all-digital