Follow Up to "50 Myths & Lies"
My co-author, David Berliner, and I were recently interviewed by Larry Ferlazzo as a follow-up to the publication of our recent book 50 Myths & Lies that Threaten America's Public Schools. A somewhat shorter version of the interview was published by Education Week and is available there. For those wishing to read a slightly longer version of the interview, it is reproduced below.
Ferlazzo: You make a clear distinction between what you call school myths and hoaxes. Could you elaborate on what you see as the differences between the two, along with providing some examples?Answer: A hoax is a deliberate attempt to deceive, and is more elaborate than a simple lie. Hoaxes are stories of doubtful veracity, constructed to create a desired opinion in the mind of the hearer. The Piltdown Man was a hoax. American education has not had to contend with many hoaxes, but the Global Education Reform Movement (GERM) to privatize our public schools is fertile ground for growing a few hoaxes. Slick TV ads for online charter schools – like those run by K12 Inc., for example — that show smiling children and happy mothers negotiating an education on a laptop on the kitchen table approach the mendacity of a full-blown hoax.
Unlike hoaxes, myths arise from our well-intentioned attempts to understand and generalize our personal experiences. Unfortunately, our personal experience is a poor guide to the creation of general knowledge. We may have held our son or daughter back in the 3rd grade for a second year and the child turned a couple Fs into Cs. When we conclude that retaining children in grade is a beneficial practice, we contribute to the myths of The Benefits of Grade Retention.
Ferlazzo: What do you see as the two or three most dangerous “myths and lies” about schools and why do you think they are so dangerous?
Answer: One myth, we call the grand myth, is a myth from which many others Gene V Glass: Education in Two Worlds: Follow Up to "50 Myths & Lies":
Unlike hoaxes, myths arise from our well-intentioned attempts to understand and generalize our personal experiences. Unfortunately, our personal experience is a poor guide to the creation of general knowledge. We may have held our son or daughter back in the 3rd grade for a second year and the child turned a couple Fs into Cs. When we conclude that retaining children in grade is a beneficial practice, we contribute to the myths of The Benefits of Grade Retention.
Ferlazzo: What do you see as the two or three most dangerous “myths and lies” about schools and why do you think they are so dangerous?
Answer: One myth, we call the grand myth, is a myth from which many others Gene V Glass: Education in Two Worlds: Follow Up to "50 Myths & Lies":