Whole truth about whole language

In response to Russell Spera’s complaints about American education (“Whole language shortcomings,” Readers Write, March 23), I must ask him directly: What are you doing to improve the system you so eloquently spurn?

As a soon-to-be graduate of the University of Maine with a teaching degree, I must admit I am not as disgusted with the plight of American education as I am with the apathetic American public who does nothing to help!

It is true that the last 50 years have brought new theories of learning into the classroom, but not, as Spera suggests, for the purpose of turning children into educational guinea pigs. Instead, teachers and administrators are desperately trying to revise educational procedures to met the growing needs of a rapidly changing society. It is true that, somewhere, a child may slip through the grip of educators and not receive the proper instruction. However, it is not solely because the teachers are “failing” the children, but society is “failing” the teachers (and their own children) as well.

…People like myself constantly battle overwhelming odds such as endless budget cuts, low salaries and more students per clasroom simply because we are totally devoted to the educational cause. How can we (the teachers) be expected to contribute to the children’s future if we expend all our energy fighting society?

Spera, through his quoting of a Senate committee report, rejects “what’s new” and supports “what works.” Tell me, sir, what does work? Was post-1940s education superior to today? The public constantly falls on that haggard phrase, “back to basics,” but should we be going back, or moving forward; preparing our children for the possibilities of a new century? Are little red schoolhouses, rote memorization, and simplistic reading, writing, and arithmetic practices going to carry our children into the year 2000 when almost every career opportunity of the ’90s requires a college education?

Maybe “whole lanugage” isn’t the answer. But perhaps successful programs like mainstreaming, adult literacy, and computer science are…. Kathleen M. Murphy Brewer