Today’s reality: More degrees less common sense

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated”. Confucius

“Common sense is a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge things that are shared by ("common to") nearly all people and can reasonably be expected of nearly all people without need for debate.”

The above is the internet definition of common sense. But is 'Common sense' common?

Anyone with a little common sense would have accepted what I had said back in 2010 and thus saved headaches of millions of parents as well as children throughout the world.             

Here is a relevant part of a response in 2010 from UK by a teacher teaching dyslexic kids.

To:luqmanm2002@yahoo.co.uk

13 Mar 2010 at 02:02

…. Of course adding phonemes at the end of an isolated phoneme is criminal -for example, /bu/ instead of just /b/.  This is hard to do but it must be done. I explain it saying /b/, not /bu/ because it could be /ba/, /bi/, /bo/, /bl/, etc.

This is so clear to me and obvious to the teacher in UK. It is common sense. About 20% of kids predisposed to shutting down do indeed disengage from learning to read when they are taught wrong letter sounds.

Why hasn’t any research been done on this yet?

Why can’t there be a rigorous study of this issue to confirm or otherwise what I have discovered by observing and ‘interviewing’ (otherwise known as ‘direct experience’).

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it. Henry Ford

If I were an educator of teachers, like Timothy Shanahan, this is what I would have done when I first heard Luqman’s theory;

i.                     Begin inquiry with an open mind. Search for an answer to the age old question without being biased.

ii.                   Collect a sizeable sample of data to confirm or disprove Luqman’s theory. Ask fellow teachers their views.

iii.                  Be realistic and analyse the data collected. Don’t throw out Luqman’s findings because it does not fit your theory.

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.

Martin Luther King, Jr.