Siegfried Engelmann: Instructional Design 101: Learn from the Learners!
Siegfried "Zig" Engelmann was a Professor of Education at the University of Oregon, the Director of the National Institute for Direct Instruction, and President of Engelmann-Becker Corporation, which develops instructional materials and provides educational services for students with various needs.
The creator of "Direct Instruction", Engelmann wrote the following:
There were originally eighteen sponsors, about 500,000 kids, 180 communities, and pulled-comparison groups. It was supposed to be the definitive educational experiment... It was a very elaborate study. It cost, I don't know, hundreds of millions.... [the] net result was that the results of [project] "Follow Through" were suppressed.
We knew we could teach them. We had to start in a different place and proceed from an earlier step on the ladder. If we do it right when we get there, they'll be able to do it...
Our requirements were simple. We wanted to be able to train teachers, which is why we left the University of Illinois. They wouldn’t permit us to have a teacher-training section.
David Boulton:
So ‘Project Follow Through’ was a prototype – a model that would later be followed in many ways by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Siegfried Engelmann:
Right, right. The APT findings were suppressed largely for political reasons.
My thoughts:
Why were the findings suppressed?
Teachers feel comfortable teaching the way they’ve been taught.
More importantly the powers that be do not want to reduce illiteracy.
'We knew we
could teach them. We had to start in a
different place and proceed from an earlier step on the ladder.'
Start from a different place and an earlier step on the ladder. The researchers have known this all the while and yet have managed to suppress this from the masses.
What is the earlier step on the ladder? It is the letter sounds that have been taught wrongly by design.
2 comments:
Well, in general, research is suppressed and also created for profit or to perpetuate a certain point of view. And I think it happens a lot, every day on twitter. But operation follow through was a particularly bad and huge piece of research executed in haste 50 plus years ago during Nixon admin. This article helps break it down very well, in my opinion.
https://www.alfiekohn.org/article/early-childhood-education/?print=print
Thank you for your comment and your article. After so many years it is difficult to decide what to believe.
Many of the results of the Children of the Code have been suppressed. In addition to being suppressed, what did not work is being promoted. And what worked is being hidden from the masses. This I know because I discussed it with the interviewer of COTC.
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