As a disclaimer, I have not gotten to page 60 yet, but want to address the ideas of crap-detecting and entropy as related to my experience thus far in public school teaching. First of all, the crap methods that are being driven by standardized teaching when it comes to reading skills. We know that most children, who are good readers, were read to as babies and toddlers. They experienced reading as pleasurable and as a natural part of everyday life. They had the opportunity to organically grow through the various stages of reading, beginning with the mimicry of pretend reading. I recall my own children pretending to read, as they spoke a memorized story, with the open book upside down! Most children develop reading stamina by being pulled into a good story and wanting to know what happens next. Instead of conducting independent reading workshops, which would allow below grade readers to practice getting lost in a story and, thereby, build stamina, we put textbooks with "pieces" of stories in front of the students and stop their reading every other sentence to ask a scripted question that lets the teacher know if they are paying attention to the text. This is absurd, but it is the method that is dictated to and embraced by the teachers who adhere to a curriculum director's mandate. Some brave souls admit to secretly conducting real reading classrooms, but they say so in whispers.
This is a very good example of entropy: not much creative energy left in a declining system.
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