So ITA is like a reversion to the phonetic spelling that was common before spelling was codified in an organic optimization between (number of symbols to learn) and (number of sounds per symbol)... except with new symbols for almost every possible sound.
Is it more or less bad than Whole Word reading instruction? No right answer!
Crazy. But not surprising. Every generation of educators in collective education paid for by tax dollars, and not paid for by individual parents for individual children, produces a new pedagogy. For reading or writing or math. Or, for social adjustment (per Dewey) now carried to its extreme using a restorative justice model to manage livestock, er train the next generation in our public schools.
Young teachers eat this stuff up. Old teachers rely on a personal bag of tricks to make it all work until they can retire with their pension intact.
I taught English for two years in deep rural Georgia, 1985-87, and pretty much did my own thing despite all their so-called "teaching manuals."
I barely followed the Georgia State teaching parameters. Nevertheless, my second year, my students had the second highest State Competency scores in English, behind only one of the Advanced Placements teachers.
Hilarious footnote: There were two Advanced Placement English teachers. One was a grizzled old blond lady who was difficult to be around and didn't like me but wow did she know her stuff and I begrudgingly respected her. The other was a likable black guy whose company I enjoyed quite well but was let go after my first year because it came out he failed the minimum competency test for English teachers, which he was permitted to take three times.
There seem to be any number of possible options for when things really kicked into overdrive. 1966 was deemed "Year One" by Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan.
1963 was the year of the JFK public ritual murder and it certainly ended America's sense of invulnerability and innocence, plus "63" has the "six three times" thing, or 666, going for it (or against it).
1947 has so many weird "tells" that I've got an unfinished Substack about it, and the root rationale would be the timing in tandem with the arrival of all the Paperclip Nazis.
Of course, it could be something else entirely, but numerology & astrology play a large part of their plans (not that I much understand it).
Yes, we are definitely living through the unfolding of a plan. A really, really evil one.
Have you ever looked into the Marian apparitions and prophesies? Sister Lucia, one of the children at Fatima, warned that the final battle between God and Satan would be over marriage and family. That's a bingo!
Out Lady of Akita (Japan) prophesied about Satan infiltrating the church and pitting bishop against bishop, cardinal against cardinal. With Francis dispatching with orthodox priests (Vigano, Strickland) I think it's safe to put another W in Mary's column.
On the day that Pope Benedict resigned, lightning struck St. Peter's Basilica...twice!
Thank you for the reminder of the lightning striking St. Peter's! I remember that! I also remember one of the Pope's releasing a bunch of doves following a speech on the Vatican balcony that got snapped up immediately by predatory hawks.
I don't recall being aware of the Marian Apparitions, though I've read the Fatima Prophecies so perhaps I'd just forgotten since they fall under that umbrella. I'm not familiar with Our Lady of Akita.
It was interesting to me that the Pope spoke out against Freemasonry this week, and the very Catholic Martin Scorsese's new film paints the Freemasons as the Hidden Hand behind the Osage Native American murders in KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON.
In a bit of foreshadowing, the two doves released by Francis were to symbolize peace between Ukraine and Russia. I have stopped believing in coincidences.
Ten years ago, I used to tune in periodically to Relevant Radio, a nationwide Catholic station. The hosts would often mention the warnings from Mary. I used to think them far-fetched. They are playing out as we speak.
@JoshuaTCharles (a very interesting twitter account by a recent Catholic convert) has edited a new release of a 19th Century Pope's warning about Freemasonry, if you're interested.
Francis asserts one piece of orthodoxy, then tries to destroy 2 more. I do not trust him.
Holy cats! I don't at all remember those two doves symbolizing Ukraine & Russia! God (or teh godz?) are amazing with their sly Revelations of the Method and dark Dark DARK sense of humor.
I'm going to presume the "Josh Charles" Twitter account who's a recent Catholic convert isn't and Hollywood actor Josh Charles, son of my former Bawlmer boss Allan Charles. But then again I probably shouldn't presume anything nowadays! I'll check it out.
The fire at Notre Dame Cathedral during Holy Week of that fateful year 2019 was a strange occurrence. I take comfort in the fact that this monument of Western Civilization was not destroyed.
Wow! So glad I learned with Dick and Jane😄. I too, have always loved to read which was passed on to me from my mom💕. I was born in 1949 in the Mon Valley of Pennsylvania. Through grade school we had to diagram sentences and learn the rules of grammar. Really quite fascinating. I think it is very sad that public schools ( don’t know about private) choose not to teach grammar today. Of course, that is just one of the things they have chosen to eliminate in the ‘teaching’ field.
People used to halfway joke that public schools were indoctrination centers, but now it is clearly true, and it far worse ways than in the days of the half-joke. Thank you for your comment.
That's crazy, glad you survived structurally intact!
We could all read and write by the time we started first grade. My father a professor and college chairman, my mother a university physics instructor who didn't finish her PhD because of marriage and family. No kindergarten, the formative years at home.
Thank God we didn't have that accelerated reading program, or I would have no doubt been put into it. Though I did learn the phonetic alphabet symbols by reading dictionaries.
Home schooling, if the parent(s) can hack it, is clearly the best way to go. With the current mind virus that's overtaken our conquered nation's education system, it feels necessary. My kids got out, just in time, just barely.
Really appreciate the full description of your experience , Tom, all of this rings only too true. I also went through the ITA 'looking glass'., & a similar narrative ensued. Avid, I learned to read at home first too, but almost immediately upon entering primary school (Univ. of Chicago Lab school) ITA was introduced. Fast forward - within another year & a 1/2, we moved overseas to W. Germany where I was placed directly into 2nd grade -- an all German-speaking school, full immersion . Basically I simply floated, passively listening, unable to do much. In class we were all taught to write using the old German script, which I copied from the blackboard into my notebooks just like the little German kids my age. My ear sharpened & by the end of the 2 year was able to write sentences 'auf Deutsch', understand basic questions, could respond,, read simple material. During that time our mom made sure I had lots of English material to ingest, usually ordered via the U.K., homeschooling me on weekends. So I continued reading despite it all, also happily reading out loud to my younger sibs. But I always retained a 'glitch' from that initial ITA experience, which lead me to feel insecure at times, also to write words phonetically by mistake, as well as view things dyslexically when least expected. The German language immersion additionally confused the issue, since I now wrote in script, which I often inadvertently applied to the things I wrote in English as well., not to mention unusual ways of phrasing things. When we moved to Los Altos ,C.A. a year later, I had to learn to print the regular alphabet correctly all over again. What an experiment, and only goes to show how impressionable the growing brain/mind can be to any/all comers. There was good fallout too, of course, but it took a clever 7th grade English teacher back in Canada, finally, to pinpoint my internal struggle & help turn things around for the better. Weirdest thing is that languages were my forte in the end, & I now feel the experience made a difference in some mysterious right brain way that still can't quite be grasped. Still wondering if we can ever really know what types of experience or knowledge-based parameters make the biggest difference to the deepest learning curves each of us will encounter in this life. How does the saying go, "the opposite is ALSO true" ~?!
This is an intriguing personal remembrance, Kristen. I feel like the melding of at least of your English and German language childhood has brought a unique blend of warmth and coolness to your writing style. To go from ITA to German to normal English seems like an even steeper hill to climb than me in Summit (ahem), and God bless you for it.
Thank you for sharing this personal backstory, perhaps those of us who got the ITA instruction and managed to transcend it did indeed end up better off -- you have a distinctive "voice" in your prose, as do I. But that's not yet reached "Rule of Three" for me to offer any conclusions or at a least a "conspiracy theory."
Thanks for the *great* reply, Tom, you've really captured the subtle/unusual results that seem to have arisen in the wake of these peculiar immersion experiences- much appreciated. Your writing style is likewise extremely particular. Somehow you manage to be engaging yet uninhibitedly individualized?! I definitely share your thinking here & feel you're onto something. Perhaps stylized lingo (possibly even a more 'poetic' rendering of language in general), even some kind of 'wild dexterity' (brought on by left brain/right brain confusion giving way to a more peculiar creative cooperation?) may be our ITA-influenced 'shared outcome', thus not so much 'conspiracy theory' as 'spoiler alert' at this stage, haha! Rock on fellow denizen!
So ITA is like a reversion to the phonetic spelling that was common before spelling was codified in an organic optimization between (number of symbols to learn) and (number of sounds per symbol)... except with new symbols for almost every possible sound.
Is it more or less bad than Whole Word reading instruction? No right answer!
Crazy. But not surprising. Every generation of educators in collective education paid for by tax dollars, and not paid for by individual parents for individual children, produces a new pedagogy. For reading or writing or math. Or, for social adjustment (per Dewey) now carried to its extreme using a restorative justice model to manage livestock, er train the next generation in our public schools.
Young teachers eat this stuff up. Old teachers rely on a personal bag of tricks to make it all work until they can retire with their pension intact.
I taught English for two years in deep rural Georgia, 1985-87, and pretty much did my own thing despite all their so-called "teaching manuals."
I barely followed the Georgia State teaching parameters. Nevertheless, my second year, my students had the second highest State Competency scores in English, behind only one of the Advanced Placements teachers.
Hilarious footnote: There were two Advanced Placement English teachers. One was a grizzled old blond lady who was difficult to be around and didn't like me but wow did she know her stuff and I begrudgingly respected her. The other was a likable black guy whose company I enjoyed quite well but was let go after my first year because it came out he failed the minimum competency test for English teachers, which he was permitted to take three times.
Interesting. I had no idea this insanity was taught back in the relativity sane days of the 60s (the REAL 60s happened in the 70s).
I just hope I am alive to see the Space Alien Psyop. That should be fun.
There seem to be any number of possible options for when things really kicked into overdrive. 1966 was deemed "Year One" by Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan.
1963 was the year of the JFK public ritual murder and it certainly ended America's sense of invulnerability and innocence, plus "63" has the "six three times" thing, or 666, going for it (or against it).
1947 has so many weird "tells" that I've got an unfinished Substack about it, and the root rationale would be the timing in tandem with the arrival of all the Paperclip Nazis.
Of course, it could be something else entirely, but numerology & astrology play a large part of their plans (not that I much understand it).
Yes, we are definitely living through the unfolding of a plan. A really, really evil one.
Have you ever looked into the Marian apparitions and prophesies? Sister Lucia, one of the children at Fatima, warned that the final battle between God and Satan would be over marriage and family. That's a bingo!
Out Lady of Akita (Japan) prophesied about Satan infiltrating the church and pitting bishop against bishop, cardinal against cardinal. With Francis dispatching with orthodox priests (Vigano, Strickland) I think it's safe to put another W in Mary's column.
On the day that Pope Benedict resigned, lightning struck St. Peter's Basilica...twice!
Signs abound...
Thank you for the reminder of the lightning striking St. Peter's! I remember that! I also remember one of the Pope's releasing a bunch of doves following a speech on the Vatican balcony that got snapped up immediately by predatory hawks.
I don't recall being aware of the Marian Apparitions, though I've read the Fatima Prophecies so perhaps I'd just forgotten since they fall under that umbrella. I'm not familiar with Our Lady of Akita.
It was interesting to me that the Pope spoke out against Freemasonry this week, and the very Catholic Martin Scorsese's new film paints the Freemasons as the Hidden Hand behind the Osage Native American murders in KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON.
In a bit of foreshadowing, the two doves released by Francis were to symbolize peace between Ukraine and Russia. I have stopped believing in coincidences.
Ten years ago, I used to tune in periodically to Relevant Radio, a nationwide Catholic station. The hosts would often mention the warnings from Mary. I used to think them far-fetched. They are playing out as we speak.
@JoshuaTCharles (a very interesting twitter account by a recent Catholic convert) has edited a new release of a 19th Century Pope's warning about Freemasonry, if you're interested.
Francis asserts one piece of orthodoxy, then tries to destroy 2 more. I do not trust him.
Holy cats! I don't at all remember those two doves symbolizing Ukraine & Russia! God (or teh godz?) are amazing with their sly Revelations of the Method and dark Dark DARK sense of humor.
I'm going to presume the "Josh Charles" Twitter account who's a recent Catholic convert isn't and Hollywood actor Josh Charles, son of my former Bawlmer boss Allan Charles. But then again I probably shouldn't presume anything nowadays! I'll check it out.
Here is the dove story:https://www.news.com.au/world/birds-attack-peace-doves-released-from-pope-franciss-window-/news-story/903c7fc47b7cf6088334e77605a696f1
The fire at Notre Dame Cathedral during Holy Week of that fateful year 2019 was a strange occurrence. I take comfort in the fact that this monument of Western Civilization was not destroyed.
Wow! So glad I learned with Dick and Jane😄. I too, have always loved to read which was passed on to me from my mom💕. I was born in 1949 in the Mon Valley of Pennsylvania. Through grade school we had to diagram sentences and learn the rules of grammar. Really quite fascinating. I think it is very sad that public schools ( don’t know about private) choose not to teach grammar today. Of course, that is just one of the things they have chosen to eliminate in the ‘teaching’ field.
People used to halfway joke that public schools were indoctrination centers, but now it is clearly true, and it far worse ways than in the days of the half-joke. Thank you for your comment.
That's crazy, glad you survived structurally intact!
We could all read and write by the time we started first grade. My father a professor and college chairman, my mother a university physics instructor who didn't finish her PhD because of marriage and family. No kindergarten, the formative years at home.
Thank God we didn't have that accelerated reading program, or I would have no doubt been put into it. Though I did learn the phonetic alphabet symbols by reading dictionaries.
Home schooling, if the parent(s) can hack it, is clearly the best way to go. With the current mind virus that's overtaken our conquered nation's education system, it feels necessary. My kids got out, just in time, just barely.
Thank you for your comment!
Really appreciate the full description of your experience , Tom, all of this rings only too true. I also went through the ITA 'looking glass'., & a similar narrative ensued. Avid, I learned to read at home first too, but almost immediately upon entering primary school (Univ. of Chicago Lab school) ITA was introduced. Fast forward - within another year & a 1/2, we moved overseas to W. Germany where I was placed directly into 2nd grade -- an all German-speaking school, full immersion . Basically I simply floated, passively listening, unable to do much. In class we were all taught to write using the old German script, which I copied from the blackboard into my notebooks just like the little German kids my age. My ear sharpened & by the end of the 2 year was able to write sentences 'auf Deutsch', understand basic questions, could respond,, read simple material. During that time our mom made sure I had lots of English material to ingest, usually ordered via the U.K., homeschooling me on weekends. So I continued reading despite it all, also happily reading out loud to my younger sibs. But I always retained a 'glitch' from that initial ITA experience, which lead me to feel insecure at times, also to write words phonetically by mistake, as well as view things dyslexically when least expected. The German language immersion additionally confused the issue, since I now wrote in script, which I often inadvertently applied to the things I wrote in English as well., not to mention unusual ways of phrasing things. When we moved to Los Altos ,C.A. a year later, I had to learn to print the regular alphabet correctly all over again. What an experiment, and only goes to show how impressionable the growing brain/mind can be to any/all comers. There was good fallout too, of course, but it took a clever 7th grade English teacher back in Canada, finally, to pinpoint my internal struggle & help turn things around for the better. Weirdest thing is that languages were my forte in the end, & I now feel the experience made a difference in some mysterious right brain way that still can't quite be grasped. Still wondering if we can ever really know what types of experience or knowledge-based parameters make the biggest difference to the deepest learning curves each of us will encounter in this life. How does the saying go, "the opposite is ALSO true" ~?!
This is an intriguing personal remembrance, Kristen. I feel like the melding of at least of your English and German language childhood has brought a unique blend of warmth and coolness to your writing style. To go from ITA to German to normal English seems like an even steeper hill to climb than me in Summit (ahem), and God bless you for it.
Thank you for sharing this personal backstory, perhaps those of us who got the ITA instruction and managed to transcend it did indeed end up better off -- you have a distinctive "voice" in your prose, as do I. But that's not yet reached "Rule of Three" for me to offer any conclusions or at a least a "conspiracy theory."
Thanks for the *great* reply, Tom, you've really captured the subtle/unusual results that seem to have arisen in the wake of these peculiar immersion experiences- much appreciated. Your writing style is likewise extremely particular. Somehow you manage to be engaging yet uninhibitedly individualized?! I definitely share your thinking here & feel you're onto something. Perhaps stylized lingo (possibly even a more 'poetic' rendering of language in general), even some kind of 'wild dexterity' (brought on by left brain/right brain confusion giving way to a more peculiar creative cooperation?) may be our ITA-influenced 'shared outcome', thus not so much 'conspiracy theory' as 'spoiler alert' at this stage, haha! Rock on fellow denizen!
#wow
enemy of the status quo ✅
They were on to you from the beginning.
Seems that way, but that perspective is also possibly narcissistic. "One foot in this world, and one in the next," as S.K. Bain has written.