Re: [Phys-L] two commentaries

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

In case it wasn't already obvious, the two articles cited
this week have some important points in common:

On 03/08/2017 04:04 AM, antti.j.savinainen via Phys-l wrote:

> > http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3477

On 03/06/2017 09:34 AM, bernard cleyet wrote:

> https://prorevnews.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-value-of-reading-over-homework.html

Which says: "Amazing to me, they scored at very high levels in
spelling" when given more encouragement and opportunity to read.

The whole article rings true and makes sense to me, except for
one word, namely "Amazingly".  The author of the article has
a background similar to someone I know -- third grade teacher,
reading specialist, special-ed teacher -- who could have told
you that 30 years ago.

Funny story:  The new principal visits one of the classrooms,
and observes that there's no spelling list on the board.  No
spelling list anywhere.  The new principal calls the old
principal:

 NP -- What's going on around here?  Was that teacher raised
  by wolves?  Everybody knows there's supposed to be a
  spelling list!

 OP -- Yeah, but have you seen what her kiddos are reading?
  Have you seen what her kiddos are writing?

 NP -- But spelling is important.

 OP -- Spelling lists and vocabulary lists may be traditional,
  but there is no evidence that they do any good.

 NP -- How can you say that?  A student who does not study
  the weekly spelling list will do poorly on the weekly
  spelling test.

 OP -- That's called teaching to the test.  In contrast, she
  seems to think that seeing 1000 words in context, where they
  actually mean something, is better than seeing 10 words out
  of context on a list.  There's educational / psychological
  literature on this going back to 1898.  Even if the student
  masters only 100 of those 1000 words, it's still better
  than a list.  And the students are happier in the process.

 NP -- But nobody knows /which/ words they're learning.

 OP -- Yeah, but in the long run, the kiddos are better off
  learning 100 words that the teacher doesn't control, rather
  than learning 10 words under strict control.

 NP -- If I can't test for it, it doesn't exist.

 OP -- There are ways of assessing spelling other than weekly
  spelling tests.  Ditto for vocabulary.

===============

In descriptive terms, I'm no longer surprised that people find
this surprising.  However in normative terms, they /shouldn't/
find it surprising.

To say the same thing another way, there are tons of articles
that tell you how to prepare a spelling list, and relatively
few that tell you to not bother.  There isn't a whole lot of
solid evidence either way, so you get to pick whichever you
want to believe.  I know which ones *I* believe.

That leads to another issue:  I know doing proper experiments
in this area is hard, but that doesn't mean we should forget
about doing them.  The whole educational system looks to me
like an ongoing trillion-dollar experiment on human subjects,
with virtually no controls.  Sigh.