(00:00:00) There is a much greater difference today between the best and the poorest then than there used to be a greater range. I think the better readers are better than they've ever been ever. I would I I taught English in high school for almost 10 years and I used to teach more college preparatory groups then than otherwise, although I taught all kinds of kids, but I would really worried if I were to go back into a College Preparatory High School English class today. Those kids can read circles around the kids that That I used to teach there's they're they're not only much more sophisticated in their lifestyle, but they're also more sophisticated in their reading there. They're just great. But at the other end, we have some that can barely read so that the range is tremendous much more so than it used to be and I don't know I don't I'd rather not make a statement about the average. I suspect that the average I think the average is better than it used to be but I don't know as we can prove that we I was talking this morning to the group about the most recent National assessment. There's a national testing program. That's many people are accept people in education or not even aware of but for the last 10 years, we've been testing kids all over the nation in reading and in many other subjects, too, but We have now a 10 year span of data and it shows some very interesting things. This this most recent one over the 10 years. The reading ability of our primary grade children has improved very significantly. They're doing better than they've ever then. They did 10 years ago. We can't say than they ever did because we don't have only this 10-year sequence, but they're doing significantly better and the most interesting thing about that is that the students who do the least well have made the most Improvement. But when you go to the upper levels particularly the senior high school, there are three levels that are tested Elementary School Junior High School senior high school and in the Junior and Senior High School the students over this ten year period of held their own but they haven't improved very much and in one significant respect. They've lost the scent. And ten-year-olds have significantly declined in their ability to handle the higher what we often refer to as a higher reading skills, the inferential critical reading skills. And this is a significant thing because I think it is saying to us a lot of things about what we're doing in our high schools today. I think we've got to tighten up. I think we've got to make kids read in more depth. We've been working with the idea that if you're reading it doesn't make much difference what you're reading just read a lot and that's good because a lot of reading helps a great deal, but I think we also have to realize that unless youngsters are taught to do the thinking type of reading the in-depth intensive kind of reading that they often need to do. Both in and out of school. If you don't read your income tax directions fairly thoroughly and intensively you're in trouble and I think we've been we haven't put enough attention upon that and I think we can see it in the test results. They're slipping at the senior high school level in that kind of reading not in other respects, but in that kind of reading and I think that's saying to us really loudly and clearly we've got to change change our emphasis a little bit is the world demand more understanding now of reading that it did 10 years ago does reading instruction have to change with that need. I think it I think it demands more course. There are people who think that reading in The Fairly near future with all the computers and all the rest of the things that we have that reading is going to become an and elitist kind of thing that only really only the people who are going to become Scholars will need to read that everybody else will get their information from television or from computers or what have you and there's there's quite a bit of Truth in that but there's always going to be a need for reading whether it will be as great a need for everybody as it is right now. You literally cannot do well in school. Unless you can read pretty well. You just can't even if you're a very good listener and that's the way that these very poor readers. Some of them do manage to get high school diplomas, even though they can't read very well. They're very good listeners and they they can absorb information through their ears and there's nothing wrong with that except that that the information is not how long would you have to sit in front of a television set or radio for that matter suppose you were going to take a trip to the one of the parks out in the west and you wanted to find out something about it. So, you know what you were going to see or what you should see. How long do you think you'd have to sit in front of your TV set before you got that information you say the the person who is getting information from TV, or from Radio is is controlled by what TV and radio give that person whereas is nothing in the world that you can't find if you go to a library and can read So it seems to me that I'm not worried about reading becoming an obsolete process at least for a long time to come what special problems are teachers facing. What's the biggest problem may be that they're facing these days. What's the biggest problem? Well, there are lots of problems, but I'm trying to think to myself. What what would I find the biggest problem if I were to go back into the classroom to teach? I think it would be the task that I would have to make those youngsters settle down and do some thinking. They are so caught up. I'm thinking of high school kids and I'm not thinking little kids because it's much much easier with little kids, but my experience has been almost entirely with high school kids and they have so much going for them and they are involved in so much else besides what's going on in school that to get their minds off these other things long enough to get them onto something that I want to teach them long enough to make an impact. I really would have to I really would have to work at that real hard. You have a Newsweek magazine down in front of you a while ago Newsweek did a survey and thing I teacher competency test. What do you think of teacher competencies competency tests? Well, I think the same thing about teacher competency test that I do about student competency test. Basically the idea is a good one. I believe that teachers should be required to have certain abilities in certain knowledge has and it's a disgrace to have teachers in the classroom who do not have these things but I don't think any paper and pencil tests can measure them. Our teachers on the whole changing as a group as far as competency. Do you think Somewhat. Yes again. It's a I think the range between the very best teachers and the poor teachers is as become greater. There are still some marvelous teachers in our schools, but there's some poor ones to both of the wide range in student capability and teacher capability. Why is that getting wider and wider? You're asking me some hard questions. I don't know the answer to that. Well, one of the reasons why it's getting why we're getting more probably a higher percentage of rather mediocre teachers. Let's not say poor teachers mediocre teachers teachers who are not really bad, but but we're not very good either is the is the fact that the rewards of teaching are not what they used to be. When I first started teaching and you know, when I say this people think I'm they laugh when I first started teaching I just love the job so much that I didn't like weekends. Now. I'm telling the honest truth about that. I love those kids and we had the best time together. that situation doesn't exist very much anymore the rewards of teaching both in terms of the intangible rewards, which is what I'm have in mind when I say that and also of course the monetary rewards if you really want if you really want to earn a Anything better than a mediocre living you don't go into education today. It's the money money is not there and it's cars going to be even worse for the next few years. I don't believe myself that this money squeeze is going to last very long because at least I think that parents that the public in general is going to realize what it is what it's going to do to the schools. granted that there's waste in the schools as there isn't it in all kinds of public things and I don't deny that but this cutting off of so many federal funds and state funds and so forth is going to have a very negative impact for one thing. It discourages teachers because it says to the teachers very clearly. We don't think you're very important. We don't think you're worth much and it's well when people ask what makes the difference between a good school in a poor school or mediocre school one of the answers to that question and this is this comes out of research and not opinion. Is that the good school the school that getting good results has high expectations for the students and holds them up to those expectations. Now if the public in general has low expectations of teachers, which they do at the present time by and large then the teachers are going to react to that the same way kids react to it. They're not going to they're going to say what's the use and quite a good many teachers are saying right now are saying what's the use? What do you think that can change? Well, I think it can change not by increasing teacher salaries. Although that part of it teachers should be earning in in proportion to what carpenters and I'm not picking on any particular group of people believe me, but and and people in positions which require skill to be sure but do not require the kind of preparation that a teacher has to have or the kind of preparation that costs a great deal such as teacher preparation does are earning more than teachers are at the present time so money has something to do with it. But the more important thing is that the public stop leaning on the teachers and saying they're no good because eventually they begin to believe it. And when you believe when you when your own self concept deteriorates your performance deteriorates with it, and that's just as true of teachers as it is a first grade kids.