Week Two, Post One: "Why Johnny Can't. . . "

TORDA'S SPRING 2025 TEACHING SITE

Week Two, Post One: "Why Johnny Can't. . . "

6/2/2020

NOTE: PLEASE COMPLETE THIS POST NO LATER THAN NOON ON THURSDAY, 4 JUNE 2020.

In 1975, the year this article appeared in Newsweek magazine, "Why Johnny Can't Write" became the talk of the nation. The article became so popular that that title phrase "Why Johnny Can't . . . has become ubiquitous. It's used to signal that students don't know something--math, coding, how to be a member of a workplace, etc. Sometimes Jane doesn't know something in these enlightened times.

This was a popular article written for a general audience--not research written by teachers for teachers. In your post, write your reaction to this article: your reaction to what it argues, how it makes the argument. What you know about the organizations that the article talks about. Does it affect how your read or react to it to understand that it was written 45 years ago?

In a second post, what is your reaction to what your classmates have to say? Try to avoid the "Oh, I totally agree with everything you said" stuff.

FOR THURSDAYS IN CLASS MEET UP: To follow up on this, on your own, locate any article that uses as it's title "What Johnny or Jan Can't . . . " It'll be great if we can get a wide range of titles from a wide range of time periods. A quick google search should do it.

Come to class ready to talk about what your article says Johnny can't do and how it makes it's argument. Be ready, also, to talk about what commonalities you see across the two articles--yours and the original. We'll explore what we find and talk about what this tells us, as future teachers, about what we face teaching today in the US Classroom. Hopefully, we'll be able to combine all three meet up sessions discoveries and conversations to make the point.

25 Comments

Lydia Theriault

6/2/2020 06:15:34 pm

My immediate reaction to this articles was the amount of typos it had! But, also that even though it was written so long ago (1975) there is still quite a bit that makes sense still today and are relevant. Though I am not sure the statistics regarding illiterate or semi illiterate people living in America today, I am sure it is no where near where they should be, or where we want them to be. The line, “there is no question in the minds of educators that a student who cannot read with true comprehension will never learn to write well” (2) really stuck out to me. It instantly brought on Mike Rose and his quest to finding true literary power! For Rose, it was not until he found the right people in his life to point this very fact out to him before he really ascended into the second half of his college career, before this, he was just swimming with the current.
The article states how The New Yorker demonizes television watching and citing that as pretty much the sole reason their youth is becoming a bunch of illiterates. And that can be compared with today’s video game playing. So many kids and even older adolescents and adults are spending quite a lot of time playing video games or being connected somewhere, somehow. But I love that there was a solution offered, and that is to use whatever kids are “glued” to and making it a learning opportunity – to exploit this problem, and having it become beneficial.
One line I strongly disagreed with in reference to “linguistic snobbery” was that “these attitudes had consequences far beyond the realm of language. People from different language and ethnic backgrounds were denied social privileges, legal rights and economic opportunity, and their inability to manipulate the dialect used by the privileged group was used as an excuse for this denial.” Being able to speak and write proper English has nothing to do with race. It has everything to do with practice and discipline. I think playing the race card here is too convenient and easy. Though I speak and write English exclusively now, it was not the very first language I was taught. I have worked very hard to get where I am today and will continue “practicing” English as long as I live.

I guess the “Why Johnny Can’t…” articles are for pointing out an obvious? What I see in my article “Why Johnny Still Can’t Read – And What To Do About It” and the original article is that they all boil down to education. Students – Johnny, can’t read or write, or do anything properly if he was not taught so properly in the first place. Teachers must be masters at what they teach, and unless they have the proper knowledge and tools of delivery, children can’t really learn anything. The statistic that 50 percent (in 1975) of the nation’s secondary-school English teachers did not specialize in English at all during their college years. That is BANANAS to me. So, If I was a high school student in the 70’s, half of my English teachers would not have had any training in English at all?! Wow. In my article, there were two schools of thought, teach English like a Catholic nun, or teach English how the student wants to learn. On one hand, if the teaching is too severe and drill-sergeant like, kids lose interest fast. On the other hand, let them run amuck, and they will not earn what they need to learn and develop good habits and so forth. I don’t know what the answer is. Somewhere in-between?

alexa parham

6/2/2020 07:08:57 pm

Hi Lydia,

I also feel as though this article demonstrates similarities in problems that occur in today's educational world. For example, teachers still have to try and find structural ways to focus on individual students and their reading and writing skills. It is definitely still a problem with attempting to connect with every student's individual reading or writing struggles. Also, using technological aspects can be difficult for some teachers as it was difficult during the time this article was written. It is still something that schools try to involve getting students involved. And, this aspect of learning has of course grown immensely and has improved with visual aspects of learning. This leading to better understanding reading and writing skills. Also, the results from these tests are still used in school and they are reviewed to see what needs to be worked on and improved.
And, I TOTALLY understand the fact that teachers do need to know more than what someone should know about each subject they are teaching. One of my classmates once asked our teacher why we needed to know high school know high school math when we were only going to be teaching elementary (I am an ELED) major. And his response was because we are expected to know more than what we are teaching. Which is definitely a lot of pressure on teachers. I think the pressure was there then and it's here now, but for a reason. So, we can teach students to the best to our ability.

Brianna Walsh

6/3/2020 12:14:13 pm

Hi Lydia!
I felt the same way, I do think some of the article was relevant but felt a lot was not. I do think literacy is not as bad as they predicted that it would be, and I think it has become more structured than it once was. I also love the Mike Rose reference about his “quest to finding true literary power.” I do think his teachers influenced him a lot to bring him on that quest to helping in the Teachers Corp and realizing that students are capable of reading and writing with the right guidance. I also thought it was interesting to me that they thought that tv was the reason that their kids were becoming illiterate. I like how you referenced videogames as a modern-day representation of it and I also think that social media and phones can also be a modern-day representation. I know it was argued that a lot of video games was bad for kids, too violent, or that they spend too much time playing them. I think the same can be argued for phones, but also think that there are so many learning apps that kids can have on their phones that can help them in school as well. I also found the same article as you and realized there was not many “Johnny Can’t” articles out there that relate to education. I also like your statement that “teachers must be masters at what they teach, and unless they have the proper knowledge and tools of delivery, kids can’t learn anything.” I do think that students need guidance and sometimes even differentiated instruction to help support them better. I agree that without the proper tools or delivery that the student will struggle and won’t be able to keep up or learn.

alexa parham

6/2/2020 06:32:02 pm

After reading...
This article discusses how there have been more and more struggles with teaching and learning the English language and being able to write it properly. The article discusses the decline in reading skills but more importantly writing skills. The article quotes many people who share their opinion based on the struggles many students have with writing. For example, information and quotes are included from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, historians, results from test scores (such as College Entrance Board, Scholastic Aptitude Test Scores, SAT scores, and NAEP's studies), from schools (such as Harvard and Berkley), and much more. The research in this article amazes me. There are so many sources that explain and/or show the issues with students' reading and writing skills. Many students do not leave high school or college with appropriate reading and writing levels of learning. Many, many students are behind and cannot write to the standards many colleges or jobs are looking for. The test results show that these results are seemingly getting worse.
The article discusses how important it is to see the decline in learning. The article discusses how many students spend time watching TV. It discusses how that could be a new problem that affects students. It is said that the TV is taking time away from when children could be reading. This aspect of the article shows that it was written years ago when TVs were becoming more and more popular, because now TV is something that does not seem too problem-some in our world. Technology (such as "TV") is now used in our learning and many teachers share videos to help students learn. Technology has become almost a priority in our classrooms. You see the start of a transition in this article. It begins to mention the effect of visual aids in the classroom. It discusses how they should use this technology to their advantage. They know that children/ students are watching TV and it is an interest of theirs, so if they ask students to watch something and then write about it… then this will help their writing skills.
Though that is not the only problem mentioned. The article shares that teachers themselves are not up-to-date on their reading and writing skills and many of them did not do well on tests they should have. Which means, they are teaching based off of wrong knowledge. If the teachers do not understand, then how will the students? So, teachers are required to take tests, so these schools know that they are teaching students the correct English reading and writing instruction. Also, many teachers have a large classroom and they do not have the time to assign essays because they will not be able to closely read them all. It is hard to focus specifically with students when you have so many. This leads teachers to just assign short answer questions and that does not demonstrate essay expectations leading students to not gain those skills. The only way students can get better is by doing the writing and learning from their own mistakes. It is also said that teachers feel that giving them the structure of writing takes away from "creativity", but without the correct words and structure… the writing will not be "right".
It does affect my read, when knowing that this article is 45 years old, because it is hard to relate to a time where I was not around. This was written and published in a time where I was not even thought of yet. It it difficult to completely understand the context of this article because I honestly do not know what their SAT tests or other tests looked like. I do not know what strategies teachers used or what was necessarily required. Everything has changed and become more complicated in ways, yet also more informed.
We are also asked what we know about these organizations and I honestly do not know much about them other than what was written about them in this article… also this article was 45 years ago, so these organizations were probably organized differently than they would be right now. Though, I do understand the general basis of them and what they are trying to do. Each of them are trying to reach a more well-rounded, yet educational result. They want students to learn and want there to be educational progress.

Lindsay Vo

6/2/2020 07:29:27 pm

Hi Alexa,
I also feel as if the year in which this was written is out of date compared to education today. As you said in your post, this was written 45 years ago, when TV became really popular. With that being said, if this was rewritten, I believe that the author would still blame TV due to all of the streaming devices we have such as Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+. I also think that the author would blame social media as well, because nowadays every child is on their smart phone when they should be using that time to read. Although there are some negative aspects of TV, I definitely agree that TV can be a useful aid in classrooms: it gives students a topic that they actually want to write about, and it's entertaining for them. Overall, I think you did a great job responding to this question, and I think your points are great.

Lindsay Vo

6/2/2020 07:17:10 pm

When I read this article for the first time, I was appalled by the author's negativity towards America's education system. The first few sentences of the article are very discouraging: Sheils writes, "If your children are attending college, the chances are that when they graduate they will be unable to write ordinary, expository English with any real degree of structure and lucidity. If they are in high school and planning to attend college, the chances are less than ever that they will be able to write English at the minimal college level when they get there" (1). These statements surprised me because while it's true that some students don't know how to write, it's not true for the majority of students I know, including English majors. Throughout this article, there were a lot of statements that blamed teachers for the lack of competency when it comes to writing. Sheils says, "Overcrowded classrooms and increased workloads have led many teachers to give up assigning essays and to rely, instead, on short answer exercises that are easier to mark. As a result, many students now graduate from high school without ever having had any real practice in writing" (2). While this is heart-breaking, it makes sense when we look at statistics. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, "9 year-olds showed almost no mastery of basic writing mechanics, 17 year olds demonstrated serious deficiencies in spelling, vocabulary, and sentence structure, and participants over 18 were reluctant to write at all" (2). As a future English teacher, this is awful to hear. When I have my own classroom someday, I promise to do better: I will assign essays and teach vocabulary, sentence structure, and more.
Another "Why Johnny Can't" article I found was called, "Why Johnny Can't Add" and this one was more personal compared to "Why Johnny Can't Write." Instead of stating negative comments when we first read it, it tells a story about the author's father who was an aerospace engineer, but didn't take calculus, or any of the math classes we take now. When the author asked his father what kind of curriculum they used, he said, "We didn't have any. Couldn't afford books. They just taught us arithmetic. The teacher didn't need a book because she knew the system of arithmetic and she taught it to students using practices that would make a modern progressive educator cringe" (3). The author goes on to say, "They memorized their addition and subtraction facts and their multiplication tables, and mastered long division through repeated drill and practice" (4). Although the man never learned Common Core math and never took calculus, he was very smart and designed missiles. The part that surprised me the most however was when Cothran said, "The idea behind this multiple strategies approach is to intentionally complicate the process of learning arithmetic in order to force the student to think about the procedures he is learning" (6). Because of this, a lot of students have a hard time learning math, including myself.
As I compare these two articles, there's a significant amount of differences. In the first article, the author blames the teachers for not teaching students English, and the second article blames Common Core Math, a system that complicates learning for students. I also believe that the second article is way more personal than the first: although I liked the statistics in the first article, I liked hearing about the author's father who was an aerospace engineer. Although they have those differences though, they have one thing in common: they both point out weaknesses in the education system that we need to fix. As future English teachers, I believe that we will do exactly that.

Ali Nolan

6/3/2020 08:51:41 am

Hi Lindsay,
I too was appalled by the negativity the article had. I mean, it trashed an entire group of people without taking into account their background, their story or if they had disabilities. There are those among us who are not good at math, but excel with English, and vice versa! And yes, that opening was horrible. What a slap-in-the-face to parents of students who just got their high school diploma. With the article you found, I'd prefer the personal connection with the story. The first article had little to back it. Sure, heavy statements with a few statistics, but it still generalized a group of students (some of which are not going to be English majors). That's where I found a problem in it. To me, it's like it held being able to read/write at a profound level to a higher standard than anything else. There is a right way and a wrong way to address people, we don't need to trash them that harshly in stating a point. I wonder if there was significant backlash from the article, then again, it was 45 years ago.

Lydia Theriault

6/3/2020 09:00:47 am

Hi Lindsay!

I too, agree that the drab outlook and overall pessimistic perspective of the article was a bit jarring. I think it was done intentionally, however. I think it was meant to "wake" people up to the statistics to try and invoke change. At least, that's what I hope it did for the people of the 70s and 80s. Though I believe teachers have a heavy burden and responsibility with our youth and all students in general, a part of me thinks that there is only so much we can do after every exhaustive measure. And we learn as we grow as a community of scholars and educators, so by accepting mistakes and rejecting outdated theories, we can constantly be moving forward. I can't imagine things from the perspective of the math teacher in your article, that must've been so hard to do! Also, having to learn math with no textbook? That is mind boggling too. I thought you did a lovely job with your post, with lots of good ideas and insights.

Ali Nolan

6/3/2020 08:45:15 am

The article, at large, addresses the issues surrounding teenagers and their decline in writing skills. One aspect being that students prefer to write in simpler terms, rather than longer and more elaborate sentences. Reaction wide, the article seems very rude and demeaning. It does not offer much positive, but heavily focuses on the negative as though it is a slap-in-the-face to incoming freshmen of college. In fact it is such a slap-in-the-face that I wouldn't be surprised if freshmen that may have read the article felt deterred from continuing education. Not only is it incredibly rude, but it points out that remedial English classes were literally called 'bonehead English'. Even going so far as to have a "pseudo-department" be the nickname given to those in a Harvard English class. This article is dripping in negativity and, frankly, bias. You can not tell a fish to climb a tree, there are those of us who excel at certain things, while others don't. Not only is the title generic and heavily targeting, the article itself is bashing an entire class of college students. All with different skills and abilities, none of which should have that drastic of an effect on their college life. And not to mention, of course the article addresses television. It's cliche at this point; blame technology, because it's easier that way, right? It is no different from getting blamed today for video games. The whole "video games are bad for your brain, you can't do anything so long as you play them". Well, at the time of this article, television was the modern day video game. It's a cycle, an older generation crapping on the younger due to technological advancement. We would be stuck in the stone-age if there was not a natural progression of things. So, instead of buckling down and correcting every inconsistency with grammar and spelling, teachers essentially 'gave up'. What do you expect? Students are going to be a product of not only their parents and environment, but also their teachers. If they see their teachers not caring, why should they care either? What I do like is that the article talks about letting students write about whatever interests them, then teach them from that. I truly believe this to be true! Who wants to genuinely write about something they hate? Let students dictate more of what they get to write, even if it is about their favorite TV show, and then make corrections. Teaching grammar is not subject to whatever is being written, teaching grammar can be applied to any time of writing. Whoever wrote the article sounded ungodly entitled, with a mindset that they are automatically above others because of the way they can write.

The other article I found is called "Why Johnny Can't Read by Jane Can". Here is the link: http://www.wiringthebrain.com/2010/02/why-johnny-cant-read-but-jane-can.html

This article has a similar concept, but explains that dyslexia could be a cause of reading troubles with students. It expresses that dyslexia is more prominent in boys than girls, at a rate of twice as much. It's interesting that this article aims to give more scientific backings to reasons why boys may be struggling, instead of giving a general bias towards students and throwing everyone in the same boat. However, this article was written in 2010 and, naturally, we've progressed with scientific research. We are now being more open minded, adaptive and accepting or learning disabilities and accommodating them. We need to stray far away from the 1975 Newsweek article simply because of its bias. It expects everyone to meet a certain demand of reading, regardless of what students excel in. The Newsweek article largely faults students who struggle in writing, but lacks stating if students were struggling with math in the same way. This article focuses on the brain and the actual disability that could be causing reading struggles. It's backed by science, not by general assumptions. To generally assume a group of people is the same is dangerous and, frankly, unequal.

Kaylee Tavares

6/3/2020 12:20:45 pm

Hi there,
I found it so interesting that you brought up disability resources available today. To be honest, I had not even thought of the differences between learning disabilities today versus when this article was written. It is jarring that so little time ago students were given so little support. I think this likely has made a very dramatic difference in the statistics of literacy today when compared with the statistics in this article. I also think that the article did a great disservice by not acknowledging this in an article about education. Though it was a different time, by not recognizing the different needs of all students, the article was failing to represent a large body of students.

Brianna Walsh

6/3/2020 11:47:25 am

My first reaction when reading the article was how different we have defined literacy over the years and how writing has evolved. I feel like the norms and structures of writing have changed from Shakespeare’s time to Mark Twain’s time and to now. While reading this I also noticed a lot of typos which made it sound more interesting because they are saying how many of us won’t be able to write effectively. I do believe that there are some people who many write at a lower grade level, but I also believe our educational system has improved since 1975. Students now are pushed to do more and learn more. My siblings have so much writing to do for English and even for their other classes. These students already have learned to write an essay before even getting into high school. I thought it was interesting that they thought tv was a reason for why some kids would be illiterate. I do not think that tv negatively impacts kids, but it reminded me of how kids are nowadays are on their phones, social media, playing video games, and texting using slang all the time. I also think what stood out to me was the fact that they said, “no one teaches Shakespeare anymore.” This one statement now doesn’t have any validity anymore because it is constantly taught in middle and high school. I have read so many Shakespeare plays and sonnets between high school and now. I also thought to myself, what they define as a literate person is? What did they define as good writing? In “Lives on the Boundary,” Mike Rose explored that many people that were labeled as “illiterate” when they all had the capacity to read and write well. He explored this through helping students like Terry and Herold. I think times have changed a lot since 1975 and writing has also become more structured for students than it was before. Writing has had many different styles over the course of the years like with Faulkner whose style consisted of the stream of consciousness and sentences that could go on and on. In English classes now, they would tell you that’s a run-on sentence and not to do that. I feel that students have practiced writing more now and some are even above their grade level for writing. Overall, I feel like literacy and the writing implemented in the schools today is more structured and practiced than it might have been 45 years ago. The only book that I found that really related to the “Why Johnny Can’t Write” was “Why Johnny Still Can’t Read and What You Can Do About It.” In the book “Why Johnny Still Can’t Read” it seems to relate to the “Why Johnny Can’t Write” because they both have to do with literacy and education. In both there is an emphasis on the importance to read and write. The student needs to be taught how to read and write as well as learn the structure of it.

Maddie Butkus

6/3/2020 12:54:45 pm

Hey Brianna!
I think you make some really interesting points here. Upon reading “no one teaches Shakespeare anymore” I literally laughed out loud. As you had mentioned, that is just certainly not the case anymore. All throughout high school, I vividly remember being taught the many works of Shakespeare like the classic “Romeo and Juliet” and “Hamlet” to name a few. Furthermore, the specific part that mentioned how TV negatively impacted children, I too believe is not fully the case but there are some negative aspects attached. Like you had mentioned, one of these negative aspects is how much time young adults spend on their phones and computers looking at all sorts of social media and playing video games on their TV’s. While from time to time this is not a bad thing, when done an excessive amount of times, young adults are no longer using their brains or even getting active. This leads me to ask, do you think this same type of focus on technology that is happening within the educational system is a bad thing? I know that we are always evolving within the technological world and now almost every school is trying to incorporate these advances within, but is that really a “good thing”? It is important to stay up with the times, but I feel as if typing notes instead of writing them down is not truly helping students retain the information being taught to them. To this day, when I’m in class I always write my notes down instead of typing them because it truly helps me learn better. This might not be the case for all students which I completely understand, but if it is, should schools still push for students to take notes electronically? There are many benefits to having technology used within the classroom but I am afraid that the note-taking aspect of it might not be in its entirety. I apologize for ranting within this response, but I am so glad you brought up this aspect of Sheils article about TV’s because it really got me to thinking as you can see. Thank you for your response, great work!

Kaylee Tavares

6/3/2020 12:15:47 pm

This article is interesting because it touches upon many issues that are still occurring in society today. In fact, some of these issues, such as media replacing reading and writing, have become more prevalent since this was written. I particularly enjoyed the fact that the writer acknowledged the misleading information regarding the effect television has on literacy. I have read many similar articles in which a journalist or writer attempts to shock their audience by presenting them with the stupidity of students today. To an extent, it seems like a very complicated “kids these days…” monologue. However, this article debunked that, which was rather shocking considering that it was written so long ago. I completely agree that media such as television or video games have the potential to have a negative effect on the learning of students. However, I think society has come leaps and bounds in integrating technology into the classroom. Partilcarly during the last few months, teachers have utilized videos and games in order to engage students and connect with them during this difficult time.
I also found the point about culture and race to be relevant today. I think that the lack of diversity in the education field has a direct link to this issue. While it is important that students are taught proper writing skills, it is also important that their culture is respected and welcomed in a classroom. In order to create a safe learning environment, it is vital that students do not feel as though they need to change while in the classroom. Thus, I think having a more diverse teaching staff would help students remain connected to their culture while developing their English skills. The students could continue to develop their first language or continue to use the terms exclusive to their community in conjunction with the vocabulary and grammar being taught in schools. With this combination, it is more likely that students would succeed in developing their writing skills, in my opinion.

Maddie Butkus

6/3/2020 12:29:14 pm

While reading through this article, I have to say that I do mainly agree with what author Merrill Sheils explains here, solely because as I think back on my elementary school years all the way to the present day, I can relate to what she is stating. My entire education up until college, I have always gone to a private Catholic school just as my Mom had done. More to the point, I absolutely loved my education and would not have changed it for the world, but looking back on it now, there were definitely some flaws within my education similar to what Sheils mentioned. Probably the most notable and thus concerning aspect that was referred to in the article revolves around “If they are in high school and planning to attend college, the chances are less than ever that they will be able to write English at the minimal college level when they get there.” After middle school, I cannot remember a time that in any of my English classes in high school, we really went over any type of grammar. While we did a lot of reading and writing, the aspect of grammar as a whole seemed to be so unimportant and yet we were still expected to write well thought-out and grammatically correct essays, papers, response, etc. After reading through this article, even when it was written in 1975, this same type of thing seems to continually happen even in our current day-in-age.
Overall, Sheils argument of why it is crucial to teach writing and thus proper English on top of this, I believe, is completely true and most importantly, utterly necessary. She made amazing points to back up her argument that truly show why writing and all the aspects held within are needed in our educational system. Without this type of teaching, students are ill-prepared for their future careers, grammatical incorrect when on social media platforms/texting, feeling as if they are “dumb” or “stupid” when in fact they just did not get the proper education, and more. Due to all of this scrutiny on English, it makes sense as to why many students and even adults feel as if the subject is a joke. I cannot tell you the amount of times that I have told someone my major and if I did not immediately follow by saying “and secondary education” after it, they would look at me and ask “What are you going to do with an English degree?” It even makes me question my major as a whole but I am good at English and I love everything about it but thank goodness I want to teach it. If I did not, I truly wonder what could I do with just an English degree? This type of thinking as a whole has to come to end and we need to realize as a society and especially as teachers that English is no joke and it is a necessity in this world.
When looking for related articles, I stubbled upon one titled “Why Johnny Can’t Think” by Peter Kugel. Written in 1988, a little over ten years since Sheils article, Kugel argues how teachers are not teaching their students how to properly think and this concept as a whole blew my mind. His article contrasts Sheils article in way since he states that creative writing is the best way to teach students how to think compared to more formal writing pieces. While I can agree with both sides of these arguments, Kugel has a fascinating point here. He goes on to state, “When students are writing, they're doing something. It not only keeps them awake but, while they're writing, they're doing a very active form of thinking. We learn to ride a bicycle through the activity of riding a bicycle and we never forget how to do it. Maybe if we learned to think by writing, we'd forget less of what we had learned.” Even through creative writing assignments, just by having students write will help them to think and thus retain the information they are learning better. When thinking back to Sheils article, this point that Kugel made would help her argument out even more. Teaching writing and thus having students write, even creatively, could help students not only in their English classes but all of their classes. They could better retain the knowledge they learned and thus excel in their future education as well as careers. As Kugel stated, it could even go as far as helping students make informed decisions when it comes to electing candidates.
As a whole, the arguments between both articles are loud and clear: it is absolutely crucial to have teachers who can properly teach writing skills as well as thinking skills in order to help these students achieve in life.

http://cs.bc.edu/~kugel/Publications/WhyJohnnyCan%27tThink.pdf

Paige Couture

6/3/2020 01:21:06 pm

In, “Why Johnny Can’t Write” I was surprised by how educators were teaching back then. There seems to be a lack of attention when it comes to grammar, structuring and styling. “It’s common for high school teachers to stop caring about correcting poor grammar or sloppy construction. In response, there will not be creativity (3).” I was surprised by the lack of grammar supervision because my niece who is in Elementary school will get points taken off for incorrect grammar on homework assignments. One would think that this rule would apply to high school students. This makes one think, what did teachers do back in the day? Earlier in the passage, the author suggests that children are spending too much time on TV, when they could be studying or working on English. “time spent watching television is time that could be used to read (2).” I was also appalled that teachers did not even bother to teach culture in the classroom. “Literary culture is through (1).” According to McLuhan, watching television has a long-term impact on children. Educators have stopped teaching children what words are right to say. “Anyone at the age of 5 should not try to be corrected or improve language. It should be left alone (1).” I disagree with this statement because when my students say words incorrectly, I will repeat the word the right way, for them to practice saying it or to know this is how you’re supposed to say the word. Those in this article are assuming that children are supposed to know things without being taught. This article does affect the way how I read it because of the number of typos or grammar errors that I’ve noticed. On one page, I saw a word spelled: knwo—instead of know. This article also effects my reactions… This article was written 45 years ago, a lot has changed in Education since then. Some of the ways teaching methods used back then is not the same today.
“Why Johnny Can’t Tell Right from Wrong” by William K. Kilpatrick is a response about children lacking moral education. There are important topics that children go through in life that are not talked about such as knowing the differences between good and evil or doing right from wrong. Children do not automatically know the consequences of lying, stealing, or hurting somebody else. The article even discusses ways teachers can incorporate this into the classroom by providing books about those topics. This relates to the first article because of the quote, “Anyone at the age of 5 should not try to be corrected or improve language. It should be left alone (1).” Here, children are described that they are supposed to already know what they are supposed to do and what they are not supposed to do. Children do not know consequences of their actions. That is why when somebody sends a child into timeout or are in trouble, the educator needs to explain what it is they were doing wrong. Another quote in the article states, “It’s not questionable in the minds of educators when student’s, can’t read with true comprehension will never learn to write well (2).” Educators are supposed to teach children how to say words correctly or explain what the word means by demonstrating the word in front of them with objects. Children will not automatically know the right way how to write. In the beginning, they are expected to not write well.

Paige Couture

6/3/2020 01:22:36 pm

Overall, it is shocking to read that the writing done by Americans have never been outstanding and the expectation will always be a year below the grade level. As student teachers, we can change this by taking the advice in the article and apply it into our own classroom. For Pre-K, I usually have children practice writing their name or let them trace letters on worksheets (worksheets are not recommended for lesson plans, but they can be used for fun or practice). My school does not officially ban children from bringing in electronics. Since I cannot take them from the classroom, I try to allow students to use them during non-learning hours. This would be in the morning when we are waiting for other friends to arrive, right before nap time or at the end of the day… if we are not doing anything learning related like reading or dancing. Since students do bring in electronics, there are ways to make them more educational. Those who are bringing iPads to class, could download a school-friendly game that allows them to practice reading and writing skills. The teacher can sit with them or hold it up for the whole class to see and play it like a game. There are many other ways an educator can incorporate reading and writing into the classroom. It should be done in a way that will get them ready for the next grade level

Hannah Dziadyk

6/3/2020 02:05:16 pm

This article was very shocking but was very real and honest and how us Americans are not up to the grade level that we should be at or the majoriy of the students around the United States are at. It seems like the teachers did not focus on the basic like grammar and sentence structure but they just encouraged their students to write with no criticism or sturctue to help them improve on their reading and writing skills. I think that us today as our generate turns to the classroom that I know that I have learned that even though a piece of writing or even a lesson is considered "old" does not mean it is not affective and could help educate our future students and help us as we begin our stages of becoming an educator. The number of students who struggle with reading and writing will still be a big topic of discussion in the education world until there is an affective way to figure out how to educate the teachers on how to help students and not just pass them by and actually criticize their work and make them better students and evolve their minds for their future careers. Essential tools like reading and writing never stop being used but can be easily undervalued by teachers and also by parents and students who are less interested and would rather have technology like a computer or watch tv.

Hannah Dziadyk

6/3/2020 01:54:54 pm

At first when reading this article I began reading and after the first page I began to wonder when this piece was written? When I saw December 8, 1975 I was shocked, I believed this piece was written in the 2000s. But I was mistaken. It is sad but true that when students graduate high school and head to college that their writing is not good at all and they get to college and struggle to write. In high school you might only write for your english class and that is it, but in college you write for your math, history and science classes. Like a few pages that you are not used to writing that amount and using the different wording and language for that topic. The most concerning line that I read in this article I mean there was a lot of concern from University professor’s and the board of education. But the line “; that writing is a secondary, and unimportant activity”. That was crazy to even read, if you think about it that reading and writing is something the majority of people do in their jobs everyday and it is seen as unimportant. I am shocked to read this article but also concerned for the future because all of the things stated in this writing is true and reading and writing has gone down in students and teachers are struggling teaching students and its because students would rather watch tv or play video games, than to read and write at home.
Another article I found which is called Why Johnny still can’t read which is similar to the why Johnny can't write. In, 1950s Rudolf Flesch offered to tutor a boy who’d been held back in sixth grade because he could not read. This article is blasting the American education system for failing to teach phonics. Which is a method of teaching people to read by correlating sounds with letters or groups of letters in an alphabetic writing system. These articles are similar because both have students struggle because they are not properly taught that will help them develop and succeed. Every student is different and different methods must be taken to teach certain materials. For reading and writing phonics and foundational reading skills must be learned so they can read and it will help them write. Reading and writing come hand in hand and those skills are crucial to be mastered together so that the skills are obtained. I have learned that the early stages of schooling are just as important than any time, and that elementary and middle school are the times to develop and learn these crucial skills, not high school.

Paige Couture

6/3/2020 03:35:16 pm

Hi Hannah,
You make a good point when you said college student’s don’t only write for English, we write for other subjects. I didn’t think of that... It’s true that most writing takes place in English during high school. My nephew just graduated high school this semester. I remember him asking me a few months ago to help him write his history paper, since I’m an English major. I was surprised that his professor only had him write about a page for an assignment. That included an introduction and a conclusion. The professor did ask for references in the book, but did not ask for anything specific like grammar or structure. My nephew said, he literally just checks to see if you did it and you’ll get 100. I think it was crazy too, that the article stated writing was unimportant. Writing is everywhere. Like you said, it is important for school and for future jobs. I do find it sad that students would rather watch or play with electronics.

Fiona Bell

6/3/2020 02:04:10 pm

My reaction to this piece is one mostly rooted in shock- Both at the content itself and in the way its presented. At one point, the author writes that the United States “is in the midst of a literary breakdown”. Personally, I saw this as a bit dramatic. I think its transparent that kids don’t read nearly as much as they used to and there will be inevitable after effects because of this. It’s written, “time spent watching television is time that might otherwise be devoted to reading”- which is a rather stiff statement but also one that highlights a “struggle” we’re still facing today with young people. Why would children want to read books – especially required school books- when they have thousands of options of material online and on tv? It’s not effective and it’s not realistic and it impacts students up to their college career, where, apparently, they are “seriously deficient when it comes to organizing their thoughts on paper… it is almost too late to help them”. This is an extreme bummer. But, at the end of the article, the author lists off ways we are improving students’ abilities to write successfully: setting up workshops for teachers where they can practice writing and discover practically approaches to teaching, incorporating modern takes on old literature and “[letting] them write about whatever interests them and [teaching] from that”. These are just a few of the many ways we can warp the way children are being taught into one that’s beneficial and successful and enriching for everybody involved.

Another article, titled “Why Johnny Still Can’t Read” bummed me out for sure so I’d say that’s my main reaction to it. The author, Natalie Wexler, is brutally honest in the ways she describes how the education system is failing its students- “teachers coax beginning readers to guess at words rather than sound them out… they confuse kids by giving them books with words that don’t follow the rules they’ve learned”. But Wexler goes on to say that it shouldn’t all fall on the shoulders of teachers, the teachers themselves “don’t get good training in foundational skills” and fear that “drilling kids in phonics will kill their love of reading”, therefore inhibiting their students from ever becoming successful. She also brings light to the fact that skills we assume can be taught directly (such as finding the main idea or making inferences) are ones that can only develop as students gain more knowledge and this is something a large portion of teachers aren’t dedicating their time to. Compared to the original, I’d say this one is a little more negative. While the original piece did focus on the negatives of what is going on in our educational system, it ended with things that we are doing right and the ways we can continue to improve. This one, however, focuses on the negative and ends with the daunting concept that “millions of Americans will continue to be condemned to lives of functional illiteracy” if we don’t promote serious change. I dunno. Lots to think about I suppose but I do think we’re going to be alright and that the students are going to be alright. Whether it takes a whole shift in the way we teach or in the materials we teach or what, we’ll get to a place where we’re not worried about our students capabilities 24/7.

Megan LeBlanc

6/3/2020 05:12:24 pm

Hi Fiona!

I agree with you that it all felt a bit dramatic and almost harsh to the subjects of the article. I still don't really think that this approach was the best way to go about all of this by any means. It all felt incredibly negative and I guess nit-picky to me. I also liked the piece from the article you found that you included in your post - I believe that one big part of illiteracy is trying to make children comprehend words and text that they simply cannot and it ends up messing them up overall in the long run. Like you, I do believe that we will come out of it fine but I think in order to all be fine and literate adults we need to go back through all grade levels and allow for students to grow in the classroom rather than try to simply reach a goal and mentally check out afterwards. It doesn't feel fair to our students and it's part of why we seem to be having such difficulty with literacy now. I'll peer-edit papers that sound so adolescent compared to what we should expect from our age groups and I personally think that part of it is that young writers are getting so used to shortcut online terminology that the idea of writing to their full capacity is honestly difficult. I think the hardest part is that this clearly has been a problem that has been seen for quite some time. That even brings up another question for me - what are we comparing our levels of literacy to? Where do we get our 'ideal' literacy goal from? Very strange and you're right, it leaves a lot to consider.

Megan LeBlanc

6/3/2020 04:29:42 pm

I honestly felt quite torn after reading just the first page of this article – I feel as though the start of it made me worry that the article would end up being the kind of holier-than-thou sapiosexual writing that was actually just veiled complaints about the rest of the world not being as smart as “smart people” but I don’t want to seem as though I don’t believe that literacy is a valuable thing. However, it sits poorly with me to say that other forms of self-expression are not as valid as writing and literacy. I don’t think it’s fair to say that you must be stupid if you don’t understand how to read or write – you truly don’t know people’s backgrounds. And not even that, but the teaching of writing is all over the place! I have had college professors try to teach me that the best way to state your thesis is by directly stating it (I.e. “In this essay, I will …") but in the same semester, my other professor tells me that this is never something you should do. Clearly, that is a stylistic choice rather than a literacy concern, but it does show that there are a lot of different pieces of advice and instruction being thrown at students of all education levels. I also find it so incredibly rude that parts of this article are claiming that if you cannot read well, you cannot write well. I have such a hard time reading! I have too much to do. This past semester I was taking three English courses, a writing-intensive second year seminar, and an online science. On top of that, I am in a sorority (and therefore have obligations – including time – for that group), have a job that I usually work at more days throughout the week than not, and I have personal obligations as well. I truly do not have time to read two plays, fifty pages of Edgar Huntly, three Japanese short stories, as many articles on Sin-Eaters as I can find, and still have time to do everything else that I both need and want to do. And you know what? That sucks. Truly, I would love to read everything that I need to because I love to read but I just cannot. But my writing has never earned me any less than a B+ and a lot of positive comments. I was able to work around my obstacles, but not everyone can. I think that much of this reading is the result of people thinking that others can do better, but I don’t think that the whole picture is being looked at.

Megan LeBlanc

6/3/2020 04:37:48 pm

The second article I read was "Why Johnny Can't Think" by Peter Kugel in 1988. I really enjoyed this article! I think that the most striking similarity between this article and the first we read together is that they both point the finger at schools for how these children turn out ultimately. I do have to say, however, that I agree with Kugel on the fact that the reason why students don't seem to truly think freely is because of their schooling. I said it before in last week's discussion board - students tend to be expected to memorize and regurgitate information rather than think critically for themselves about the context. This article also argues that writing is an active form of learning since you have to think about what you're writing on and how to explain it, whereas listening is just passive. I really loved that! I think it makes a lot of sense, especially looking back on my education. I guess the bottom line of both of these writings is just that schools need to teach their students better. Honestly, my articles go hand in hand - in order to get students to think better, they should write. In order to get students to write better, they need to think. It's just like a muscle you need to work on.

Fiona

6/4/2020 09:10:18 am

Hey Megan! I really dug what you wrote and definitely related to a lot of the stuff you brought up- especially when you mentioned how truly hard it is to dedicate your time to reading when life is tossing a bunch of other things at you. I also liked how you mentioned forms of self expression not being valued as much as they should be and how it sits “poorly” with you- me too dude. I completely agree. I enjoyed the second article you called attention to as well- how, when it comes down to it, we Really need to get on top of teaching students better and encourage them not being afraid to think/to show them how to think in a successful and beneficial way/ and to train it like a muscle. Thats all ive got!! Good job (:

Kylie Bock

6/4/2020 10:32:26 am

The first couple of lines if this article left a bad taste in my mouth. The tone it was written in, word choices, and typos made a negative impression. I guess I am just not sure why the author of this article is feeling so strongly and so bitterly towards this subject. I am not stating that the points they made were incorrect or out of line, I do think that many were relevant during the time it was written in. However, instead of addressing the issue logically and proposing ways to resolve the issue at hand, they blamed educators and society. The first paragraph really stuck out to me as there were no concrete facts and wild generalizations made. For example they state, “If they are in high school and planning to attend college, the chances are less than ever that they will be able to write English at the minimal college level when they get there. If they are not planning to attend college, their skills in writing English may not even qualify them for secretarial or clerical work.…Willy-nilly, the U.S. educational system is spawning a generation of semiliterates.”. All these statements are generalized and discredit the county’s educators and students. In my opinion, this entire article is an insult.
I feel as though many points that were made within the article does not show progressiveness. It essentially says that new and innovative technology is destroying the country’s children and instead of acknowledging that the country is working towards a more advanced future, it is stating that we need to go back to our old ways of education. I respect the author’s opinion as I am aware many people in this generation are opposed to change in any form, but I think this article would have been more successful if it was less accusatory and attacking educators. Instead of stating that “.Overcrowded classrooms and increased workloads have led many teachers to give up assigning essays and to rely, instead, on short-answer exercises that are easier to mark”, the author could look at it as the country is increasing the amount of students receiving an education and we should be expanding our school systems and programs to accommodate for the amount of students progressing their education.
After looking into more articles following the “Why can’t Johnny…” narrative I noticed that the majority of them boil the issues down to education and the country’s system. I think it is important to have these conversations as we as educators want to prepare our students for the world however, updating the curriculum is just the first step. I think that these articles are a great way to start these conversations about what we can do as future teachers to educate our students to the best of our ability.

Week Two, Post One: "Why Johnny Can't. . . "

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Summer 2020 ENGL 301

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