Carl discusses different types of schools and puts them on a continuum from optimal to disaster. Part of the differences between schools is how they deal with conflict and disagreements. If schools could adopt "Do No Harm" as a motto, things would greatly improve.

Carl reflects on the first few weeks of a new school year. He has been subbing in a variety of buildings, grade levels, and settings. He also talks about how the narrative that we tell about what we are trying to do can make us happy, healthy, and open or miserable, unhappy, and closed. Also why do schools have beautiful courtyards that don't get used?

Irene Daria is a cognitive developmental psychologist who runs a tutoring service in New York. Her book I Didn’t Believe Him which tells the story of her son who told her in kindergarten that his school wasn’t teaching him to read. She responded by telling him to trust his school. Later she learned more about the reading program the school was using and how it actually created bad habits in her son and other children and actually kept them from becoming good readers. At the time she was in graduate school and was “just a mom” and not yet a psychologist so at first she didn’t question the school and their methods.

The conversation ranges from how people learn to read, school practices, what parents can do, the effects of age on learning to read, and much more.

www.StepstoReading.com

I Didn’t Believe Him on Amazon

Steps to Reading Book 1: Short Vowels

Steps to Reading Book 2: Blends

Steps to Reading Book 3: Digraphs

Steps to Reading Book 4: Long vowels