Let's Kill Dick and Jane: How the Open Court Publishing Company Fought the Culture of American Education

by Harold Henderson

Book by Henderson, Harold

Genres: Education

168 pages, Hardcover

First published September 28, 2006

About the author

Harold Henderson, CG(sm), a professional writer since 1979 and a professional genealogist since 2009, lives and works in La Porte County, Indiana, and at midwestroots.net. He serves on the board of the Association of Professional Genealogists and has published genealogical articles in the American Ancestors Journal (annual supplement to the New England Historical and Genealogical Register), the NGS Magazine, six state quarterlies, and Archives.com. He has published an every-name index to the earliest court records of La Porte County. He moderates the Transitional Genealogists Forum and blogs at midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com. At any given time he would probably rather be reading a grantor index. (via OpenLibrary).

Reviews

[Emef · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book should be required reading for all parents on the day before they go to their "open house" meeting with their child's homeroom teacher. When the homeroom teacher then tells them one more time that their children are wonderful students, the best ever, most talented ever, etc, they should question on what basis the teacher says so. When the teacher tells them that this school is outstanding and serves their children well, they should ask why the teacher thinks so. What data from "customers" does the school have about its graduates? How do they the graduates do at the local state university? Out of state? Vocational colleges? What do employers think of the school's graduates? If the teacher doesn't have answers to such questions, take his/her words for what they are -- empty babble. Then read the book again after you return from "open house" and weep for the state of our schools.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked what I could understand. Liked - blah - Matt tells me no value judgements. Ok, I learned some interesting things about the monolithic nature of the educational culture in the United States. Cannot be moved, nudged, bumped, even an inch, into anything it is not already. Despite any research and any amount of effort or money most schools, most teachers continue to do what they have always done. And of a few of the accusations regarding what teachers do might be a bit over the top; like "teachers don't actually do any teaching."

This book was not terribly readable - too many references of names, dates, places, programs, boards, books, et al. In between the messy bits I could grab bits of information that made some sense to me.

It was particulary interesting to be reading it while in the midst of my own efforts to teach Caroline to read from the same book/program that I used (very successfully) with Jonah - Seigfried Engelmann's "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons". There are a few references to him in the history of the Open Court crusade to teach reading, but nothing that sites him as a real proponent of what the Caruses were trying to accomplish. Engelmann's Distar method is most certainly a phonics based program that has yielded a smooth and rich transition into full literative reading for my seven-year-old. I suppose the experience of teaching one child to read is very different from the concern of trying to create a usable program that will teach a nation of children to read.

For me, I am happy with our twenty minutes a day on my bed, with my little girl, watching her unmistakably gain both the decoding and comprehension skills necessary for life long reading. It feels reassuring not to have to hand her over to "the system", regardless of all its good intentions.