Can we talk?

🤔

Dear anyone reading this,

I’m going to pause my fancifully named series on DEADLY WORDS to reach out and see if people have any thoughts, on this series specifically or anything else on this Substack.

I’m pretty sure that most people reading this basically agree with me on most things, which is fine, but really it isn’t. My goal was not solely to set up a platform where I could declare my beliefs and get a bunch of likes (which are nice, but haven’t gotten that many, and I’m OK WITH THAT).

Rather it was to do what Rob Tierney and David Pearson did last summer when they posted their monograph, Fact-Checking the Science of Reading: Opening up the Conversation, on an open-access site. I had serious misgivings about their monograph, which I expressed directly to them, and here, and on their site. But I had and have admiration for the subtitle, “Opening up the Conversation,” and for posting it where a conversation might actually happen.

So far there’s been very little conversation on this site. It doesn’t hurt my feelings or anything, but I’m wondering whether and how we’ll ever get past these nagging disagreements, quibbles, kerfuffles, whatever. Maybe the term “wars” has outlived its usefulness—if it ever had any. Whatever you call it, we still have these huge rifts within the community of literacy educators that I find difficult to understand and—more important—are not in the interest of our students or the society at large. Maybe there is disagreement on this basic premise. I’d love to hear about it if so.

I don’t know how any of this is landing with people who don’t basically agree with me. There aren’t many, or maybe any, who registered—although one popped up in my inbox a few days ago, for which I was thrilled.

If there’s anyone reading who disagrees, in full or in part, with what I’m writing, will you pls let me know? A comment here

or anywhere (just trying to make it easy) would be welcomed. Or you can email me if you’re shy or don’t want to post publicly.

For those who do basically agree with me on most things, may I ask a favor: Could you please forward this post to someone on the, shall we say, other side(s)?

I still have hopes we can end the reading (fill in the blank). Call it/them what you will. There will always be disagreements; it’s foolish to think they’ll all disappear. But some, maybe all, of the things I’ve laid out over that past couple of months are part of our current knowledge base, and should be acknowledged as such. I realize that’s my perspective, but it’s more than just “an opinion.” It’s where (according to me) the research evidence stands.

If you or someone you know disagrees with any aspect of this declaration, I would love to know and know why. I’ll also be happy to hand the platform over to others for guest posts. Haven’t thought through how exactly that would work, but if anybody out there is interested, lmk. In the unlikely event there’s a huge rush to take me up on this offer, I’d prioritize folks who want to take issue with something I’ve posted, either a little bit of an issue or a great big one.

Best wishes to you all, and my thanks for reading. Now I hope some of y’all will be writing.