Latest / Public Good / 3.8 Rejecting the Framing of the "Reading Wars"

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3.8 Rejecting the Framing of the "Reading Wars" · Public Good

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello, I'm Shannon Moore.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: And I'm Justin Fraser.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: And this is Public Good on the Prairies.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: So this episode explores the re-emergence of the reading wars,
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: beginning with a warning about the way, the framing of
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: this discussion through the language of war and militaristic terms
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: as first, insulting to people who are experiencing war, and second,
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: creates divisive and polarizing camps that get in the way
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: of generative conversation about helping students in public schools.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Learn to read.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: We explore the way the science of reading movement has
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: been legitimized and mobilized in K-12 schools. A major theme
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: of this conversation is the idea of framing, particularly how
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: these discussions are framed by and through rights and science discourses.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Drawing on Maren Aukerman's work, we also speak about the
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: way mainstream media has narrated and framed this issue and
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: impacted broader public dialogue and reading. The conversation considers the
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: movement's influence on policy, teacher education, curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: with particular attention to how these debates are unfolding across
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: the prairie provinces. And it also asks, what is at
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: stake for public education and the public good when educators'
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: professional and scholarly perspectives are marginalized, and how teacher educators
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: and literacy scholars are working to bring more complex understandings
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: of reading and literacies into public discourse.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Joining us to discuss this is Dr. Laurie McKee and Dr.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Joe Stouffer. Laurie McKee is an associate professor in the
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Department of Curriculum Studies at the University of Saskatchewan. Laurie
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: comes to this academic position having been an elementary teacher
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: for 20 years, teaching in early elementary classrooms, and in
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: reading recovery. Laurie's research focuses on the intersections of literacies, pedagogies,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and teacher professional learning. She is currently the principal investigator
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: of the Prairie Literacies Project and a co-investigator on the
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Reading Pedagogies of Equity, Network Literacy Pedagogues as Resources for
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Academic Reading Praxis in Teacher Education. Both of these projects
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: focus on expanding literacy's teaching and learning. Jo Stouffer is
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: an associate professor in the Department of Curriculum Pedagogy in
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: the Faculty of Education at Brandon University. where he has
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: been recognized with the Senate Award for Excellence in Teaching.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: His research and ongoing work with schools examines strengthening formative
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: assessment and responsive instructional practices in reading and writing for
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: pre-service teachers and in kindergarten to grade eight classrooms. Joe's
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: scholarship is grounded in extensive school-based experience as a classroom teacher,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: reading recovery teacher leader, literacy coach, and a literacy consultant
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: working across Canada.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Dr. Joe Stouffer and Dr. Laura
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: McKee for joining us here today on Public Good on
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: the Prairies. We're going to begin with a really big
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: overarching question because we feel that it's an important start
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: for anyone who's been lucky enough to avoid the impact
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: of the reading wars. And so to both of you,
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: whoever wants to jump in, how would you explain the
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: reading wars to someone outside of education?
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: It's curious that you say anyone who's lucky enough to
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: avoid it, because I don't think really in this day
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: and age anyone is avoiding it. And the other thing
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: that I want to put forward, first of all, too,
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: is that I'm being very cognizant myself to stop referring
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: to this as a war, because in deference to people
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: that have lived through wars or who are presently engaged
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: in conflicts. So for me, I'm trying to frame this
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: in my mind as a debate. And this certainly is
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: a long standing debate. And what it boils down to
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: in my mind is how do we teach kids how
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: to read? And I think that's an essential question that
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: teachers grapple with all the time. And more recently, I
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: think in this current iteration of this debate is, is
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: there a singular way to teach all kids to read?
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: That's kind of one of the messages that's being put
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: forward is here's the magic wand or here's a technique
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: that you know, any teacher can do in any classroom
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: that's going to work for all of your kids. And
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: it's a one size fits all model, which for me
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: as a researcher and as a teacher, I have issues
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: with not only from a scientific perspective, but also from
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: a practical experience that I have had working with children.
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: And I would add to that, that Within this debate,
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: it is polarizing and we have people in two different camps.
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: There may be more camps, but two dominant camps where
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: we have an opposing side saying this is the one
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: right way. And another side saying, hey, maybe there is
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: another way that we can be teaching reading in classrooms.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: And so they're called into opposition and against one another.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: I wanted to pick up and Joe, you already referenced
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: the flaw in using a word like wars for who
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  Speaker 1: it's offensive to. But also, how does it actually create
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: the polarizing that you just spoke about, Laurie, of two
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: sides of something when we know things are much more
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: complex than that? I always find it hilarious that people
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: think there's one way when their parents themselves, for example.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: They know that their own children within the same family
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: may need different things. But then they suggest that, you know,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: that there's one way to teach all children in a classroom.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: And so I was struck when I was doing the
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: background reading for this episode about the ways in which
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: the reading wars. conflict, battle, all that militaristic language and
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: divisive framing gets in the way of good conversation. Just
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: curious what you think about the way we do this
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: in education broadly. It's not just in reading, it's in
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: comprehensive sex ed, it's in history, it's in math. And
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: what does that do to the necessity for discussion?
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: Well, I think it creates this sense that there's sides
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: within this. And certainly many of my colleagues and Many
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: of the teachers that I work with wouldn't place themselves
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: on being on one side or the other of this debate.
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: They're somewhere in the middle. And so framing this debate
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: as a war lends itself to this notion that there
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: is a right and a wrong, or there's absolutes within
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: this framework. And I think I talk to any teacher
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: and they're going to say to you, no, it's much
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: more complex than that. My students are so different from
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: one another. my approach to how I teach them needs
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: to therefore be also differentiated as well. And I think
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: just to clarify too, when we're talking about sides in
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: this debate, what we're trying to name here is on
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: one camp, let's say, there's an orientation to reading instruction
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: that's really focused on the code of English that, you know,
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: the letters and the sounds and how we decode the
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: English language when it's represented in print. And then on
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: the other side, You might be looking at, well, what's
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: the meaning that we construct when we interact with the text?
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: And again, I would say that most teachers, most researchers
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: look at reading as being this complex navigation or processing
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  Speaker 4: of both decoding and comprehending. Like we have old models
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: of reading and theories of reading that fit somewhere along
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: this continuum. And where you land, I think, really determines
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: what kind of activities you might do in your classroom.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: So I think that if we're thinking of the polarizing
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: binary war aspects of the debate, within that framing, there
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: are winners and there's losers. And that it's really hard
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: then to find that middle ground that Joe was talking about,
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: because I agree, a lot of people actually are somewhere
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: in the middle, but framing it as a war pulls
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: into these opposing sides, and we cannot come together and
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: Without surrender. And so that makes it really, really hard.
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: And so beyond that, so we've got, we cannot come
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: together without surrender. We have these binaries that are going
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: to be steadfast. And then where you're placed, you either
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: are attacking or defending yourself.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 3: And so this positioning that's happening is really, really unhelpful
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: because if we cannot come together, the effect of this
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: could also be marginalization of particular voices. Right. And so
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: because we're so caught up in who's right and how
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: how are we right? Instead of being thinking about how
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: can we come together in conversation?
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: And I appreciate how you both bring up. and identify
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: these two camps, which, Laurie, as you said, constructs winners
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: and losers. But that reality is so much more complex
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: than that. And, Laurie, you've written about the ways that
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: this debate has impacted your career as an elementary teacher
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: in the 90s and now how it impacts and shapes
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: your work as a teacher educator. So why do you
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: think we're seeing a reemergence of this reading debate or
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: wrestling with that language that we are? Why have we
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: seen a reemergence of that in the current moment?
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: I think there's this intersectionality that's happening. And so I
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: don't think I could point to all of the different
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: things that are happening, but I'll identify a few key
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: things that I think are causing this perfect storm. I
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: think one is a concern over achievement. I think that
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: on the world stage, we want to make sure that
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: our students are prepared well to be just really strong
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: performers in the world. Complexifying that would also be the
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: pandemic situation. So we have students who have had gaps
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: in schooling. Again, this is going to impact different kids
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: in different places in particular ways, but that's going to
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: come into the conversation. We have advocacy that has in
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: the past maybe happened in academic journals. So the conversation
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: was a little bit slower. Now it's happening in the media.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: So we have quick conversations happening by people who may
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: not be educators themselves. So that's feeding into it. Also,
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: classroom complexity. That is a part of perhaps the school
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: closures during the pandemic. But we have kids with greater needs.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: We have classrooms that are getting bigger. We have this
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: need for performance and achievement on the world stage and
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: teachers needing to respond to these complex situations and declining
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: school budgets, right? Budgets that are not keeping pace. And
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: so I think all of that feeds into, I need
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: something that's going to work really quickly in my class,
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: that's going to meet the needs, like the efficiency, the
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: call to efficiency is certainly there.
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: One thing I might add to is you mentioned the advocacy. Particularly,
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: I think there's a growing advocacy for children who experience
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: dyslexia or who are struggling to become readers and writers,
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: particularly from their parents. So there's this growing movement across
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: North America and the world to advocate for those children.
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: And that's something I think is a little different than
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: what we've seen in different iterations of this debate, is
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: we're framing a lot of the larger decisions we're making
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: for the general population around the needs of a particular
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: segment of our children in schools.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Jo, I want to speak about something that you've written about.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: You've spoken about the way that the science of reading movement,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: which is a huge part of this discussion, capitalizes on
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: the moniker of science to imbue itself with an air
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: of credibility. Can you speak to the ways in which
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: the reading debate rests on this word science to legitimize itself?
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: And I've said in my writing and when I speak
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: to teachers about this debate, if there is an award
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: for marketing, I think the science of reading movement should
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: win all the awards because it's brilliant. Because framing something
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: as science and in particular how they're positioning science in
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: terms of, you know, what types of science should we
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: be giving credibility to? Or, for example, is it an
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: experimental study or a quasi-experimental study? Or, you know, how
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: does that rank against other types of research? And what
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: should school divisions be paying attention to? You know, the
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: other piece of this is this portrayal of that we're
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: settled in terms of knowing how children learn to read
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: and write. and that there is a singular kind of
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: theory that supports all children. And I, again, as someone
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: who's immersed in the research, disagree with that portrayal. There's
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: certainly lots of ongoing debate going on. Otherwise, I don't
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: think we would have the pushback that we're seeing. And
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: what's also really interesting to me, too, is that science
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: of reading, it's this evolving terminology. So more recently, what
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: we're hearing in the debate, we've heard science of reading, Now,
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: more recently, we're hearing evidence-based approaches as another term. But
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: both of those terms, whether you say science of reading
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: or evidence-based approaches, it makes it very difficult to challenge
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: those as a researcher or as a classroom practitioner, because
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: when you do it, it makes it seem like you're
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: anti-science or that you're just winging it, you know, doing
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: things that have no credibility or have no evidence of
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: their effectiveness. Or if they do, it's the wrong kind
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: of evidence or it's the wrong kind of science that
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: you're using to establish a position or to justify the
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: approach you're taking up in your classroom.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: I think your point about better marketing is so key
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: in all of the episodes we've planned for Public Good
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: on the Prairies. That notion of rhetoric has been so
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: present in all of our discussions. It's just like, how
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: are these ideas about education being sold to the populace
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: through these terms that are hard to argue with, right?
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: And I thought that your colleague, Ellen Watson, at CSSE,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: an education conference that was just held in Winnipeg, did
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: a fantastic discussion of, as a science educator themselves, like,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: What is science? And then let's look at the science
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: of reading movement to see, is this actually science? But
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: most of the time, the population doesn't have time to
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: go through that deep dive of what is science? And
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: does this actually align with what science actually is? They
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: just hear the word science and go, oh, that sounds right,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: or evidence-based, as you've just pointed out, right?
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, another term I think that's been kind of used
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: synonymously more recently, too, is a type of programming called
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: structured literacy. And again, that term structured literacy didn't stem
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: from research. It actually was created by the International Dyslexia Association, again,
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: as a marketing term to kind of package and bring
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: together their preferred approaches to reading instruction and put it
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: under an umbrella. But again, there's this implication of, well,
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: if you're not doing structured literacy, your classroom is unstructured
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: and chaotic and, you know, not rigorous. So, you know, it's...
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: not only, I think, what these labels of science and
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: evidence-based and structured imply about some programs, but what they
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: imply about other programs that may disagree with them.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: And then, Joe, following up on that a little bit,
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: you've talked somewhat about this, but maybe you can surface
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: a bit more about these right-to-read reports. They've got different
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: titles in Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba. How do these connect to
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: the reading debates as you see? Maybe Joe and then Laurie,
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: if you want to jump in afterwards on that.
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: So the first Right to Read report we saw was
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: from Ontario. And again, it was framed as a provincial
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: curriculum review looking at the approaches and how children in
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: Ontario were being supported. Now, again, the Right to Read
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: movement is interesting. It kind of reflects what I mentioned
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: earlier about this part of this debate's stemming from a
• 16:23
  Speaker 4: particular group of advocates for children who experienced dyslexia or
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: other reading difficulties and looking at the needs of those children.
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: But what we're seeing, I think, as in terms of
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: curriculum implications or the messaging that's embedded within these reports
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: is that the needs of these children are not being met,
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: which I agree with. As a practitioner, we certainly and
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: should be doing more for all of our children across
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: Canada in terms of learning to read. However, where the
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: reports become questionable is the implication and the recommendations that
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: they say that the needs of these children need to
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: be met, but actually those needs are the needs of
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: all children. And that's where it becomes a little more contentious.
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: So Laurie can speak more to the report in Saskatchewan,
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: but the most recent report we've seen here is in Manitoba.
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: And not only have they kind of echoed what's been
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: said in the Ontario and Saskatchewan reports in terms of
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: curriculum and pedagogical recommendations, but in Manitoba, what's interesting is
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: this idea of an evidence-based or a structured literacy approach
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: has been framed now as a matter of human rights,
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: that in Manitoba, children have the right to receive structured
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: literacy or evidence-based programs. And here's the list of approaches
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: that would meet that right. So, you know, it's kind
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: of gone beyond just, you know, here's what the science
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: is saying. Now it's being framed as a matter of
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: these approaches are, you know, something that we have to
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: provide children. Otherwise we're denying them their human rights.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: So I would add to that. you know, the Ontario
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: report was the first report. The Saskatchewan report was the second.
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: And so when you read the Saskatchewan report, it is
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: directly linked to the Ontario report. No one is pretending
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: that these are independent inquiries. They are supported by the
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: Canadian Dyslexia Association. And so there is a bigger entity
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: behind these inquiries. It's not a single parent or even
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: a small group of parents that are coming together. They
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: are supported by a bigger organization. And I'm not saying
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: that's right or wrong. It's just in understanding how these
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: inquiries came to be. I think it's an important contextual element.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: So within the Ontario report, as Joe said, there was
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: this issue where children with dyslexia were not supported in schools.
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: They were not learning how to read. From that, there
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: were these broad reaching implications for all students and curriculum
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: reform that would affect all children. Those implications, that report,
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: There were some issues, some questions that researchers raised about
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: that report in terms of the methods that were used.
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: Were they surveying, well, they did only survey from particular
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: school boards in Ontario. Why was that? Were kids, were
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: diverse children represented in the report? These were questions.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's so interesting, right? I mean, we're calling
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: this podcast Public Good on the Prairies, and yet a
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: lot of these reforms and movements are borrowed, adopted, connected
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: to other provinces. And I appreciate you giving us the
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: lineage of how something that happened in Ontario then rippled to...
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Saskatchewan and Manitoba and how they're connected to those broader
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: movements and for people to really consider who are the
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: groups behind this and what might be their interests. Joe,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: I wanted to go back to something that you had
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: said around human rights and the rights of students to read.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: That framing, once again, we're going to talk a lot
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: about framing today, because I think that's a big part
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: of this discussion. That framing makes it so difficult for
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: literacies professors like yourselves to challenge these reports, because inherently,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: are you then seen as somebody who's against human rights
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: in any of your critiques? So I wanted to ask
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: you about the trapping of that framing.
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: And again, as I mentioned earlier, if there was an
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: award for Marketing, here's an award for, you know, how
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: to convince governments to take up your cause, if you
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: can frame something as an issue of human rights. And
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: of course, like, who would deny a child their right
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: to read? I would take that right to the end
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: for any child. However, framing it as a matter of
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: human rights makes it impossible to challenge. But as Laurie
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: pointed out too, like the methodologies that were employed in
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: writing these human rights reports are questionable. Here in Manitoba,
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: a group of colleagues from the University of Manitoba and
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: here at Brandon University, we responded very critically to the
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: report here in Manitoba. And one of the things we
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: looked at was the opaque message methodology in the Manitoba report,
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: how and what research was analyzed in creating that report
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: and what was left out. So we really have no idea. Another,
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: I think, missing piece of information that's really important is
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: who's writing these reports and what are their credentials? So
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: for example, here in Manitoba, our report was led by
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: two human rights lawyers. So again, folks that are not educators,
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: folks that are not literacy researchers. And in Manitoba, a
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: lot of our report was constructed and based upon public consultation.
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: And while that sounds like a great idea and it
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: is important to hear the voices of many Manitobans, we
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: also only heard from a very small segment of both
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: the student and parent population, less than 1%, and also students.
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: even a smaller fraction of the teaching population. So that
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: draws into a lot of questions too about the validity
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: of these reports. So when we have human rights reports
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: being issued by human rights commissions, there's the question of, great, yes,
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: I don't challenge the notion of, yes, the right to
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: read is a universal human rights. We've known that for
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: a long time. There are other declarations of children's rights,
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: which include the right to read, But why and when
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: did that stem into prescribing then how school divisions would
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: enact children attaining that right?
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: I think just going off what you're saying, it's so
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: difficult to even like dip your toes in the conversation,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: because as soon as you try to say, you know,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: I'm against this, you're framed as somebody that's against human
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: rights or against children as well. That's another anchoring that
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: they use. So, Laurie, I don't know if you want
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: to pick up on how it really defines whose rights
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: are being made important and how that can be quite privileging.
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: The reports themselves, right, they were designed with children with
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: dyslexia in mind. And like Joe, I will take it
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: to the end that I want all children to be
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: able to learn how to read. And I support that wholeheartedly.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: It's where the question is, is that are all children
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: the same? In my experience as an educator, in my research,
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: as a parent, as a But what is being promoted is, yes,
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: the human rights in relation to reading, But that instructional methods,
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: there's one way to ensure these rights. And to be
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: able to stand up and say, hey, I have questions
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: about this. Is it that simple? Because when we view
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: reading as complex meaning making, it becomes very difficult to
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: subscribe to a singular point of view. But if we do,
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: then it's like, oh, you don't want to teach children
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: how to read or this. And it goes back to
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: that polarizing debate, right? We cannot find a middle ground
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: and say that there can be multiple methods here because
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: it has been polarized, right? And that's the difficulty. And
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: so the question around whose rights, is it the right
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: to read, singular, where there is one right, one way,
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: or is it rights, you know, adding the plural? And
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: I would put that back to our previous conversation around
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: the science of reading. In the Reading Research Quarterly, there
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: was a special issue on the science of reading. And
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: the editors there were calling for sciences of reading, where
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: we're not only one way of teaching reading. There's not
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: one science. it's not only about experimental studies, but that
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: we're thinking about multiple ways of researching, building knowledge. And
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: so that plural is really important.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: And Laurie, earlier in the interview, you talked about how
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: these reading debates, how they used to be mostly limited
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: to peer-reviewed journals, but now they largely occur in the media.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: And unfortunately, sometimes by potentially unqualified voices. And Maren Ackerman
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: also speaks about the role that that the media plays
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: in advancing particular narratives about teaching reading. So I was
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: wondering if you could discuss a bit more about how
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: media contributes to public understanding and discourse about these reading debates.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: I think everybody has a stake in this story. And
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: I think that through research, we have a particular stake.
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: But I don't want to minimize the importance of parent voice, right?
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: Parents need to have... the input into this conversation like
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: joe was talking about we need to hear from multiple
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: voices it's i think media doesn't necessarily distinguish between what
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: contributions and how they can can be made and so
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: if i'm talking about my particular child's experiences that is
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: valid because that is a lived experience it doesn't mean
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: that that child's lived experience is the same for all.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: And I think that's something that has been missed a
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: little bit with this. And so there's, Merrin Aukerman talks
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: about this in a 2022 publication where, and I'll just
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: read from it because she has this, she talks about
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: media narratives and it's that science has proven that there
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: is just one way of teaching reading effectively to all
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: kids Using a systematic, highly structured approach to teaching phonics,
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: most teachers rely instead on an approach called balanced literacy
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: spurred on by shoddy teacher education programs. Therefore, teachers incorporate
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: very little phonics and encourage kids to guess at words.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: Balanced literacy and teacher education are thus at fault for
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: large numbers of children not learning to read well. And
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: so I think that That sums up the media narrative
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: that is out there in different ways. We see this, right?
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: What's the cause? There's an oversimplification of what the instructional
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: methods have been. And it is the fault of teachers
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: and teacher educators. And so everywhere you turn in the media,
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: everybody has an opinion about reading because hopefully everybody has
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: learned to read. Somebody, like people will also likely read
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: have someone in their lives who has learned to read
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: easily and also somebody who has struggled. And so we
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: have a personal stake in the story. And so that
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: allows or open spaces on TikTok, on Instagram, on Facebook, whatever,
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: to share stories and to perpetuate that media narrative that
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: is out there. I mean, I opened my Instagram and
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: everybody has created phonics resources online. And they will sell
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: them to you if you or they'll give them to
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: you if you put your email in and get the link. Right.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: So it is a huge part of the conversation that
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: is being monetized.
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: Well, I think it's interesting, too, because we're also seeing
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: this creation like of the crisis, which is leading now
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: in many provinces to having mandatory screenings take place of children,
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: you know, at the beginning of the school year and
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: then later in the school year. So here in Manitoba,
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: we're mandated now to have twice yearly screenings, kindergarten, grade one,
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: grade two children. And it's already creating issues because on
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: the one hand, we have mandatory screenings, but on the
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: other hand, the province isn't collecting that data provincially and
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: looking at it to see what actually is happening And
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: it seems just to be a band-aid solution to, okay, yes,
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: we're going to screen kids, but that's going to be
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: the responsibility of the school divisions. We don't even have
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: a common screening instrument in Manitoba. Each school division is
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: allowed to select from a list of approved. Unfortunately, all
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: the approved lists are all American products. So again, when
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: we're facing complex classrooms and shortages of teaching and overcrowded schools,
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: We're also at the same time sending thousands and thousands
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: of dollars outside of the country into American publishers to
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: gather information that most teachers would be able to tell
• 30:03
  Speaker 4: you already about their students just by the practices they're
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: already doing and by close observation of children.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's a band-aid solution to a problem that
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: they have named, right? That they have named that this
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: is the problem, this is the solution for it. And
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: the solution, guess what, brings public dollars to private corporations.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: At Joe, I believe $ 15 a pop for the screening.
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: In some cases, yeah, per student.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well underfunding is happening at the same time, right?
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: It's like, we're going to make you do these screenings.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: And a lot of this, Laurie, rests on the distrust
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: of teachers, which is a big part of the narrative
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: in the media is let's blame the teachers for what
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: are largely systemic issues, right? Underfunding of schools, students coming
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: to classrooms with a myriad of societal issues. that we're
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: just going to say is going to be solved if
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: teachers were just better and if they just had these tools, right?
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: And so teacher education, we are a big target of
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: these folks. They like to say that people in teacher
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: education do not know what they're doing, that we're teaching
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: reading the wrong way. And it's been used to then
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: discount and take away when Joe and his colleagues write letters.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: They're like, oh, those are just folks in teacher ed.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: So you've looked at this in some of your research.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: How has this specifically, the science of reading movement, affected
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: teacher education?
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, big question in many different ways. So I'm going
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: to say first that I love teaching and I love
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: teacher education and I count it like a privilege to
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: be there. And when I think about the work that
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: is happening in teacher education and, you know, the blame
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: that's being placed there, it's, you know, it really does
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: trouble me. And so that was.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: Part of the reason why my colleague Tara Lynn Shuffle
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: from Laurier and I did a collaborative self-study of teacher
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: education practice. So part of it was concern for what
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: was happening in teacher education. But part of it was
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: also because we are reflective teachers and that's what we're
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: promoting it with our students. And so we need to
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: be engaging in this ourselves. And so what we looked at, well,
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: we looked at various different aspects of our practice, but
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: in relation to science and reading movement, we were troubled
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: by the accusation that we had not been teaching phonics
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: because I started, well, the first year I taught in
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: teacher education was 2013 and I have always taught phonics.
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: within the context of English language arts. And then I
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: was like, well, maybe we need to look into this. Like,
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: where is it coming in? How is it coming in?
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: And so what we looked at was, okay, what is
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: actually happening in relation to this shifting dynamic space that
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: we find ourselves in? Are we moving? Are we holding steady?
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: Did we miss something? And we were open to that.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: So there were... questions that came up for us. We
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: did confirm, yes, we have been teaching phonics, but we
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: also found that we need to maybe name it in
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: a way that was more consistent with how teacher candidates
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: were hearing it in the media, right? So the words
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: that we were using. So this is like this, right?
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: Because novice teachers don't necessarily make those connections on their own.
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: The other thing that came as a result of that
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: research is Yes, we had lots of findings related to
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: literacy instruction, but we also had findings in relation to
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: what our beliefs about what teacher education is.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: And so.
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: For us, and the literature supports this as well, we've
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: cited this in our work, teacher education is not just
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: about basically saying, here, do this. Although there is some
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: of that because we have to know about what the
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: methods are and how they work. But more than that,
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: at the core of what we do and the decisions
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: we make in teacher education is that we want our
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: teachers to be professionals, critical discerners in classrooms. so that
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: when instructional methods change, because they will, right, and something
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: new comes in, our teachers are equipped to ask questions,
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: make decisions to support the students in their class. We
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: have to know why things work or why they don't.
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: We have to have a landscape of what is currently
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: going on in the field. It's not just about saying, okay, well,
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: only do this. And it never has been. So even
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: when balanced literacy was a very strong movement in classrooms,
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: I always taught about the landscape, the theoretical landscape, the
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: instructional landscape, and showing how instruction was moving. And so
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: I think that big idea of we want teachers to
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: be professional, critical discerners, and decision makers, because I think
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: that's also what's at risk here. is that by buying
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: these programs and saying, here, you don't have to think,
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: just here's a program, turn to the next page, you
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: got it. It takes it away from the teachers.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Totally. It's absolutely deprofessionalizing.
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: And I think we're seeing a huge growth in phonics programs,
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: like Laurie mentioned, like I can't get through my Facebook
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: without seeing an ad for a new phonics program. And
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: I joke with my undergraduate students that like I could
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: buy a phonics program every week to bring to class
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: to show them and not keep up with this rush,
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: you know, to become the next best reading program out there.
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: And I agree with what Laurie was saying in that,
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: what is the purpose of teaching your education? And that's,
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: what's really guided my work here at Brandon university has
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: been thinking about what are the students encountering when they
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: go out into the field? And so what are the programs?
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: Cause I don't want a candidate to come back to
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: class and say, Oh, My teacher is using this and
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: we never talked about this. So, you know, just making
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: the candidates aware that there is a debate going on.
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: Different teachers in the field are going to take up
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: that debate differently and have different approaches. You may see this,
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: you may see this, or you may see something right
• 36:32
  Speaker 4: in the middle of the field. And teachers kind of
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: drawing from the best of both sides of the debate
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: and using that as they see fit with the particular
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: students that they have sitting in front of them. So really,
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: I agree with Laurie. I think that's our role here
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: as teacher preparation programs is to help prepare teachers to
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: do that thinking and that work. So I include phonics,
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: of course, in my courses as well. For example, in Manitoba,
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: the UFLY program is really popular and growing in popularity
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: in the school divisions around us. So that's something we
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: look at. But at the same time, when the students
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: try teaching each other a UFLY lesson and get familiar
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: with that program, I caution them and say, be careful
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: because if you can read this manual and follow the directions,
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: you can implement UFLY and you don't really need a
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: teacher to implement this program. Like an educational assistant could
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: do this quite well. Or even more, what frightens me
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: more is an AI could probably do this better than
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: all of us. So what direction are we heading towards?
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: if we assume that something as complex as literacy can
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: be taught in a structured one size fits all manner, well,
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: couldn't then everything else we do in education, you know,
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: follow along. And so, so that's what I'm seeing too,
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: kind of popping up in this media discussion too. It's
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: not only now the science of reading, now you see
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: the science of math, you know, at some point we're
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: going to have the science of science, I think, you know,
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: at some point, but everything is going to be tried
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: to be boiled down. to a scripted one size fits
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: all approach that's going to work for all children. And
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: it's going to deprofessionalize. And that's what I think as
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: teachers and as teacher educators, we need to be bracing
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: ourselves for, because that's the larger piece of the mountain
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: that's going to fall off next in this avalanche.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: I think you should put that on your bingo card
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: for 2027. Are we going to see the science of
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: science or what new ridiculous rhetorical tool is going to
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: be used? So both of you have already spoken about
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: the ways in which this really narrows understandings of literacies,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: contributes to de-professionalization of teachers and suggests that teaching is
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: really just a method. And if you do it this way,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: students are going to embrace it and learn to read
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: at the end of it and how it really confines
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: our understandings of the purpose of education. And so all
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: of that is going to affect what's happening in K-12 classrooms.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: It's going to affect pedagogy. It's going to affect curriculum development, Joe,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: as we've seen in the new Manitoba ELA curriculum that
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: dropped in the dark of night. And it's going to
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: affect assessment by turning to those screening tools that they're
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: not even really collecting the data on. And so I
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: know I've just summarized a lot of what has been
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: touched on, but I wondered if you wanted to take
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: up that very broad question of what's the impact of
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: all this on K-12 classrooms?
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: Well, I think my my initial response is who who's
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: in charge of the teaching and it goes back to
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: that question of teacher autonomy because yes we we are
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: mandated to to uphold the curriculum and implement the curricula
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: in our classrooms but But when teachers are not even
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: represented or visible in those curricula or had no say
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: in their development, I think that's going to be a
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: harder task to ensure is happening with some consistency. Or
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: if teachers don't see the logic behind a curriculum, right?
• 40:00
  Speaker 4: Or if they don't see a match between the curriculum
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: and the students that they have sitting in front of them,
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: that's where the wheels might start falling off the bus.
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: So you mentioned, Shannon, Here in Manitoba, we had a
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: very strange occurrence where we had a well-robust developed curriculum
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: framework since 2020. And the province and a team of
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: teachers were working on developing grade level outcomes for that curriculum.
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: Yet somewhere over last summer, all of that work was abandoned.
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: That curriculum framework was abandoned and replaced by a brand
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: new curriculum, which has no authorship. We don't know who
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: wrote it. And it mirrors the Ontario curriculum. So somewhere
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: along the line, someone in the Department of Education here
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: in Manitoba made the decision that we should be doing
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: what Ontario is doing without consulting any Manitoba researchers, without
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: really even drawing on Manitoba teachers, or if they were,
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: no one's sure who was consulted and how.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: And they won't answer questions about it. They seem to
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: have ignored all of the letters that have been written
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: in response to it. And if you go to the
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Manitoba Ed website, it outlines how curriculum is normally rolled out.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: And that involves, as you say, meeting with teachers and
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: a year of piloting it. And none of that seems
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: to have happened. And they're not answering questions about it
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: at all. So it's when you ask, you know, who's
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: behind this and what is their motivations? I think these
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: are the bigger questions that we need to get into.
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, like my cynical side would say this seems to
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: be very politically motivated.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: It seems to have been put out to get ahead
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: of the release of the Manitoba Right to Read report.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: Totally. That's the only side I have, Joe. So that's
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: the side I'm going with, the cynical side. Laurie, do
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: you want to jump in on that?
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so many things, right? So we're seeing
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: radical curriculum revision. And again, there does seem to be
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: So though education is provincial responsibility, they are entangled. And
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: I mean, it makes sense to a certain degree, right?
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: If we're in Canada and we might have similar priorities, hopefully... right?
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: That curriculum revision will also keep our responsibilities to the
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: Truth and Reconciliation Commission also intact. We do have common
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: commitments there. And so I do see that movement. And
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: within that, as Joe talked about the programs, curriculum is changing,
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: pedagogy is changing, it's being reduced to, we're going to
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: follow a script here. And I think that the impact
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: on teachers is a question around, well, can I? Right?
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: And can I do this? Or do I need this
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: to be actually told to me by the scripted program?
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: Who's the authority here? And so, you know, there's a
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: scripted phonics program that matches like phonemes with pictures. And
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: the picture association, it's broccoli, and you probably know this one, Joe.
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: And the sound association is ick. So it's like broccoli,
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: picture of broccoli, and then the sound is ick. So
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: here we have that question about who's in our class.
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: And then how does that represent the children that are
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: in the class? So can a teacher then, if we're
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: subscribing to this program, say, hey, like, I know like
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: this child in my class is like a real broccoli fan.
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: you know, it positions them in a certain way. Can
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: I divert from the program, right? Because I don't think
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: this is the best sound association that is there. So
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: that is happening. And I show that to the teacher candidates, right?
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: And say, we question this. I did want to say, though,
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of cause for concern. And some of
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: the curriculum things that have been happening haven't been transparent.
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: Saskatchewan either. But there are a couple of things that
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: I am encouraged about. And one is that me and
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: others have raised concerns about screeners being normed on middle
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: class Americans, white Americans. And they are attempting to norm
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: these screeners on rural Saskatchewan kids. So there's movement there.
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: There's also some listening that's going on. So I'm really
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: hopeful that we can maybe find some middle ground or
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: to move the conversation in a positive way. And so
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: I don't want to lose sight of that hope and
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: to not recognize some of the positives that are going on,
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: even though I do think that it's in a broader
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: umbrella of deep concern.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: This podcast is called Public Good on the Prairies. Laurie,
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: I appreciate that you bring up the Saskatchewan context and
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: Joe Manitoba. We hope to use these episodes to reveal
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: and expose the way that the public good is being
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: undermined in this moment in myriad ways. So a double-barreled
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: question for both of you. Do you think that there's
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: ways that the science of reading movement is manifesting distinctly
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: in the prairies? And then how might you say that
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: the science of reading movement is potentially impacting public education
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: and the public good Maybe on a national or we've
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: talked a little bit about the state's influence, maybe internationally.
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: I think in my context in Manitoba, it's been very
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: interesting because in a rural context, I think there's a
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: lot of autonomy among school divisions. So in some cases,
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: we have school divisions that are really embracing the science
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: of reading movement wholeheartedly. And then in other cases, we
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: have other divisions that are pushing back against it. And
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: so it's a very interesting dynamic, like even the school
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: divisions are entangling with this in different ways. So I
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: think that's a little different than perhaps like a larger
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: province like Ontario, where there are more kind of mandated
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: sweeping changes that they've seen with their curriculum renewal, where
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: it seems to be a little bit more slow moving
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: and a little more left to the prairie school divisions
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: in terms of what are we going to do with this?
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: Or how are we going to take this up? And
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: certainly it's pitting school divisions, I think, against one another,
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: which has some negatives, of course. But I certainly feel
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: that there is more autonomy. There's more choice being on
• 46:35
  Speaker 4: the prairies, which I see as a positive. I'm not
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: sure how it feels for you, Laurie, in Saskatchewan.
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not sure I can speak for... all of
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: the province, I would say there's, we're a little bit
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: further down the road, right from our human rights report.
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: So that's, it was 2023. So we've traveled down the
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: road a little bit farther. I would say that we
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: are definitely moving toward a science of reading structured literacy.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: We don't have a new curriculum yet, but it's, we,
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: we have a scope and sequence that appeared in the
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: curriculum last year, but they're, they are revising the curriculum.
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: And so it's, I actually want to talk a little
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: bit about the context of the prairies, because I think
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: it's important for understanding how this movement can be taken up.
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: So if we think about our provinces as being less populous,
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: more rural, then some of the bigger provinces, I think
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: that has an effect on how a movement like this travels, right?
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: So in Saskatchewan, for example, we have two centers, Regina
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: and Saskatoon, we have smaller cities as well, but a
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: large number of our schools are very, very rural. And
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: so if we have a great centering of population in Saskatoon, Regina,
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: those school divisions, what they do may have an impact
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: on the smaller school divisions, right? I think it also
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: has to do with the teaching context because previously I
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: talked about all of those different factors that were kind
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: of creating this perfect storm. In Saskatchewan, teachers can indicate
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: if they want to be trained in a secondary program
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: or elementary, but their license is K-12. So they could
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: end up in, for example, a rural school teaching grade
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: 12 one language arts, but they may be a high
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: school teacher. It could happen, right? So we have teachers
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: who are trained differently, may not have had particular instruction
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: in reading if they have been trained as a secondary teacher.
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: So then I think that influences how the science of
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: reading moves in those sections. Because if I'm not really
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: confident about what I'm doing in my instruction, then a program.
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: Is really comforting. And that's just a reality of it.
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: And so I think that that context is an important
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: part that is different from, say, what's happening in Ontario.
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: And I'm referring to Ontario just because they had the
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: first human rights report that was there. It also raises
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: questions then about why the report in Ontario has been
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: the catalyst for here. So can we just compare and say, hey,
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: that's what they're doing in Ontario. I'm going to do
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: that here as well. So I think we do need
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: unique and context-specific, child-specific responsive methods to reading instruction.
• 49:40
  Speaker 4: And I think the broader question, too, is I always
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: get worried when tools that are currently available to teachers
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: are taken off the table. Because not every tool fits
• 49:49
  Speaker 4: every child. But if we narrow those choices that teachers
• 49:54
  Speaker 4: are allowed to make or are educated about, then that's
• 49:57
  Speaker 4: going to be harmful to some child down the road.
• 50:01
  Speaker 4: So this narrowing approach to reading instruction that we're seeing
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: sweeping across the country ultimately is going to leave some
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: children out, I believe.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: And that's not good for the public good, right? Like
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: if we're creating reforms that only appeal to and deal
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: with a singular issue that they've defined, then that undermines
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: the broader notion that public education is supposed to be
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: for the public good.
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: If we think about the... the public good more broadly,
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: and what could happen as a consequence. Because no matter
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: what we do, there are implications or consequences from the
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: decisions that we are making, right? Good and bad. And
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: I think we would be wise to look to what
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: is happening in other areas, like the UK, who has
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: traveled down this road longer than we have. And so
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: what are the concerns that are coming from a very
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: structured approach. There are concerns because there is not a
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: panacea here. There is no perfect method in my mind anyway.
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: So can we learn from what has happened in the UK,
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: concerns and questions raised about engagement? Kids don't want to
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: read anymore. Can we take that and say, OK, in
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: the context of what we're doing right now, is there
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: a way to stop that or change what's happening here
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: so that we can also feed to engagement, motivation, a
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: love for literacy? And I'm not saying it's a clear
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: cause and effect, but I think that as we consider
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: our instructional context, what can we learn from from people
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: who are a little bit beyond this?
• 51:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think to add on to that, even
• 51:52
  Speaker 4: if we look to our neighbors in the South, for me,
• 51:56
  Speaker 4: one of the concerns I have around the greater public
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: good is this movement towards high-stake testing at earlier and
• 52:04
  Speaker 4: earlier ages. To do a screening instrument with a five-
• 52:08
  Speaker 4: or a six-year-old isn't really developmentally appropriate. And what is
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: the longer-term consequence for a student if they don't do
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: well in that type of situation. Like how is that
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: going to shape their identity as a learner? If they
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: had that initial encounter with school as being, it's a
• 52:26
  Speaker 4: test and you have to do well. And in some states,
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: we're seeing that, you know, they're taking it a step
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: further where if kids can't pass the reading test in
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: grade three, they're retained. And, you know, this is where
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: this road leads. You know, if we embrace this idea of,
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: you know, every student is going to be on the
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: same path, And I.
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: Think your use of the word road, but that both
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: of you have used really demonstrates, you know, the connections
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: to other provinces and other contexts and how we can
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: learn from and be warned against. Why are we borrowing
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: shit reforms from different places that didn't work and have
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: had harms, right? But I think, Laurie, what you speak
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: to as well is how is this manifesting distinctly? Are,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: for example, principles still part of the union? Does that
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: have an effect on the way these are embraced? What
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: is the rural urban division in each province and how
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: does that affect teacher education and certification and how does
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: that affect? So I think it is important to look
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: at the provincial distinctions of like, how is this being
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: sold differently in different provinces? And how is it being
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: taken up differently in different provinces because of those factors
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: that you named? but also to look to that broader
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: context or those broader roads in different places to say
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: what can be learned from this. And as you folks
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: have spoken to earlier, what's the motivation behind it? Is
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: this really about money? Is this really about selling screening
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: and selling solutions? And is this when we see groups
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: like Moms for Liberty behind this, how is this about
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: taking diversity out of texts that are read and taking
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: the lived experiences of all students? out of the equation?
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: Is this a backdoor way to sort of take diversity
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: out of language and literacy and take those discussions of
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: power out of language and literacy as well? Sorry, that's
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: my long ramble before I go to the final question.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know if that touched on anything for you
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: that you want to jump in on.
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: I was just thinking, you know, for the public good,
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: what do we need, right? And so I think for
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: the public good, we need to be thoughtful, cautious, and reflective.
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: I think we have jumped in really quickly and there's
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: been rapid fire change to curricula. It's not that I
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: think that there shouldn't have been changes, right? But I
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: think that we've jumped in very, very quickly. And so
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: I think that we just need to, yeah, thoughtful, cautious,
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: reflective so that we can meet the needs of our students,
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: whether they're teacher or teacher education students or students in
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: K-12 schools as well.
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: I love that. And I love that you use those
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: three criteria. And yet, I think as soon as you
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: say that, they're going to say, well, you're just a
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: Luddite or you're just against modernizing or you're against progress
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: or you just want to stay stuck in your ways, right?
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: But as you pointed to earlier, we are people that
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: really think a lot and care about teaching. And we
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: want to pause before we take any of these big
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: steps to say, what is the impact going to be
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: on students and the public good more broadly? We know
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: in this moment, teacher educators' perspectives are discounted in advance.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: What do we in the quote unquote ivory tower know
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: about language and literacies? But despite this, both of you
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: have done some great work to make sure that your
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: voices are included in this discussion. And I wondered if
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: you could leave our listeners with some of the ways
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: in which they can be more broadly informed about what
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: these discussions in language and literacies and what you're doing
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: to push back at those narrow media narratives.
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: So one of the things I think that has been
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: so helpful for me is, is finding a coalition of colleagues,
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: because I think we feel, at least I felt at
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: the beginning of this movement, like Laurie kind of alluded
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: to earlier, like, did I miss something? Is it just like,
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: have I gotten it wrong all this time? Like, and
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: so there was this moment in my career of, of this,
• 56:18
  Speaker 4: you know, real deep self-reflection of maybe there is something
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: to this. And, and, and certainly I have, and I
• 56:25
  Speaker 4: keep adjusting my teaching to as I read more and
• 56:28
  Speaker 4: I learn more and I meet more students, those are
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: the things that keep changing my practice. But in terms
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: of advocacy, I think having a group of colleagues with
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: you and being able to talk with folks about, well,
• 56:45
  Speaker 4: what do you see in your context? So I'm very
• 56:46
  Speaker 4: grateful to have colleagues like Laurie, my colleagues at U
• 56:50
  Speaker 4: of M and across Canada and internationally that you know,
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: that we're having these conversations and what are you seeing
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: and what are you feeling and what's happening and how
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: are you responding? The other big piece of it, too,
• 57:02
  Speaker 4: for me has been to be out in schools, because
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: I think if we stay in our ivory tower, I
• 57:08
  Speaker 4: think we're going to perpetuate that notion of, yeah, you're
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: a teacher educator. When was the last time you were
• 57:13
  Speaker 4: in a school? What do you know about the reality
• 57:17
  Speaker 4: of classrooms? So I'm very grateful for for the ongoing
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: relationships that I have with many school divisions here in
• 57:23
  Speaker 4: Manitoba and the opportunities that I've had to come and
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: work with teachers and learn from teachers in their context
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: about what is happening, how are they feeling things, what's
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: changing in their divisions and what choices are they making
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: within this debate. And just to be able to come
• 57:40
  Speaker 4: and raise questions with them. Because I've been very cautious
• 57:44
  Speaker 4: not to be, hopefully not an advocate for either side
• 57:47
  Speaker 4: of the debate, but just keep raising this idea of
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: what questions do we need to keep asking? So one
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: piece that I just have recently with language and literacy
• 57:57
  Speaker 4: is called Broadening the Conversation that I co-wrote with a
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: teacher here in Brandon, Cassie Sutherland. and then a reading
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: recovery colleague, Alison Matchup. And just to kind of bring
• 58:08
  Speaker 4: those questions forward, because I think there's different ways of
• 58:11
  Speaker 4: answering many important questions that we have. So like one
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: question I keep asking is, do we need to teach
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: all children as if they experience a reading difficulty?
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I was thinking back to how we
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: talked about that polarizing binary. And because the work that
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: I do is really responsive to that where I don't
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: want to be like way to the far side and,
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: and positioned against other people. And so my center has been,
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: how can I support teachers in navigating this landscape? And
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: so that has been, you know, how I navigate myself
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: because I, In my position, I do have the possibility
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: to be working with in-service teachers, with pre-service teachers, having
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: been a long time teacher myself, and seeing how the
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: field has moved, even in terms of my career, that
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: has been very helpful and to listen and to understand.
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: Like Joe, colleagues are really important because we can be
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: on our own in our institutions. And there is, you know,
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: how's it going for you? What's happening? How does that
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: inform my practice? That can be really helpful as well.
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: And so one of the recent things that I've been
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: doing I'm a principal investigator on a project called the
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: Prairie Literacies Project, where we're joining with people from Manitoba, Saskatchewan,
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: and Alberta. And just around this idea of, hey, how
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: can we support expansive literacies in the prairies? And what
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: does it mean to have, like, what are prairie literacies?
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: How are prairies configured differently or similarly to the rest
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: of Canada? How does this fit with our commitments to reconciliation?
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: And how can we bring together K-12 teachers with teacher
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: educators to navigate this, keeping in mind literacies as, yes,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: reading and writing, but also as multilingual, multidimensional, multimodal, and affective.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: So forwarding those expansive views of literacies in really positive
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: ways Because if I focus on, you know, yeah, being
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: in my corner and saying, hey, this is what I think.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: And I'm going to take my ball and go away.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: It's not going to be very helpful. But if I
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: keep that center and that focus on on supporting teachers,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: because that is my my love. And in positive ways,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: like not saying, OK, you can't do that in your
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: classroom because that's not right or good. That's not helpful
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: to teachers.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: In saying what they're telling you to do is right
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: or wrong. I don't think it's that simple anyway. So
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: the focus on supporting teachers and saying, okay, what are
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 3: you confronted with? Okay, this is how that works theoretically
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: and practically, and how can you move and hold your commitments?
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: So that's kind of the focus of my work right now.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: You're making me think, Lori, because I think too, because
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: I agree, like how do we support the candidates in
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: our role as for the frustrations that they're having, the
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: challenges they're having, but also the voices that they're hearing,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: you know, when they, when they go into schools, because
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: it's one thing to say, yes, you know, you're, you
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: need to do some phonics. I agree with that. But
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: what do you do with, you know, if you want
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: to do phonics for 30 minutes a day with six-year-olds, that,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: that's going to fall apart at some point. So how
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: do you, how do you do that when on one
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: side folks are saying, no, this is how you have
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 4: to do it versus, you know, the, the reality of,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: of what what's happening in a classroom and it's 30 wonderful,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: interesting human beings that are, that are not all the
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 4: same and don't all have the same needs and have
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: different attention spans and different, you know, knowledges of literacy
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: and different languages that they speak sitting in front of you.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: So what do you do when the, when the manual
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: doesn't do what it's promised?
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: Laurie and Joe, it's been a pleasure having you on today.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: You've highlighted so many nuances and complexities of this incredibly
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: fraught discussion. And I'm hopeful that our conversation will inspire
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: further dialogue about this issue. I know for me, it's
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: been incredibly enlightening. Someone who's done work as an English
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: language arts teacher, but is situated quite peripherally to that work.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: And I'm confident that the discussion is going to be
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: an excellent resource for all teachers and teacher educators. So
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: Thank you both so much for openly sharing your insights
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: and your expertise with us today.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: Thank you. My pleasure.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: So, Justin, what have you been thinking about since our
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: conversation with Joe and Laurie?
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: At the beginning of our conversation, Laurie discussed this comprehensive
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: list of why the reading debate is even a thing.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: So to reiterate what she had mentioned, Laurie highlighted increasing
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: concern over achievement on the world stage, how the pandemic
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: widened gaps relating to access and equity, how literacy advocacy
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: now occurs in the media by potentially unqualified voices, how
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: classroom complexities continue to increase as all teachers know, and finally,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: how there's ever declining school budgets. And before I go
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: any further, Shannon, I want to recognize the saying that like,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: if the only tool that you have is a hammer,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: you tend to see every problem as a nail. But
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: as you know, my work, I think your work a
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: lot of the time too, is largely focused on interrogating neoliberalism.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: But as Laurie was sharing this list of things that
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: have made the reading debate even more present, I can't
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: help but make connections to how saturated each of them
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: is by neoliberal rationality. And so, for example, thinking of
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: the first one, the growing achievement discourse that Laurie highlights
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: is We can draw a direct line here between achievement,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: standardized testing and screening, the increase in quantification of learning,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: and then neoliberal organizations such as the Organization for Economic
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: Cooperation and Development, that push for the standardized testing. And
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: then from there, we have right-wing media companies, organizations, literal
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: businesses who use the results of, for example, the OECD's
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: PISA scores or screening to They use those to make
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: arguments for privatizing education. And so the science of reading
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: movement and this huge push to focus solely on phonics
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: instruction to raise test scores plays into this neoliberal game,
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: especially through the commodification and the monetization of reading methods
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: and materials. So I was thinking a little bit about that.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure if you wanted to add or trouble
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: any of that, Shannon.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: No, I think... I really appreciate the context and how
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: the motivations of these changes are not coming just from
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: parents who are concerned that their child doesn't have access
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: to what they consider proper reading instructions. And I don't
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: want to suggest that they're being used as puppets. I
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: just would suggest that their desire to gain access for
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: their own child in the school system could be amplified
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: by groups who have other intentions. And those other intentions
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: are what you speak about, the monetization through things like
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: universal screenings, and then the solutions that are sold for
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: those screenings. That's one thing I wanted to pick up on.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: The other thing I wanted to pick up on is
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: your comment about unqualified voices. And this is something that
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: has concerned me broadly in in this science of reading conversation,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: because I do feel like there are qualified voices who
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: either feel as though they don't want to get into
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: the ring in this discussion for fear of the blowback,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: because we know some of the tactics that people have
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: used to silence people is scary for some academics. They
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: don't want to get involved in these conversations. And as
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: a result, that void is then being filled by people
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: who do not have research-informed understandings. And so that really
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: concerns me, is whose voices are we not hearing from?
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: Because the conditions that have been created to have these
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: conversations are... fraught and scary for a lot of people.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: So those are just two things I wanted to pick
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: up on. I guess the third thing is, you know,
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: I always have multiple things to say is I always
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: think of the ball quote, when we can't measure what
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: we value, we begin to value what we measure and
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: that idea of who's leading this conversation. And then how
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: is it that testing has become a marker for what
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: is success in our education systems when those tests are
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: not even actually measuring the what we as a society value. Absolutely.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 2: This notion and the discourses that we talked about in
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: our conversation with Joe and Laurie about rights and science.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: And these words have power behind them. And to your
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: point about fear, like you can't argue against rights. You
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: can't argue against science because it makes you anti-human rights
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: or it makes you anti-science. And so there's this fear
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: and chilling effect that plays into that because these words
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: are used in ways that produce power and that shape
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: our subjectivities in ways that foreclose agency. And then things
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: like activism, things like challenging these discourses. And so to
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: your point, like whose voices are we not hearing from
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: is a really important question. And Joe- Right after Laurie
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: shared that list of five things, Joe, I think added
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: one that was that much of this discourse was, is
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: coming from a rather small group of parents and parents
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: who have legitimate concerns, but then whose concerns are being
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: superimposed on the entire student body, which diversity becomes completely
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: flattened within that orientation.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I just, I think we always need to wonder.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: When someone is trying that hard to silence research-informed voices,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: they have other motivations. And so what is lost as
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: a society when a singular understanding of reading and literacy, singular,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: is being advanced by people that want to monetize public
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: education by, as Joe pointed out, bringing public dollars to
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: private corporations, private corporations that he mentioned are American-owned. Yeah,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: I think we need to be asking questions about who's
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: behind the push for this. And that question that you
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: spoke about in regards to rights, it does stifle conversations
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: or make it seem as though people are anti the
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: rights of dyslexic kids in this instance. But as our
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: future conversation with Zhao Zhao Du and Melanie Jansen will
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: speak about, there are kids who speak with accents. There
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: are kids who speak multiple languages. There are kids who
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: have other learning exceptionalities whose rights are not being served
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: when we narrow understandings of literacies. And so then we
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: get into conversations of competing rights, which are uncomfortable conversations.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: But what the purpose of public schools are is to
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: give universal access to all kids. and to advance equity.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: And if we are just serving the rights of one
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: group of students at the expense of other students, and
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: I think that's the part of it is we want
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: to serve students who are having trouble reading in ways
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: that might help them learn to read. But if doing
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: that becomes universal in a way that takes away the
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: rights of other kids, we need to be interrogating that
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: and asking critical questions. And we need to be able
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: to ask those critical questions without automatically being called anti-rights or,
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: you know, anti-child.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: And so much of exactly what you're talking about to
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: me speaks to larger questions, conversations, or issues related to
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: teacher education. Laurie and Joe, we discussed a little bit
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: in the conversation that teacher education, it's not just about
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: teaching methods. It's not just about tips and tricks. They
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: both argue that we want to equip our teacher candidates
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: with the critical skills and abilities necessary to, Laurie uses
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 2: the word, discern. different methods within our unique teaching context.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: And then Joe brought up how phonics programs are for
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: sale everywhere now. And so once again, like we see
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: teaching and learning literacy is reduced to this universal steps
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: that supposedly work for each and every student, which as
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: you know, it's incredibly technicizing. It's de-professionalizing. And then it's
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: made even worse because reading instruction is commodified and monetized
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: to just these extreme extents. And so like I'm preaching
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: to the choir here with you But we're making a
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 2: huge mistake in teacher education. I think if we feed
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: into this methods fetish that teacher candidates sometimes demand, and like,
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: I want to pause if maybe there's teacher candidates listening,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: because it wasn't long ago that I was a teacher candidate,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: scared shitless about my upcoming practicum. I just wanted some concrete,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: easy to use methods to help me survive those first
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: few days as a new teacher. In fact, I just
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: got an email from a previous teacher candidate who is
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: just got a job. They're starting up this fall, 2026.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: It's terrifying. I get it. I've been there. Many of
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: us have been there at the same time. It's crucial
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 2: to point out though, that to take me as an example,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: like I w I was educated and trained as a
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: secondary music teacher, but my first teaching job was not
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: that it was grade seven and eight homeroom. I was
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: teaching English. I was teaching phys ed. I was teaching music.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 2: I was teaching other things. So if all that I
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: ever learned in my B ed was like, centuries-old music methods,
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: then I wouldn't have had the critical skills to discern
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: good pedagogy on a broader scale. And so I'm really
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: thankful for my B.Ed. profs who refuse to go all
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: in on methods, but they equip me with the theory,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: the philosophy necessary to make these informed pedagogical decisions.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: Can I jump in on that? Because I was so
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: struck when Laurie said, if I'm not really confident what
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: I'm doing, then a program is really comforting. And so
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: it speaks about The ways in which, well, when we
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: continue to deprofessionalize teaching and in cases in the United States,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: efforts to take away teacher education programs, then, of course,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: somebody that doesn't have those principled foundational understandings that you're
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: speaking about, the idea of that in practice. teacher education,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: we should be talking about advancing professionalism that looks at
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: all of the aspects of teaching so that when somebody
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: comes to our schools with these dazzling new programs, we
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: can look at them against those ideas of what we
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: think it means to be a good teacher. And we're
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: not sort of taken by those methods. And I really
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: thought that Lori's comment about how teacher candidates and new
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: teachers and teachers that don't have those foundational understandings can
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: be dazzled and comforted and distracted by these programs and
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: methods that sell the quote unquote right way to teach
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: because they don't have those principled foundational understandings of teaching.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: And I think that in and of itself is an
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: argument for why we need better teacher education that really
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: gets at the theoretical foundations of of what it means
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: to be a sound pedagogue. And when we take that
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: away in favor of the fetishization of method, the pedagogies
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: of stupidity that Giroux speaks about, then that's how we
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: create people who are not critical thinkers that adopt and
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: embrace those methods because they haven't been granted access to
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: the theories that should underpin our pedagogies. Yes.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: And it's so easy, I think, to fall into that
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: trap of like, Just give me a pre-digested curriculum. Just
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: give me phonics instruction in a box so I can survive.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: But to your point where we're fetishizing these methods rather
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: than engaging in teaching and learning, that's critical, holistic, reflexive.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: And what does that mean in the context of messy
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: and beautiful learning communities?
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. I also, maybe this is going backwards to what
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: I was talking about a moment ago, but I was
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: thinking about how back to basics is so race coded.
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: And so when things like this, like just teach the reading,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: let's just focus on decoding words and phonics first. and
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: take away all of the other beautiful elements of what literacies, plural,
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: can offer. What is attempting to be done is what
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: we're seeing being done in parental rights movements that really
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: love the, just teach the math, just teach the history,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: just teach the reading, is how race-coded that is. It's
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: an attempt to take away anything that they see as political,
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: anything they see as diverse or varied and reduce it
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: to what they would call a neutral form of teaching,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: just teach how to read, not what to read and
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: what to think. And as a result, that's a way
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: of promoting a status quo version of teaching and learning
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: that that is of course promoting whiteness and promoting the
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: status quo and promoting current gender norms and, and, and
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: under the guise of back to basics and how, when
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: we're talking about rights, that takes away the rights of
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: a student to see themselves reflected in diverse texts, to
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: talk about things like power and oppression, to talk about
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: how they can respond as citizens in a society that
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: where they feel as though they do not see themselves
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: or they are being oppressed. All of those broader understandings
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: of literacies, not to mention notions of digital literacies in
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: the current context, right? It's just like being able to
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: sound out a word is not reading. You know, it's
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: not literacies. It's that that's not what we want schools
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: to become. And so I just really thought about how,
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: and I think this will come up in our conversation
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: with Melanie Jansen and Xiaojiao Du as well, just like
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: how Back to Basics is so race-coded.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: And I mean, could be fair. This is complex and
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: nuanced and fraught, but at the same time, we can
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 2: draw those straight lines between some of these movements and privatization.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 2: I think in both endogenous and exogenous ways that these
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: values are coming into schools and also literal products from
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: private corporations. And so, you know, I'm really thankful for
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: the work that Joe did And that team at University
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: of Manitoba and Brandon University did this coalition around Manitoba's
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: right to report and their response to it. Laurie's work
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: in Saskatchewan and beyond pushing back and asking some of
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: those questions so that hopefully rather than making this binary,
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 2: this polarization of the issue that we can talk and
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: Laurie talked about surrender. And so how do we come
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: together in those really meaningful ways to have good conversations
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: or have conversations in a good way so that ultimately, like,
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: what's the purpose of education? That keeps coming up. That
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: came up again in our conversation so that we can
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: wrestle with that question going forward.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: Well, thankfully, this isn't our only episode on this topic.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: We are going to have another episode where we take
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: up really the connections between the Right to Read Report,
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: the Science of Reading Movement, and privatization of public education in,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: as you've mentioned, all of its forms. So, Justin, until
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: next time.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: Until next time. Oh, we did it at the same time.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 4: Until next time.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 2: Until next time.