My Education Degree Was A Disappointment

I graduated from college in 1997 with a degree in Elementary Education (K-5) and Special Education (K-12). After five years of methods courses, observing in various classroom settings, and completing a semester of student teaching, I never would have dreamed that I would still be woefully unprepared to teach students how to read and write. I didn’t realize how unprepared I was until decades later, when I realized all my efforts to “cultivate a love of reading” in my students couldn’t overcome the fact that they simply couldn’t read well. Sadly, my story is not that uncommon.

At the time I began my education degree in the early 90s, the “Whole Language” approach to teaching reading was all the rage. The Whole Language approach can be defined as “an educational philosophy centered on teaching reading and writing through meaningful and authentic experiences, rather than through traditional direct instruction methods.” As someone who was taught through traditional methods, the novelty of whole language appealed to me. I was a starry-eyed 20-year-old who believed I would change the world by inspiring young minds to love reading. The idea of giving my students “authentic, meaningful” experiences spoke to the Romantic educator in me.

In my education courses, the professors emphasized the importance of getting students to simply enjoy reading and writing and cautioned us against stifling or stunting the creative process by correcting pronunciation, spelling, grammar, or punctuation. The goal was to encourage “meaning-making” of stories rather than learning to decode and properly use the English language to communicate.

As someone who has always loved reading, this all sounded wonderful to me. I relished the assignments that required me to create engaging, thematic units incorporating as many books as possible. I even created a “recommended book list” containing some excellent titles that I still have today. When I visited classrooms, it was a joy to sit next to students and just let them write without worrying if they spelled words correctly or wrote in complete sentences. My only job was to praise their creativity and encourage their effort.

As non-confrontational and enjoyable as this type of reading and writing instruction was for me, it turns out it was not very effective for my students. As reading scores declined over the next few years, there was a shift from the whole-language approach to “Balanced Literacy.” While this method incorporated more explicit phonics instruction, it still lacked many of the foundational skills I now know are necessary for reading and writing.

Since graduating from college, I have been a full-time classroom teacher, a parent volunteer in various classroom settings, a regular substitute teacher in my children’s elementary school for nearly a decade, and I now serve as a volunteer teacher at a small urban school in my community. Additionally, I became an accidental education reform advocate in 2020 when schools were closed for over a year. All of those opportunities (as well as all of the brilliant educators I have met on social media) have been instrumental in teaching me how to actually teach students to read and write proficiently.

The reality of my inadequate preparation to teach literacy skills has been unfolding for some time, but it hit me with renewed force and a fresh wave of indignation recently when I attended a Teach Like A Champion (TLAC) Science of Reading Workshop. After just one hour into the workshop, I jotted a note to myself on a sticky pad that said, “Why wasn’t I taught any of this in my college of education courses?” Obviously, it was rhetorical, but I couldn’t help but wonder how much more effective I would have been as a classroom teacher if I knew then what I know now.

The TLAC workshop isn’t the only “aha moment” I’ve had since receiving my degree so long ago. Since then, I’ve learned about the pillars of literacy, the cognitive science behind how learning happens, the importance of explicit instruction, the need for regular practice and retrieval, and the absolute necessity of knowledge-building early and often.

Some will argue that “we just didn’t know” back then, but that is false. This information and these methods are not the “shiny new thing”. They are tried and true. What worked for eons was replaced by “the shiny new ideas” of progressive educators, much to the detriment of students and teachers.

I’m grateful for the myriad resources available to teachers today to help rectify the ineffective and harmful practices many of us were taught in our education courses. I’m optimistic that there is a growing movement of teachers who are putting (real) education research into practice in their classrooms and sharing their knowledge and experiences with others. These are great starting points, but colleges and universities that train future teachers need to make major adjustments, move beyond lofty ideas, and focus on equipping teachers with effective skills and practices.