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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   29306 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 6, 2023

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I don’t have a defense of whole word learning. I think it’s an example of Mao’s law- given the choice between admitting mistakes and terrible real world outcomes, bureaucrats will choose terrible real world outcomes every time.

But, I do want to chime in that there’s an occasional conspiracy theory in homeschooling circles that whole word learning is intended to teach children that meaning is completely arbitrary and thus communism or gender ideology or whatever. I don’t pay attention to the details. This is a fascinating example of cultural evolution; the justification for whole word learning is almost certainly not thought out beyond whatever bullshit is in the stated reason, but whole word learning sucks and is often recommended, so believing it’s even more sinister than Mao’s law, serves a purpose by getting people to use phonics which has the benefit of actually working.

there’s an occasional conspiracy theory in homeschooling circles that whole word learning is intended to teach children that meaning is completely arbitrary and thus communism or gender ideology or whatever.

Im sure it wasnt designed explictly with that goal, but theres more reason to this belief than just "cause it sux". How do you think people got the idea for whole word learning, if it doesnt work? Theres various ideas floating around about explicit knowledge not being so important, things being more fluid and contextual, "patchwork" methods over systems, etc. Those propably contributed to the idea. You could attribute them to constructivism, or pragmatism, or poststructuralism, but all of that falls under "fake and gay".

See also a comment further below.

Well sure, the point was that it’s Alex Jones tier rambling, even if it’s possibly connected to the same philosophical impulses behind postmodernism and the like.

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