The Allington

Oh goodness gracious, Richard Allington came to our district today and gave a talk to about 200 teachers.  I thought he was hilarious. He kept saying stuff like "If you don't move around your room you should be fired," and "Earn your paycheck and start teaching all the kids in your room, not just the smart ones" and "Maybe it's time to learn the stuff you were hired to do and start differentiating instruction for all kids," and "If someone gives a kid a book that's too hard for her, that teacher should be hit in the head with a baseball bat" and "Never have xerox machines in schools.  Worksheets are total crap"  and "When I see what kids are made to do in intervention groups, I just want to commit suicide."  

I was laughing away, but some people got a wee bit ticked off.  I like boldness.  I like outrageous people with smart opinions.  His basic plan for improving reading achievement is having kids read for many hours a day, books they can read and want to read.  And kids should have literate conversations with other kids in literature circles.  And kids should write stuff that's meaningful to them.  And teachers should know a lot about books and pass info about books on to kids.

Can't really argue with this stuff.  Kudos, Richard Allington.  You probably won't be invited back any time soon, but I enjoyed your talk very much.