I digress (in a sense) to talk about breakdowns of systems

When I drive through Cleveland I am always still shocked by the legions of empty factories that line the city.  They are not being converted to housing.  They are not being bulldozed to make way for malls.  They are simply empty buildings and there are many of them. They have been empty for years now. Even some of the for sale signs are weathered on the red brick blocks of buildings that once contained hundreds of workers.

On the good side, they aren't spewing their grime into the air or Lake Erie or packing the landfills with their waste.  On the bad side, they are modern day ghost towns.

Many of those factories began to shut down in the 80's.  Here in the U.S. the area, like many other formerly hardworking productive cities is part of what is jokingly referred to as the "Rust Belt" (once the "Steel Belt"). 

There is no real end to the ghostliness in sight.  Politicians always go to the area and talk about bringing back jobs.  It has yet to happen.

This lack will undoubtedly continue until perhaps people no longer remember that there were once jobs there. 

Work, productivity, education, where else is there a breakdown in this country?  Change is bound to happen but there should be some counter balance someplace,  some healing aids being applied,  some loud mouth politician making their platform about making changes that actually provide results.  I don't see any of that right now.

Take education for example.

Occasionally I'll talk to someone who knows of a teacher who closed the door and taught the class differently.  Perhaps they were an "old school" type teacher.  Or they weren't trained here in Ohio.  Or there is something else unique about them.  Inevitably they have taught in a way that has something to do with phonics.  The teacher was looking for results and once they found them, this is what they taught year after year.  After all who goes into teaching wanting to do a bad job of it.

Phonics was the way I was once taught but a teacher that would have taught me would at the least most likely be in their 80's at this point.  Back then even Sesame Street had tricks to sound out words and I remember those. Things have changed a lot since then.

The whole language methodology took the world by storm and Read Recovery became the preferred method of tutoring anyone with special needs (which doesn't work for dyslexic children I might remind everyone).  Some states (like CA) have since dropped these methods (for the most part) but the damage has been done and it's been done nationally.

It's sort of like the Emperors New clothes story.  Everyone has been playing along that this stuff works for a long time.  This is why the School Psychologists have to be so defensive.  This is why districts have to lie, distract parents with finger pointing, try to dismiss well trained doctors reports and pay extra money for insurance to cover the costs of their legal fees in case a parent gets mad enough to pursue their child's rights right on into the courtroom.

I don't have the answer to all of this yet but I'm working on it.