29 Mar State Farm Helps Promote Gobbledygook

In a remarkable ad, State Farm Insurance has announced it is presenting its “Good Neighbor Award” to a first grade teacher for teaching her students to spell incorrectly.

Under the headline, “In Ms. White’s Class, Some Of The Best Writers Can’t Even Read Yet”, the ad praises the teacher for developing a system that uses a “mixture of symbols, pictures and some rather creative scribbling” by first grade students as they attempt to “write” stories. Somehow this unintelligible mess is suppose to teach children to read – by reading their own stories.

The root of this philosophy is the complete abandonment of phonics while replacing it with the discredited whole language, inventive spelling concept. This abandonment of proven teaching methods for worthless fads is a waste of massive energy, classroom time and creativity. Ms. White would better spend her time just teaching children to read through tried and true methods. Then she would be truly worthy of an award – because if her students could read – she would be a unique teacher indeed.

State Farm has proven itself to be just another victim of Outcome-based Education – but it’s Ms. White’s students who will suffer.