The Pendulum Revisited: Faddism in Education and Its Alternatives
Item
Title
The Pendulum Revisited: Faddism in Education and Its Alternatives
Alternate name
Chapter 15
Abstract/Description
Educational innovation is famous for its cycle of enthusiasm, widespread dissemination, disappointment, and eventual decline, the classic ‘‘pendulum.’’ A similar pattern can be seen in most applied fields, but in many, there is steady generational progress, which is far more important than the latest fad. Generational progress does occur in education, but it is usually a product of changes in society rather than changes in educational techniques themselves. One major factor inhibiting systematic progress in education is lack of respect for research and development in the change process. One of the most important reasons for the existence of the educational pendulum is that in education, one rarely waits for or demands hard evidence before one adopts new practices on a wide scale. The recent quintessential boom-to-bust example of the pendulum of educational innovation is whole language, a philosophy of reading instruction that emphasizes reading of real literature, especially predictable texts in the early elementary grades, and de-emphasizes systematic instruction in phonics or word attack skills. If faddism is ever to end in education, decisions about adopting or maintaining programs must be made based on reliable, widely respected data.
Portions of this chapter are adapted from Slavin, 1989. This chapter was written under funding from the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education (No. OERI-R-117D-40005). However, any opinions expressed are the author's and do not represent OERI positions or policy.
Author/creator
Date
In publication
Series
Editor
Pages
373-386
Publisher
Academic Press
Resource type
Background/Context
Medium
Print
Background/context type
Conceptual
Open access/free-text available
No
Peer reviewed
Yes
Citation
Slavin, R. E. (1999). The Pendulum Revisited: Faddism in Education and Its Alternatives. In G. J. Cizek (Ed.), Handbook of Educational Policy (Chapter 15, pp. 373–386). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-012174698-8/50042-4
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