Prologue
The Curriculum as the Cause of Failure
1993
Geoff Colvin is a behaviorist who is also a good teacher and trainer. He understands the role of instruction in shaping behavior. A week before I posted this article, Geoff asked me for permission to reproduce and present it at a seminar. Sure. (In fact, I forgot that I had written this paper.)
Geoff presented it to graduate students. Some of them later indicated that they were both shocked and insulted because this was the first time they had heard anything about the relationship between curriculum and failure, particularly the notion that you could observe student behavior and infer the flaws in the curriculum they went through from the kind of mistakes they make.
After I heard Geoff’s report, I read my article and concluded that it is as timely today as it was in 1993, when I wrote it. The field still hasn’t learned that poorly designed curricula generate poor performance in both teacher and students.
Featured Video
Kindergarteners Showing Off Their Math Skills 1966 Uncut demonstration of at-risk children who were taught math by Zig Engelmann as four year olds and five year olds. The session was filmed in front of a class of college students in August with no rehearsal. Children work addition, subtraction, multiplication, division problems, basic algebra problems, fraction problems, area problems, factoring, and simple simultaneous equations.
