What is "The New Routine"?

This blog is about the difference between a "groove" and a "rut."  I am striving for the former and avoiding the latter at all costs. It applies to everything I do: teaching, researching, learning, parenting.  It's about honoring tradition and "what works," while staying open to new possibilities.


The bottom line, Pressley tells us, is that most everyone agrees on the ultimate goal of reading instruction – comprehension. How to reach that objective (i.e. using bottom-up versus top-down processing) is hotly contested, but Pressley says it can be resolved by adopting an "intermediate position" in which both processes are involved in constructing meaning from a text.
Silencing this “either/or” mentality that pervades the reading war seems to be both Pressley and Adams' objective in their respective chapters. The resolution of the war can be arrived at via a “both/and” perspective. This comes out in Adams’ description of Jeanne Chall’s extensive work, which culminated in the 1967 publication of Learning to Read: The Great Debate.
Chall assumed a “four-pronged attack” in her three-year project. She interviewed program developers, analyzed 22 reading programs, observed more than 300 classrooms, and reviewed the existing research. To me, the most compelling aspect of Chall’s work were the classroom visits in which she did, in fact, document differences between programs.  These differences, however, had less to do with the programs themselves and more to do with their “newness” (p. 35). Chall noticed a certain “zeal and success” among teachers and administrators who were innovating with new programs, regardless of the programs themselves. This spirit of innovation reminded me of the “programmatic vision” that pervaded the high-achieving secondary schools in Judith Langer’s Excellence in English study.
Additionally, Chall observed teachers instinctively blending new and old. They did not abandon old programs, but seemed to keep what they liked and what worked: "During the innovative, transitional period, while the novel aspects of the new program are being freshly addressed and the memories of the old program are still active, the students are likely to receive the best of both approaches from their teachers" (p. 37).
I am reminded of the truism within our profession of “teacher as bricoleur.” I also see this aspect of Chall’s study as having big implications for the selection and preparation of future teachers, as it suggests that if teachers want to be effective in the classroom and if they want to derive satisfaction from their work, they must be predisposed to a mindset of lifelong learning and constant re-invention and adaptation. More preservice teachers should be made aware of this underlying phenomenon of good teaching.


I can think of one other endeavor as unpredictable as teaching and learning in 21st-century classrooms, and that is raising kids.  I am doing that, too.  I am every day a teacher and every day a learner. Every day is different, and thus, we have “the new routine.”

What is "The New Routine"?