Procrastadabbler

I have to admit to some dissatisfaction with the world of literacy research. The past few years have been filled with researchers in search of an original idea. We’re trying to figure out this multiple modality stuff, this new literacies stuff, and everyone seems to be bouncing around looking for the sexiest theory on which to hang what is going on. And then of course there’s the government sanctioned stuff which hasn’t had a new idea in almost 40 years. Oh, and the “brain based” stuff which really isn’t telling us anything we didn’t already know but now is mapping it on to neuroscience, but the education literature doesn’t really get into the neuroscience (I guess educators are too dumb to understand the science), so the literature just reiterates what’s already been accepted as good practice but then adds on the point that neuroscience says…

I’m disenchanted.

Part of the problem with educational research is that it’s reactionary. I need to go back and reread The Nature of Scientific Revolutions. There is something reassuring about what Kuhn’s description of “normal science.” It’s that slow incremental build-up of seemingly minor understandings that ultimately build to a transformation in the way we understand something. Rather than seeking the cool theory du jour, I think we need to focus on doing good research.

But here’s the problem…I’ve got to figure out what I am going to read this summer as I do my analysis. I think I may return to some old friends and revisit them with new lenses.