No Flash, All Function – Education Rickshaw
I’m in Eugene, Oregon this week, soaking up the scene at the National Direct Instruction Conference. It’s not a glitzy affair – there are no lanyard influencers here, no big-stage keynotes promising “Project Based Learning” or “21st century skills.” What you get instead is something rarer and more sustaining:
Design.
Delivery.
Organization.
Teachers rolling up their sleeves and getting serious about the meticulously engineered programs in front of them – backed by over fifty years of research, refinement, and results.
I’ve just wrapped up the first day of the pre-conference, and already my notebook is full. My starting point? Theory of Instruction – that big, brainy volume from Siegfried Engelmann and Doug Carnine that reads like a blueprint for wickedly sophisticated program design – with Evan Haney.
Now, I’ve taught with Direct Instruction programs, and I’ve experienced Direct Instruction play out with my students – the choral responses, the firm pacing, the no-nonsense clarity. But it’s a different experience entirely to see how the sausage is made. This isn’t just “scripts” and “teacher-proof” curriculum. It’s the outcome of surgical thinking about how kids – especially the ones who’ve been shortchanged – actually learn.
Despite the technical side of it (i.e., concept analysis, logic tables, and axioms of DI) there’s something profoundly humane about it. When you strip away confusion, when you design instruction so precisely that every student can succeed on the first try, you’re laying down a path to accelerate learning. And there’s not a moment to waste. We’re already behind.
Walking the halls here in Eugene, you meet folks who want to learn how to “repeat until firm” and embed a “delayed test” like a surgeon making an incision. They’re not seeking inspiration or affirmation about their career choices. They want to teach reading and math better.
More soon. I’ll be the one in the front, nodding furiously, and pulling select guests into the interview room for a chance to share their successes on The Direct Instruction Podcast.
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