Colleagues: Here is a little info about the words "bunk" and  "debunk" and
some debunking efforts of mine that may be of interest in advancing the
professional development of adult literacy educators. I have found that
debunking can be of value to adult literacy educators in presentations I
have made in the US and abroad.

www,thefreedictionary.com/debunk
Verb	1. debunk - expose while ridiculing; especially of pretentious or false
claims and ideas; "The physicist debunked the psychic's claims"

de·bunk  (d-bngk)
tr.v. de·bunked, de·bunk·ing, de·bunks
To expose or ridicule the falseness, sham, or exaggerated claims of: debunk
a supposed miracle drug.

de·bunker n. Word History: One can readily see that debunk is constructed
from the prefix de-, meaning "to remove," and the word bunk. But what is
the origin of the word bunk, denoting the nonsense that is to be removed?
Bunk came from a place where much bunk has originated, the United States
Congress. During the 16th Congress (1819-1821) Felix Walker, a
representative from western North Carolina whose district included Buncombe
County, carried on with a dull speech in the face of protests by his
colleagues. Walker later explained he had felt obligated "to make a speech
for Buncombe." Such a masterful symbol for empty talk could not be ignored
by the speakers of the language, and Buncombe, spelled Bunkum in its first
recorded appearance in 1828 and later shortened to bunk, became synonymous
with claptrap. The response to all this bunk seems to have been delayed,
for debunk is not recorded until 1923.

Below is info taken from an online paper of mine in which I outline two
lines of debunking that I undertake in developing the Multiple Life Cycles
Education Policy.   The paper is entitled Toward a Multiple Life Cycles
Education Policy" and it is available on the www.nald.ca web site searched
in the library pages. The paper reviews nine lines of thinking and research
that establish the value of adult literacy education in providing multiple
returns to investments in adult literacy education, including the
improvement of the educational achievement of children. The first two
sections debunk mistaken ideas that are widely held and which hinder the
development of adequate resources for adult literacy education. The
remaining sections present evidence arguing for a greater investment in
adult literacy education as a means of improving family literacy by the
transfer of literacy from parents to their children.

1. Debunking Brain Development, IQ, and Early Childhood Education. Arguments
for early childhood education and against adult education are often based on
the growth of the brain and the development of intelligence in the early
years following birth. It has been frequently argued that adult literacy
education is too late and that we need to focus our efforts on early
childhood education when the brain is undergoing major developmental
changes. Brain science (neuroscience) is often cited to support this
position. In this section I review evidence suggesting that this is not a
sound argument.

2. Debunking Born to Lose: Low Aptitude, Genes, Low Intelligence, and Adult
Illiteracy. Claims have been made that poorly literate adults are
genetically inferior  to others and are unable to succeed in life. Here I
cite statements in the popular press arguing that adults with low literacy
skills are likely to be of low IQ and hence unable to achieve much benefit
from investments in their education. I then present evidence to counter
these types of claims.

Recently I posted a message on the NIFL professional development list
entitled Debunking Multiple Intelligences in which I questioned the
validity of the concept and its usefulness for adult education  It was then
really disappointing for me to read comments about Multiple Intelligences in
response to my message. Particularly troubling were the comments, quote" I
acknowledge Tom's  point about the dearth of empirical evidence about the
efficacy of using MI.  But isn't that true of virtually everything in adult
education?" end quote

First, it isn't that there is a dearth of empirical evidence about the
efficacy of MI, but rather that there is a plethora of critical evaluation
of the concepts of MI and research indicating that applying MI concepts in
the classroom has no effects on student learning. See comments at
http://www.illinoisloop.org/mi/html for extensive critiques of the lack of
scientific and educational merit of MI. You will even find comments by
Howard Gardner, whom I have known for some 30 years,  about his own lack of
faith in the educational applications of MI he has witnessed. He even notes
that he wasn't sure what to call the faculties he was talking about in
Frames of Mind, as he notes in this quote " I don't remember when it
happened but at a certain moment, I decided to call these faculties
"multiple intelligences" rather than abilities or gifts. This seemingly
minor lexical substitution proved very important; I am quite confident that
if I had written a book called "Seven Talents" it would not have received
the attention that Frames of Mind received." From this it is clear that the
concepts of MI are malformed. It isn't even clear what is being talked
about.

As one of the citations at the Illinoisloop web cite states, quote"
Reframing the Mind by Daniel T. Willingham, Education Next, Summer 2004. As
with so many curricular trends, educators have enthusiastically embraced
curricula based on Multiple Intelligences theory, even though to date, no
research support exists indicating that its use improves academic
achievement."

Finally on this first point, the Illinoisloop web page states that MI offers
quote:"a false sense that learning has taken place when it has not" 
 "As
science, then, there may be less to the theory of multiple intelligences
than many educators seem to believe. ... evidence for the specifics of
Gardner theory is weak, and there is no firm research showing that its
practical applications have been effective. ... The danger is that it leads
to wasted time, to an emphasis on less important skills and to a false sense
that learning has taken place when it has not. ... 'The discussion is all
hunch and opinion,' wrote George Miller, one of the founders of cognitive
psychology. ... The most common use of MI is to attack a topic from seven
directions to fit in all the intelligences. ... All these activities will
take up a lot of time, and they will teach children very little ..."

This is just a small sample of all the commentary and reports indicating the
lack of validity for MI as either a scientific theory or an educational
practice.

A second comment about the lack of empirical evidence for adult literacy
education quote " But isn't that true of virtually everything in adult
education?" end quote is far off the mark for a couple of reasons. First,
adult literacy educators have empirically demonstrated that they can
improve adult's literacy skills for over a hundred years, and there is much
standardized pre-post test evidence to support this claim. See, for
instance, the National Reporting System reports to Congress with regard to
movement of adults from one literacy level up to a more advanced level. All
this has been accomplished without reference to MI theory.

Also, I have been calling attention to Functional Context Education for a
quarter century and referencing the empirical, quasi-experimental,
treatment-comparison, "silver standard" research that supports the efficacy
of programs based on FCE over other types of programs. So there is an
empirical base for adult literacy education both from practitioners and
researchers.

The problem with ideas like MI, learning styles, brain-based learning, and
similar fads is that they try to gain adherents with the claim that this
will improve practice, such as increasing student learning achievement,
without providing any convincing evidence beyond "feel good" reports in
support of this claim.  This has the unfortunate effects of wasting very
limited professional development resources (time, money) when these
resources would be better spent on books and other materials, additional
teachers, and additional support services for students.

While I applaud  commitments to improving the professional preparation of
teachers and other educators of adults, I think it would be of greater
benefit to focus professional development on the proven techniques of
figuring out what to teach, how to teach, and how to confirm that learning
has taken place, and avoiding the pseudo-scientific fads of the moment.

Tom Sticht
Adult Literacy's One Man Bunco Squad