For centuries, we have succeeded in providing children with knowledge, basic for producing literacy, cultural and literal. We must return to those methods that achieved this goal. Content areas were traditionally referred to as disciplines because they trained a student to think and reason, not merely challenge and argue. It takes drill and repetition of phonics charts, drill in applying rules to new words in stories that they read from books with high quality literature from stories that are examples of quality writing that move and inspire children. The idea that education must be relevant should be delegated to the trash heap.
Relevance limits children to confines of their current condition.
Great literature opens windows of hope and potential. Behaviorists would recognize the concept that a disciplined mind would produce a disciplined child. Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers two of the major behavioral psychologists of the Twentieth Century recognized the effects of their theories in the classrooms of America. Their associate Dr. William Coulson now travels the country attempting to undo some of the damage they acknowledged was occurring before their deaths. The therapeutic classroom failed.