Longtime Educator Says U.S Education Guilty of Majoring in the Minors

Jim Britt’s teaching career has spanned several decades, and through it all, one constant has been teaching at a detention facility in Austin, Texas. Over the past 27 years, Jim has witnessed far too many kids suffering from underexposure to learning language concepts because of their life difficulties. In fact, he says many of them told him being in lockup was the first time they had read through an entire book. They represent intelligent people who have missed out on educational opportunities.

Part One of a Two-Part Interview

Focusing on Fundamentals

Jim is an experienced English language learner (ELL) trainer and realized the same techniques used to teach English to ELL students could be applied to native speakers who were struggling because of an underexposure to proper schooling. Some tools and techniques are fundamental to learning, and Jim thinks in the U.S., we are ignoring those fundamentals far too often.

He calls this problem “majoring in the minors,” where education is focusing on test scores and not teaching basics, like diagramming sentences. He also thinks we often ignore the social and emotional needs of our kids in school.

“The key is to focus on the individual learner,” he says. “That’s one of the things that I learned from the detention center. While students might have similar gaps in their learning, they all have the same kind of emotional gap that they’ve experienced. And if we can fill in the social and emotional piece as well as the learning piece, I think we’ll set them on a path that’s going to help them truly develop to their potential. If we just try to teach them the grammar piece without the social and emotional impact that comes with feeling like you belong somewhere, then, it’s just going to be really tough.”

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