When Suzanne Kail, an English teacher at a public high school in
Magnolia, Ohio, was told that she would be required to teach her
students Latin and Greek word roots, she groaned and rolled her
eyes. Kail believes in a progressive approach to education, in
which active engagement in meaningful learning is paramount. In
an account of her experience in the English Journal, she wrote,
“asking students to do rote memorization was the antithesis of
what I believed in most.” Still, her department head insisted on
it, so Kail went forward with the attitude, “I’ll do it, but I
won’t like it.” She was sure her students wouldn’t like it,
either. Kail was in for a surprise — as is anyone who takes a
look at a raft of recent studies supporting the effectiveness of
“old school” methods like memorizing math facts, reading aloud,
practicing handwriting and teaching argumentation (activities
that once went by the names drill, recitation, penmanship and
rhetoric). While the education world is all abuzz about so-
called 21st ce