Aus/Canada: 'Arrowsmith: the triumph of marketing over research' by Alison Clarke of Spelfabet

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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Aus/Canada: 'Arrowsmith: the triumph of marketing over research' by Alison Clarke of Spelfabet

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

Alison Clarke is a leading pioneer and speech pathologist and an exceptional blogger. Her hard work and generosity knows no bounds.

Incensed by further promotion of the Arrowsmith programme in Australia, Alison has written this post and also handed out a pdf version of her concerns outside Barbara Arrowsmith-Young's talk in Moorabbin! Now that is pioneering at its most challenging!
Arrowsmith: the triumph of marketing over science
https://www.spelfabet.com.au/2020/02/ar ... r-science/
Barbara Arrowsmith-Young is back touring Australia, promoting her controversial Arrowsmith program to parents and teachers of children with learning difficulties.

Oxford Psychology Professor and all-round legend Dorothy Bishop succinctly summarised informed professional thought on this program a couple of years ago in this tweet:
Look what we are up against when it comes to alerting parents and those in the teaching profession:
The Australian media has been shockingly credulous in its reports about Arrowsmith, with even experienced journalists falling hook, line and sinker for its marketing narrative, sending the ABC’s Media Watch host’s eyebrows through the roof in 2017.

Australian politicians have also tended to suspend their critical faculties in the face of Arrowsmith marketing, with everyone from local MP Nick Staikos to Education Minister James Merlino to Premier Daniel Andrews lending it support and credibility. When I last hassled Nick Staikos about this, he said the government is funding the BUILDING in which the Arrowsmith program runs, not the PROGRAM itself. Somehow he thinks it’s OK to do this with my taxes.

As a staunch supporter of trade unions, I was horrified in 2017 to see the Australian Education Union lending Arrowsmith-Young credibility. This year my Appallometer has gone into overdrive because my favourite bookseller is giving her a platform:
Alison Clarke is truly brave and conscientious providing a model for us all for going the furthest mile.
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