What's wrong?

In Monday's two readings, I was struck by a parallel between them which I realized also parallels most of the readings we've done for class. Both Hartwell and Shuy, as well as Durst, Zebroski and most of the other theorists we've read on the subject of pedagogy, agree that there's something fundamentally "wrong" with the way teaching currently works. From Hartwell's discussion of "dumb" theorists to Shuy's assertion that "it is widely recognized that the schools are not doing an adequate job of teaching literacy and language skills" (103), they all seem to be of the opinion that the system is currently flawed in numerous grievous ways; in fact, they never even posit this as a fundamental supposition for their work, assuming that the basic faultiness of the system is a truth taken for granted by their readers.

I will allow that English education as is has its share of flaws. I didn't learn a thing from my sophomore English teacher in high school, I avoided taking senior English in my high school by substituting in college courses, and I had a few other gripes along the way with how certain classes were structured. Nevertheless, I did manage to learn English and even become (relatively) successful at it.

I am curious as to whether broad, sweeping assertions of the inadequacy of the status quo in education are really necessary and positive moves that should be taken as such or if they simply represent a general urge to feel as if we're making "progress" in academia. After all, nobody wants to say we're teaching the same way now that we taught fifty years ago. The very idea feels so non-progressive. All the theorists we've read make good points about how classrooms could become more interactive, more social, more true to what students will actually experience. But I feel like someone should speak up on behalf of the status quo. Hooray, status quo!

Shuy says "For reasons unclear and almost incomprehensible, we have developed a tradition of teaching reading, writing and foreign language which goes in just the opposite direction (compared to his concept of how we learn)--from surface to deep, from form to function, from part to whole" (107). The way he puts this idea, it sounds bad. But what if it works? What if not everyone learns the same way in every situation? Doesn't there have to be some reason that things developed the way they did, beyond just "reasons unclear and incomprehensible"?