I knew, of course, that the barking noise I heard on the other end of the phone that day had no possible legal bite, but I shut the blog down since I was leaving the country anyway. I needed some time to think.
On my trip, I reflected on the level of anger expressed in that hour on the phone. I had to admit that it got to me emotionally, and deeply. Why all the enmity? Why is the discussion around Krashen such an emotional one?
My purpose has never been to piss off educators but rather to open up a dialogue about the absolute importance of the input skills over the output skills, especially in the early years of a language program.
The principal’s phone call was not the first time I had gotten into a situation like that, although it was by far the ugliest. I truly never want to experience that level of pushback and antagonism again.