Whole Language: What's New?.

More and more educators are warming to a new idea in education?Whole Lan guage. Wherever we go, we hear state ments which support Whole Language at the same time as they reveal questions or outright confusions about it. So while we are delighted with the increasing popularity, we wonder what it is that is popular: the idea of Whole Language? The label? Innovation per se? Educational innovations have not fared well in the United States. Open Education was a recent casualty. It was widely distorted so that open space was substituted for openness of ideas, learning centers for learning-centered ness. The final irony is that it was judged a failure even though (because of the distortions) it was never imple mented on any broad scale (a few ex ceptions still exist ?e.g., Prospect School in Vermont, Central Park East in New York City, and scattered class rooms elsewhere). Whole Language is too good an idea to suffer such a fate. Widespread un derstanding of the substance, rather than widespread adoption of the label might be one way to prevent this possi bility. Though Goodman's monograph, What's Whole in Whole Language (1986), will certainly help, we see a need to address the specific points of confusion and particular questions we are frequently asked about Whole Lan guage. But first a brief description.