Thursday, January 13, 2011

Whole Brain Teaching for Profit

The Whole Brain Teaching Company is now promoting a series of 7 Web Seminars, for a mere $4.95 each. They promise:

The beauty of our web seminars is that each program focuses on one, use-it-on-Monday, teaching technique. We guarantee you won’t be overwhelmed.

Well, of course you won't be overwhelmed, considering that Whole Brain is all about taking one simple idea and beating it to death. You certainly won't be overwhelmed by complex, subtle thinking with this crowd. No worries there!

In spite of the money they're now charging, under Whole Brain Teachers of America, we see this:

Whole Brain Teachers of America is a grass roots, education reform movement...

All of our seminars and downloads are free. Whole Brain Teaching is a movement, not a business.


Time for a rewrite, Biffle!

12 comments:

  1. Back in 07 they flopped miserably at selling their ebook, but they did try. See this post on Teachers.net
    Biffle has always charged school districts for Power Teaching workshops.



    ----------------------------------------------
    The Crazy professor Reading Game

    Posted by on line E book on 8/22/07

    More | Report Post

    HAVE YOU HEARD about thisamazing E-Book called "The Crazy
    Professor Reading Game." It is the current featured product
    on our website: www.PowerTeachers.org (Our organization is
    so committed to making this accessible to all, that we sell
    if for only $3.00!)

    This innovative method of strengthening students'
    comprehension and thinking skills through peer interaction
    involves listening, paraphrasing, questioning and making
    connections. It emphasizes gesturing and is presented as a
    game. Students believe they are playing, when in fact, they
    are practicing comprehension strategies that use higher
    order thinking skills.

    Current research supports the use of gesturing. David
    McNeil, a professor emeritus of psychology and linguistics
    at the University of Chicago have [has] shown that
    gesturing reinforces concepts, recall, and comprehension.
    This is especially helpful for English Language Learners.
    There is much literature supporting all aspects of "The
    Crazy Professor."

    Check out the website for testimonials, free demo videos
    and more info

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm curious as to whether the Biffloid will make money off this scheme. It's not like the ideas behind WBT are so intricate that you need a seminar. If you've managed to watch one of their videos without passing out, you've pretty much seen what there is to see.

    ReplyDelete
  3. So, at the bottom of this link:

    TEACHING SUPPLIES: The Crazy Professor Reading Game

    there's another link:

    Power Teaching

    If you click on the link, it goes to a German porn site! Ha!

    ReplyDelete
  4. The other thing I noticed about the Whole Brain website is that Biffle and Rekstad are now described as "co-founders of Whole Brain Teaching".

    If you do a search for "Vanderfin" on the site, it comes up empty. Remember Jay Vanderfin? He used to be one of the co-founders of WBT.

    Chris Biffle is like one of those Egyptian pharoahs who would have his enemies' names chiseled off the statuary.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Maybe someone was calling Bulls@#t and they got "erased" just like the comments on youtube. Nah, that kind of stuff doesn't happen over there.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Biffle has always made a little scratch from Power Teaching then Whole Brain Teaching. It was not a business to his students who worked for free and were participants in his commercials. It was not a paying business for the numerous other teachers and public school students in his commercials. It wasn't a paying business for his guerrilla marketeers for years on proteacher.net, until Jeff Battle got thrown off that board, a to z teacher forums, and other networking sites.
    Naw, not a business for them, more like a cult.

    They busy themselves being a blessing to Biffle. They reach into their own pockets time and time again to glorify their Dear Teacher Biffle, and WBT. It's a pyramid scheme elementary teacher style....I imagine they hope eventually their energy and devotion will pay off and some of that glory and power will trickle down to them...and maybe some of it will.

    ....Take WBT teacher Deb Weigel for example, she's attended every conference in the southwest lately.. even when it's the same subject matter as the one she attended the week before, she's using her students in videos for Biffle, she's all over their message boards with her blessings. In a speech she describes herself as "Called To Be Horton" as in the elephant who hatches an egg when the negligent bird mother flies off. The title alone reminds me of Weird Al Yankovic's "Dare To Be Stupid" ... During that same speech she also asked the audience of teachers if they had ever "laid down their life for a student?"

    Mrs. Weigel, wouldn't that make them dead? Do dead teachers commonly attend award ceremonies in Yuma?

    She's a WBT up and comer for sure.

    A decade of using his classes as labs for Biffle, wrote and copyrighted some of those early Power Teaching ebooks,...Ask Jay Vanderfin how that all shook out for him.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I've known Jay for a while. We talk now and again about a lot about things, except I can't get him to say a word, good or bad, about Whole Brain Teaching. Nothing, not a single syllable word. When I ask him how things are going, he only says he's as happy as he's ever been and his creativity has never been higher, so take that for what it's worth. I take his silence as everything stated in this blog seems to be right on.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous, if you get a chance, tell Jay we'd be happy to hear from him on this blog.

    ReplyDelete
  9. FedUpMom,
    I told him about your blog and some of the topics. Jay kind of laughed and said he'd actually read it before; I guess someone else got to him before me. I told him to come on and give his point of view, but he just commented that he's moved on and wants to focus on the future and not worry about the past.

    I'll keep trying, but he's pretty set on being positive about the whole thing, which isn't surprising if you know him. From my point of view, something went down, but I don't know exactly what. All I can say is that what ever it was, I'm happy it did. Everything on this blog and a few others I read do not depict my friend or his character, so I'm glad to see he's no longer associated with something that is viewed the way it is.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The workshop in Joplin, Missouri is 50 bucks a head (but lunch is included). All of our seminars and downloads are free. Whole Brain Teaching is a movement, not a business.

    Maybe I'm stupid, but 50 dollars sounds like a buisness to me. Maybe I'm not using my Whole Brain to understand.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Suburban Chicken FarmerJanuary 20, 2011 at 4:10 PM

    lol, must be live Maine lobster flown in.



    Pointing out Dear Teacher's fibsy-wibsies is a rule five violation.Pull a practice card on yourself tout de suite. Repeat rule five until you believe or profess to believe fifty bucks is the same as free.

    ReplyDelete