Balance of C: A Reaction to Boring Drills

The whole language movement was a reaction to what was seen as a contextualized and potentially boring looking drills where teachers say this is a everyone say a. Why do you think it is that so many balancer C experts are afraid of encouraging us to do anything out of context? I really think it was an honest attempt by whole language and balance literacy advocates to say what there's more to reading than just sitting there and drilling. It doesn't feel as nice as sitting together and sitting in a circle and reading a book together and making meaning.