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Ever since I started teaching, we had high school teachers blaming elementary school teachers for the poor performance of their students and college teachers blaming high school teachers for the quality of their students. Now, business are blaming colleges for not focusing on what matters. Funny, how that works.
"With Gen X and Gen Y, because everything is shorthand and text, the ability to communicate effectively is challenged," he said. "You see it in the business world, whether with existing employees or job candidates looking for work."
Others say colleges aren't doing a good job. In a survey of 318 employers published earlier this year by the Association of American Colleges and Universities and conducted by Hart Research Associates, 80 percent said colleges should focus more on written and oral communication.
Perhaps colleges should institute a thesis system for undergraduates: a required dissertation with an oral defense for every major.
Perhaps even high schools should demand something similar: a written research paper of significant length followed by a round table discussion with a group of faculty members (and perhaps businessmen from the community.)
In the oral defense or discussion, use of the word like or the phrase you know would mean failure to graduate.
There were two issues in the article. Using informal language was the first, but, more importantly, being able to effectively convey ideas was the other.
I don't know any English teachers that allow text speak or shorthand in their classes. Even as a math teacher, when my students were writing, they had to adhere to basic, accepted writing conventions - and they did.
The first issue affects the second in that students are so used to shortcuts that they are overly brief and don't see an issue with that. I can't speak from the perspective of an employer like T Rowe Price. It's hard to believe that students who have the, supposed, finest education are in the group of employees that cannot effectively write down their thoughts. A lot of specific information was left out and I really couldn't get a good read as to what degree the problem is pervasive. Just because a kid's parents juiced them into the finest schools doesn't mean he or she took advantage of the opportunities that were put in front of them. Paris Hilton comes to mind. All the resources her parents have at their disposal and they can't get her to graduate high school. (Doesn't really matter, I suppose. She has enough money that being ignorant is not going to be an obstacle.)
I have seen the office manager at my school send out official memos with text speak interjected here and there. Evidently, my own principal didn't have an issue with it because it never did stop.
Well the grade school and high school teachers never supplied anything interesting to read. We are supposed to communicate with other kids about sports.
Well the grade school and high school teachers never supplied anything interesting to read. We are supposed to communicate with other kids about sports.
But that would help show how much BS employers are talking. LOL
psik
When I was in high school and college, I supplied my own interesting reading material. The libraries are free. As a last resort, I read the encyclopedia if I finished my library books. We could only take out six books at a time from my hometown library, and my mother rationed me to one trip per week.
It is not unreasonable to expect an employee to be able to write an organized, readable paragraph and to be able to carry on an intelligible conversation. If you cannot do that with a college degree, you are still uneducated. Usually, it is a result of lack of effort on the part of the student, not poor teaching.
Perhaps colleges should institute a thesis system for undergraduates: a required dissertation with an oral defense for every major.
Perhaps even high schools should demand something similar: a written research paper of significant length followed by a round table discussion with a group of faculty members (and perhaps businessmen from the community.)
In the oral defense or discussion, use of the word like or the phrase you know would mean failure to graduate.
The problem with writing is it's too easy to google, cut, paste and shake and kids think this is actually original work. I have resorted to not allowing computers for lab report outlines. I make my kids bring in 4 printed sources then highlight the parts they want to use in class and submit a hand written outline for their papers before leaving class that day - no computers allowed. It's the only way I've come up with to get them to actually read the sources they quote and think about what they write.
I used to give a day in the computer lab for report write ups but that just gets me 60% plagiarism and they cry foul when I tell them it's plagiarism because as far as they are concerned they looked it up and picked the passages to put in the paper...
I'm trying to push my kids back to what I did when I wrote in high school. I remember going to the library and reading 10 or so articles so I could pick the 3 or 4 I was going to use. By the time I had read that much on my topic, I could write the paper without even using the sources. I just had to be careful not to accidentally quote without putting something in quotation marks. I swear when my kids use computers they do not read the entire text. They scan for key words then cut and past. Then they rearrange the text and use a thesaurus to change every 5th word to avoid being zinged by a plagiarism checker. I get some hilarious papers this way. It's kind of like the telephone game we used to play in school where one person whispers something in one person's ear and they repeat it person to person until you get to the end and the last person's statement is nothing like the original statement.
The only way I can think to fix this is to eliminate computer use for writing and force kids to write in class while supervised. It's just too easy to cut, paste, shake and edit without ever having actually read the paper you "wrote".
Last edited by Ivorytickler; 01-02-2014 at 03:34 PM..
When I was in high school and college, I supplied my own interesting reading material. The libraries are free. As a last resort, I read the encyclopedia if I finished my library books. We could only take out six books at a time from my hometown library, and my mother rationed me to one trip per week.
It is not unreasonable to expect an employee to be able to write an organized, readable paragraph and to be able to carry on an intelligible conversation. If you cannot do that with a college degree, you are still uneducated. Usually, it is a result of lack of effort on the part of the student, not poor teaching.
My mom used to dump the lot of us at the library on Saturday afternoons. I did a lot of reading when I was a kid. She also had the sense to realize that the expensive encyclopedias she bought were worthless if not used and didn't care if got into them. I used to do silly things like attempt to build a cat maze with them (cats don't do mazes ) but I'd read things as books fell open.
I don't know why some people think they need to be told what to read. There is so much out there if you just look.
Along with many other quotes from scientists from history, I have an original quote on my wall from myself:
" 'Like' is the the stupid person's comma."
When a student starts speaking with an multiple sentence explanation, I hold up my hand - somewhat casually - in front of my chest. A finger goes up for each time they use the word "like" incorrectly. They quickly see this and gradually start to think about what they are trying to say without using the word. The self-conscious ones even start using other synonyms for the proper use of "like".
Trying to change their written use of it is much more difficult, but counting off for it sure does make the ones who care about their grades think twice.
When I was in high school and college, I supplied my own interesting reading material. The libraries are free. As a last resort, I read the encyclopedia if I finished my library books. We could only take out six books at a time from my hometown library, and my mother rationed me to one trip per week.
It is not unreasonable to expect an employee to be able to write an organized, readable paragraph and to be able to carry on an intelligible conversation. If you cannot do that with a college degree, you are still uneducated. Usually, it is a result of lack of effort on the part of the student, not poor teaching.
When I was in second grade I always finished the assignments ahead of the other kids. As I was sitting looking bored one day, the teacher told me to read a book. I eventually read all the available books in the classroom. My third grade class was similar but the teacher had a closet filled with books. I remember reading a biography of Adolf Hitler that year. I don't remember if it was 3rd or 4th grade when I started reading encyclopedias, but I had read many of the articles in the World Book and Enclopedia Britannica by the time I had finished 6th grade.
While I developed good reading skills and a love of reading, my elementary school experience points out some of the problems with schools. I was never challenged in elementary school and had to find something to do to occupy my time while the other kids struggled with the assignments. Even when I was resorting to reading the enclopedias, my teachers never suggested other books or made them available to me. I don't think I ever read a book at that time that was considered a classic.
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) but I'd read things as books fell open. 
