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First of all, I'm not a teacher basher. I used to be a teacher.
But I am one of many who are wondering what is being taught, if anything. I first noticed back in the '80s that college students would hand in essays that were hard to decipher due to the extremely poor writing. It's only gone down hill since then.
There's an entire forum on CD about writing and it contains a thread called "I can't take it anymore." That thread is a place where people can vent about what they have seen--such as "doggy dog world", "for all intensive purposes", "whoa is me", "would of". "He gave it to she and I."
I was never that great at writing but compared to what we see today I might go to the head to the head of the class. I know we all make typos and we all have our problems with spelling or grammar; few of us are perfect.
A lot of people are fed up with trying to understand what other people are writing. Here's part of a list I came across that demonstrates the frustration of trying to translate the writing that is so common today:
Your-it belongs to you
You're-you are
There-a place
Their-it belongs to them
They're-they are
(etc.)
Why should the reader have to struggle and translate such sloppy writing? Why can't the WRITER take on the burden of making himself understood instead of dumping it on the reader? Why is anyone who corrects these writers called a Grammar Nazi? How can a reader place much credibility on the opinion of someone who writes this way?
Yes, I wonder about all these questions and I wonder what is being taught today. I also wonder if anyone even cares anymore. It's not simply due to texting as it was happening long before that. Are schools no longer encouraged to teach kids how to write? Is much time spent on teaching language?
I see poor grammar and spelling everywhere; on beautiful personal and business web pages, in newspapers, in books, etc. Years ago, I flubbed my way through grammar classes in elementary school, (verbs, nouns,etc) and my spelling and grammar aren't perfect, but I can make a fairly decent sentence/paragraph.
I just don't get it, and it drives me crazy to see how our English language is being slaughtered. Very few people seem to care.
One mistake that is common, both written and spoken in my area is "I seen". What is so hard about saying "I saw"?
Your-it belongs to you
You're-you are
There-a place
Their-it belongs to them
They're-they are
(etc.)
Grammar definitely is not my strong suit but the kids over the last 15-20 years seem to have gone down hill in that arena. My particular pet peeve is people treating "then" and "than" as if they are the same word.
I suppose I'd rather eat broccoli than dog poop.
I suppose I'd rather eat broccoli then dog poop.
First of all, I'm not a teacher basher. I used to be a teacher.
<snipped>
There's an entire forum on CD about writing and it contains a thread called "I can't take it anymore." That thread is a place where people can vent about what they have seen--such as "doggy dog world", "for all intensive purposes", "whoa is me", "would of". "He gave it to she and I."
<snipped>
Occasionally, someone will come to said thread and vent as to how unimportant the mistakes are that are found and posted. They are same as those who are so certain children must be prevented from being embarrassed or burdened with anything that lessens their self-esteem. Sometimes the defense of mistakes is a perfect demonstration of what's wrong in the first place.
First of all, I'm not a teacher basher. I used to be a teacher.
But I am one of many who are wondering what is being taught, if anything.
...
A lot of people are fed up with trying to understand what other people are writing.
...
Why should the reader have to struggle and translate such sloppy writing? Why can't the WRITER take on the burden of making himself understood instead of dumping it on the reader? Why is anyone who corrects these writers called a Grammar Nazi? How can a reader place much credibility on the opinion of someone who writes this way?
[quote=gouligann;31964643]I couldn't agree more.
I see poor grammar and spelling everywhere; on beautiful personal and business web pages, in newspapers, in books, etc.
I just don't get it, and it drives me crazy to see how our English language is being slaughtered. Very few people seem to care.
[quote]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Oldhag1
My particular pet peeve is people treating "then" and "than" as if they are the same word.
I suppose I'd rather eat broccoli than dog poop.
I suppose I'd rather eat broccoli then dog poop.
Way different thing.
Salient points, all. Decades ago, the prominent publisher, Alfred Knopf, stated that the writers of the day could not produce clean, coherent sentences. That was a paraphrase of the actual quote, but it appears that this trend has started way before many of us realize.
One thing I noticed about the first three posters is that all have admitted to not being scholars of grammar and punctuation, but all can write with absolute clarity. May I suggest that many of today's "creative" writers carry a defensive attitude about being corrected when they write gibberish. I would imagine that teachers are simply tired of trying to constantly correct, and in turn get bashed, by the students or their parents for making an effort to guide the student in proper usage.
I could not be a teacher today. My hat is off to all who are.
Occasionally, someone will come to said thread and vent as to how unimportant the mistakes are that are found and posted. They are same as those who are so certain children must be prevented from being embarrassed or burdened with anything that lessens their self-esteem. Sometimes the defense of mistakes is a perfect demonstration of what's wrong in the first place.
I must have been writing when you posted this, since I would have included this in my quotes. Again, this is an important point, and probably the one that is at the heart of the matter. I don't think that one must be embarrassed in order to learn, but too many young people take it that way. I am not a psychiatrist, but this theory certainly seems to be what gets in the way of actual learning these days.
Grammar is not taught, but spelling is. However, most of the standardized tests don't test those things, or at least not as much as other, more difficult things, so no one teaches it much. I don't really think the quality of writing has gone down so much as we are seeing the writing of people who we never would have communicated with before. The internet allows everyone to share their writing, after all. Also, people are going to college today who would never have gone in the past and probably shouldn't be going now, but since we all have to be equal I guess everyone has to do everything the same, including that.
As for the idea that nothing is taught because no one can ever be corrected for fear of harming self-esteem, I don't think that is the problem. A good teacher knows how to point out mistakes without making a student feel bad about it - many teachers actually work hard to point out that mistakes are how we learn and it is OK to make them.
Only in a few misguided cases - mostly "reforms" and "fads" in literacy, have I seen teachers stop correcting at all, but that's not about self esteem. It's the over-influence of certain people in education, who dictate how everyone else should teach, and the resulting "robot" status that forces many teachers to follow some program to the letter instead of using common sense. Like for example the journal-writing craze that had students writing in journals for 30 minutes a day about some personal topic, and then the teacher would have to "write back" to each student (theory made this sound like writing nirvana). Of course, she couldn't correct, because that would disrupt the zen of the whole writing relationship which was so powerful and blah blah. So teachers spent hours a day writing back to individual journal entries (inevitably something like - I like soccer I like to play soccer it's my favorite sport), and that took up all the writing and correcting time, so there was just no time left for anything else. But if you didn't do it, you were a "bad" teacher. Then a few years later, we were all told we were bad teachers if we were "journaling," and we needed to mini-conference instead.
And god forbid if anyone ever tried to use common sense (not to mention all those graduate education classes) and do something different - you weren't allowed to stop doing something dumb until some expert somewhere officially said it was dumb and then the principal of the school adopted a new fad for you to follow. This is why I laugh whenever people suggest that we need brighter, more educated people to go into teaching; bright, educated people don't last in public school.
I went to private school during my elementary years. It was a 12:1 ratio, so that may be why I get it. My brother, who went to public elementary school knows when there are grammatical errors, and will correct you in a heartbeat.
This also might be due to the fact that my parents forced us to read for 30 min. every night. Every Friday we went to the library to get books for the week. We weren't allowed to watch TV during the week, unless we had a favorite show that was coming on.
I must have been writing when you posted this, since I would have included this in my quotes. Again, this is an important point, and probably the one that is at the heart of the matter. I don't think that one must be embarrassed in order to learn, but too many young people take it that way. I am not a psychiatrist, but this theory certainly seems to be what gets in the way of actual learning these days.
I went to school when self-esteem was barely mentioned, much less elevated to high status. No one cared if I were embarrassed. No one. No one cared if my self-esteem was ground to a nub. I once heard a man say he went to college when college was hard. So did I. No one cared if I stayed or left. The more they didn't care, the harder I worked, or maybe I would have done that anyway. I don't know.
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or not.
