English teacher here (middle school thru college 100/200 levels): why? because the majority of students come into each of the grade levels I've just described not having the vocabulary, spelling, or basic grammar skills to be able to read those.
At the schools I've taught at over the last 25+ years, there has been about a level decline in reading/writing ability for each 5 year period -- that means the average college student today, coming into my 100 level course...can barely read/write at the 9th grade level of students 30 years ago. And some are worse than that -- more like can't read at the 5th grade level of students in the 80s.
This of couse means that they can't read the texts for history or science, nor write intelligible papers in the same. And then we can talk about math skills, which I believe are going the same way (at least without calculators) -- which means the science and tech classes have to be dumbed down...and on it goes to we are all here...fml.
Oml editing people’s papers in school was the most disappointing thing. Writing ended up being like my ace subject in college whether it was persuasive or technical, though I never had to take super advanced writing beyond some specialized writing courses for accounting. People would write incoherently or have absolutely zero structure to their paragraphs. Thoughts would spill everywhere and grammar was absolutely atrocious. People need to understand as well that wordiness ≠ good. It’s actually better for things to be concise unless it’s meant to be descriptive.
Yes, welcome to my world -- aka. 'this is the reason teacher smokes and drinks when she gets off work' (well, the smoking part; I don't really drink). Yes, I realize it is the education system that has done this: they've done it to students, to parents, to society, and they've done it to me, and I've been a part of it...fml.
I'm working on that with my jr. high level kid at the moment -- content? very good, even some advanced critical thinking skills are there. Ability to coherently paragraph and syntax? Not so much.
Same goes for math: she gets more advanced geometry and some basic physics theories and formulas (she understand how to do them, why we do them, and where she can get the information to do them)...but she's getting caught up by not being as solid with basic freaking math skills. I've had her start helping her autistic sister with math and grammar, because the autistic sister, whom the school basically has considered incapable of advanced learning, has had those basic skills drilled into her, so she's better than her older, normal sister at them. Hey, whatever works is my game.
I read a paper that a student dictated to his phone and printed out. He didn't correct anything including the misspelling of his own name!!!!! There was no punctuation so the whole page was one long sentance.
College athletes are even worse than English language learners. I guess because grammar is racist? Which believing that grammar is racist in itself is racist because people of color cannot learn basic grammar....? 🤔 I digress.
I taught both -- a lot of the ESL at college is taught by private companies (that's a whole other shady business but...). The international students have to reach a certain standard of English before they can get into the university. Sometimes the companies hire shit (although this tends to start a problem when said students' gov'ts. who paid for this start getting failed students back -- so sometimes the shit gets weeded out); often they get English teachers who have ran afoul of PC university or public schools -- many of them are very good at what they do...teaching actual English. Secondly, the incoming students have to learn grammar, vocabulary, spelling, reading/listening comprehension, and speaking/writing skills...to they get a lot of fundamentals that American students just don't get anymore. I've taught in the elementary schools as well: we don't teach basic grammar really: we don't teach sentence writing, we don't teach paragraph writing...it's straight to essays (7 year olds who can't spell that well; can't really compose a good sentence...writing 'essays"...fml). Use the computer, use grammar and spell check and yes, dictate to your phone...that's what a lot of teachers tell these kids to do (probably because some of the younger teachers can't do it either; and that's in the SBoE's curriculum guidelines: look them up, they're a trip!).
The college athletes are there to play a sport -- for that matter, non-athletes are there to fill chairs and give the college money. The colleges don't give a rat's ass if they learn anything or even graduate. Athletes just get to stay in school...if they're any good.
I know there has also been a debate for many years about not graduating, or moving to the next grade, students that don't pass. That really seems to be something that needs to be re-instituted.
It's been that way for the past 30 years. The issue today seems to be allowing students to stay in the class if they become violent -- because suspensions are, you guessed it: racist (and if they can't suspend one group of kids, then they really can't suspend any...or at least it's really hard so why do it?).
And I'm not just talking about public school -- there have been a growing number of incidents in college classrooms.
What went wrong?
We let socialists march through the institution -- some of these pedagogies had their formation nearly 100 years ago; they were just allowed to take hold and thrive. That does, however, tell you just how strong the institution of public education was (and American society as well): it has taken 100 years to bring it down...but, they did. I'd say it really picked up ramming speed in the late 90s/early 00s: the gov't. really let the floodgates loose at that time; at least for me, there was a marked uptick in oversight (prior I was allowed some latitude in creating my own syllabi) as well as a marked downtick in student abilities (we went from what I would consider a pretty basic, easily comprehended English 101 text to a text more suited for high school during that time frame; now, it's even worse -- students today cannot read the basic text that we had in 1998 -- they can't read it; their vocabulary skills and ability to read more than simple sentences isn't enough!). So the 20 somethings you see today are the first products of full blast education on socialism.
English teacher here (middle school thru college 100/200 levels): why? because the majority of students come into each of the grade levels I've just described not having the vocabulary, spelling, or basic grammar skills to be able to read those.
At the schools I've taught at over the last 25+ years, there has been about a level decline in reading/writing ability for each 5 year period -- that means the average college student today, coming into my 100 level course...can barely read/write at the 9th grade level of students 30 years ago. And some are worse than that -- more like can't read at the 5th grade level of students in the 80s.
This of couse means that they can't read the texts for history or science, nor write intelligible papers in the same. And then we can talk about math skills, which I believe are going the same way (at least without calculators) -- which means the science and tech classes have to be dumbed down...and on it goes to we are all here...fml.
Oml editing people’s papers in school was the most disappointing thing. Writing ended up being like my ace subject in college whether it was persuasive or technical, though I never had to take super advanced writing beyond some specialized writing courses for accounting. People would write incoherently or have absolutely zero structure to their paragraphs. Thoughts would spill everywhere and grammar was absolutely atrocious. People need to understand as well that wordiness ≠ good. It’s actually better for things to be concise unless it’s meant to be descriptive.
Yes, welcome to my world -- aka. 'this is the reason teacher smokes and drinks when she gets off work' (well, the smoking part; I don't really drink). Yes, I realize it is the education system that has done this: they've done it to students, to parents, to society, and they've done it to me, and I've been a part of it...fml.
I'm working on that with my jr. high level kid at the moment -- content? very good, even some advanced critical thinking skills are there. Ability to coherently paragraph and syntax? Not so much. Same goes for math: she gets more advanced geometry and some basic physics theories and formulas (she understand how to do them, why we do them, and where she can get the information to do them)...but she's getting caught up by not being as solid with basic freaking math skills. I've had her start helping her autistic sister with math and grammar, because the autistic sister, whom the school basically has considered incapable of advanced learning, has had those basic skills drilled into her, so she's better than her older, normal sister at them. Hey, whatever works is my game.
Brevity and clarity.
I read a paper that a student dictated to his phone and printed out. He didn't correct anything including the misspelling of his own name!!!!! There was no punctuation so the whole page was one long sentance.
College athletes are even worse than English language learners. I guess because grammar is racist? Which believing that grammar is racist in itself is racist because people of color cannot learn basic grammar....? 🤔 I digress.
I taught both -- a lot of the ESL at college is taught by private companies (that's a whole other shady business but...). The international students have to reach a certain standard of English before they can get into the university. Sometimes the companies hire shit (although this tends to start a problem when said students' gov'ts. who paid for this start getting failed students back -- so sometimes the shit gets weeded out); often they get English teachers who have ran afoul of PC university or public schools -- many of them are very good at what they do...teaching actual English. Secondly, the incoming students have to learn grammar, vocabulary, spelling, reading/listening comprehension, and speaking/writing skills...to they get a lot of fundamentals that American students just don't get anymore. I've taught in the elementary schools as well: we don't teach basic grammar really: we don't teach sentence writing, we don't teach paragraph writing...it's straight to essays (7 year olds who can't spell that well; can't really compose a good sentence...writing 'essays"...fml). Use the computer, use grammar and spell check and yes, dictate to your phone...that's what a lot of teachers tell these kids to do (probably because some of the younger teachers can't do it either; and that's in the SBoE's curriculum guidelines: look them up, they're a trip!).
The college athletes are there to play a sport -- for that matter, non-athletes are there to fill chairs and give the college money. The colleges don't give a rat's ass if they learn anything or even graduate. Athletes just get to stay in school...if they're any good.
I know there has also been a debate for many years about not graduating, or moving to the next grade, students that don't pass. That really seems to be something that needs to be re-instituted.
It's been that way for the past 30 years. The issue today seems to be allowing students to stay in the class if they become violent -- because suspensions are, you guessed it: racist (and if they can't suspend one group of kids, then they really can't suspend any...or at least it's really hard so why do it?). And I'm not just talking about public school -- there have been a growing number of incidents in college classrooms.
I noticed the same trend too. What had went wrong in your opinion?
It's kinda sad isn't it?
What went wrong? We let socialists march through the institution -- some of these pedagogies had their formation nearly 100 years ago; they were just allowed to take hold and thrive. That does, however, tell you just how strong the institution of public education was (and American society as well): it has taken 100 years to bring it down...but, they did. I'd say it really picked up ramming speed in the late 90s/early 00s: the gov't. really let the floodgates loose at that time; at least for me, there was a marked uptick in oversight (prior I was allowed some latitude in creating my own syllabi) as well as a marked downtick in student abilities (we went from what I would consider a pretty basic, easily comprehended English 101 text to a text more suited for high school during that time frame; now, it's even worse -- students today cannot read the basic text that we had in 1998 -- they can't read it; their vocabulary skills and ability to read more than simple sentences isn't enough!). So the 20 somethings you see today are the first products of full blast education on socialism.