Abra, that's what I was after and who better to confirm the legitimacy
of my concerns than one who has been in the system from a teachers point
of view. I, like you have fought the system since I was in high
school. I even tried to volunteer at my old high school when I was in my
20's to teach a revelant life course relating to general finances,
banking, cost of living and so on.
Heck most of the kids I went to school with still never had a checking
account in their 20's. However, the school board would not allow it,
not even when I got a teacher to agree to 'oversee' the class and it's
cirriculum.

I agree with what you say on so many levels. I have always believed
that if you can keep the interest of a kid, you can teach them almost
anything. Keep their interest, by teaching them what they want to know.
If they read what they are interested in, they are still reading, they
are still seeing the english language written correctly. So they take a
vocabulary test, including spelling and definition base on the reading
they did about the subject they were interested in. What's wrong with
that?

As a kid grows and if that kid is learning along the way, I guarantee
that they will find other interests too. A kid who loves race cars,
have them build one. Teach them math by and cost and about junk yards
at the same time. So what's wrong with teaching life's lessons.

What's wrong with teaching card games, where stradegy and math and
memory are involved? What ever happened to the debate team. What's
wrong with teaching a kid public speaking by having them debate a topic
they are passionate about or better yet, make them oppose the topic they
are in favor of and then write about what they learned in doing so.

I so agree with Abra that we are way too structured. There is way too
much to learn these days to spend 12 years figuring out the basics of
language, history, geology, geography, bla,bla,bla. Technology is
racing on. If I have been in the workforce for 35 years and viably
employeed, why do I suddenly in the last few years not have marketable
skills? If a kid graduates high school today, with less knowledge than
I had 30 years ago, where are they going in life?

My point of view, we definately need to make some changes. Anyone else
have ideas, suggestions? Maybe we can all come up with an idea and how
to get the ball rolling with it?

Greetings, everyone!

Taxes and flu over.....My reward is coming back to this enticing thread.
Of course, I had to dig for it!

Your postings raised many thoughts and questions. I'll try and catch up.

1. The most fundamental thing is that of the role of language itself. It
is not only about 'communicating', it is also about 'thinking.'

It is my sense that without words for a thing we cannot really think
about the thing. (I am a cautious Whorfian, in this respect.) Thus when
I teach people things, the first thing I have to do is ensure they have
the requisite vocabulary to be able to simply understand the
distinctions I am going to make. Without the vocabulary, a person is
going to struggle to understand the thing.

I will suggest that someone with a larger requisite vocabulary will,
everything else being equal, be able to think better than someone
without it.

2. Learning and teaching.

Somewhere along the way, much of our educational establishment in the US
seems to have lost its way. Education came to be about raising the
self-esteem of students, self-expression, and entertainment. being a
'boring' teacher' came to be viewed as the kiss of death: all a student
had to do was inform his parents that his class was boring and the
parents would leap to the conclusion that their child was 'too
brilliant' for the class.

Abra suggested that education could be both fun and interesting: agreed.
But I will also suggest that even if it is not that students can learn
and that it is in their self-interest to ensure that they do learn,
whether the class is fun or not.

There is no doubt that we can teach better, but in the meantime, it is
vital that students learn how to learn better, for it is THEIR futures
that are at stake.

I have hired many people over the last decades, and nothing eliminates
someone faster or easier from being considered for a job that
inarticulateness, or verbal and written laziness.

While we can easily lament trends in general education, it is also true
that at least in some school districts the opportunities for a
first-class education have never been greater. I see kids everyday who
are doing extremely well, with well-conceived projects, careful thought
about the world, eloquent writing, high scores on a variety of
examinations, competence in handling themselves in the world. It is a
joy to see these kids, and I can only wonder why more kids aren't
following their paths. I know that many students are simply discouraged.
They have reached somehow the conclusion that they 'can't make it', and
so have given up. A few of these have embraced a willful ignorance --
perhaps it is to some of these that Abra points? -- and sullen defiance
of the social hoops that they know lie ahead.

(continued)



Oceans

I agree that literacy on the whole is not what it used to be. I'm also
unhappy with the use of crude language in public. You are free to say
what you wish I guess but what's wrong with having manners?

3. Communication.
Language has been evolving since the first moment a human being
associated an idea with an articulated sound. 'Thunnnnder!' 'Ouuuuuch!'
'Kick!'

As vocabulary became large enough for common usage, it also became
natural to think that if it were codified people would be able to
communicate with greater precision. Dictionaries! Encyclopedias! And the
ultimate in Orderly Language: Academies of language, dedicated to the
purity of the language (L'Academie Francaise, to name one.)

But these efforts at order ran up against a couple of irresistible
counter-currents: regional differences, and emergent social and
technological vocabulary. Too often the forces of Orderly Language ran
into popular evolution of language. Some formalizations of language
became obsolete: regional popularization and the needs of new
developments in society were unstoppable.

These trends have taken wing in the last 100 years in the West as
invention and academic discovery have led to the creation of a
vocabulary that has become essential for any educated person who seeks
to understand emerging understandings of how the world works. I see no
end to this: education has become a life-long process and necessity.
Personally, I love this, but I can understand why some resent it; having
put their time is, as they see it, in school, they feel that now they
should be able to make do with what they learned there, without further
intellectual exertion. But this is not the way the world is....

Separately but at the same time, we see the growth, if I understand it
correctly, of regional trends in language. I include in this the marking
out of language territory by sub-groups. They develop and use a
specialized vocabulary in order to mark out their distinctiveness, to
make themselves something of an in-crowd, elevated above others because
others are not in on the initiate language. Gangs, rap, teeny-bopper
talk are obvious examples of this.

But we also have bureaucrats trying to give themselves special status by
using an insider's language. For example, I was struck by the Attorney
General of the US using what can best be characterized as bureaucratese
yesterday in his testimony before Congress: He didn't know about
something, he said, because the didn't have 'transparency' into the
matter. 'Transparency'! The worrisome thing is that no one (at least as
far as the reporters went), laughed at him, and all pretended that this
was acceptable use of language.

Perhaps the most dramatic example of language used to differentiate
groups is that of English speakers: generally, we assume that because we
dominate in global business and science that it is the job of the rest
of the world to learn English, 'if they want to keep up.' Indeed, there
are occasional plaints by some that they shouldn't have to learn foriegn
languages -- a common worry expressed by those who oppose immigration to
the US and the growing bi-lingualization of places like California.

4. The Value of Linguistic Diversity
Going back to the first thought I offered: language precedes thought.
Different languages capture different ways of thinking; a simple way to
enlarge the ways of thinks -- and therefore the variety of things we are
able to think about intelligently -- is to learn a variety of languages.

Must learning languages be difficult? I don't think so, and my guess is
that the more languages one learns the easier becomes learning the next
one.....

Can we create a culture in which linguistic diversity is a highly-prized
norm? If not, those societies that do hold this value are sure to
overtake ours.

What does everybody think???



Oceans

there is a book I've read a couple times over the years called Earth
Abides..
The main character goes camping in the mountains and gets bit by a snake
and goes into a coma for a while but survives..comes down out of the Mts
and the earth has been swept by a quick moving virus that has wiped out
90% of the population or something..the book follows the survivors as
they
try to reclaim social structure..
at the end of the book he is lying on a hillside..dying..he thinks he
may be 100
years old...and he is watching the children from the survivors..they are
playing a
game in a field that kind of resembles football.but different..and they
speak a
language that is kind of like english..but not quite..and they are
writing in symbols
as a form of shortcut to english...and he thinks that really the only
thing that
remains unchanged is the earth itself...it abides while the rest morphs
into other
things...
great book...written in the 40's I think....

davinici, thanks, always lookin for another good book to read.
Somethines, especially in science fiction, I find the older books offer
so much more depth and clarity of thought. So clear and so well thought
out were these books that, In fact, a great deal of current technology
consists of words that were 'made up' in those early books. As my
son grew older he found, as I did at that age, that reading provided
something that he got nowhere else. It became his closest friend, as it
did with me. I would suggest a book now and then or a series, not
giving too much away, just enough to get him interested. I loved it
when he came to me and said "did you know that?", which would invariably
be related to some fact I was hoping he'd catch. I miss him and our
discussions, but I know that he has many wonderful friends to talk with,
and now, he will offer me a book or suggest one to me.

Do you suppose that there's some creative part of the brain that makes
reading enticing to some? I know when I read, I actually have a movie
running in my head. So many times I put a book down and then later say
"Darn it, I missed the end of that movie, why did I get up?" Then I
remember it was a book I was reading.

For me, reading this way, has often been a hindrance. I find it
difficult to follow written math problems and history was alway so
boring because the straight forward nature of facts being presented did
not get the movie started for me. Now for me, this was a challenge, I
did not step away from it. I have found ways of dealing with it because
there is simply too much I want to know. I may be a slow reader when it
comes to philosophy or history but I will get there.

Anyway in closing, do you think, there is a possible correlation
between, how a person 'thinks' when they read, that maybe they can't
follow easily, so they just don't read at all?

Oh, my gosh! Oceans, I so totally messed up. I wrote up a reply
regarding your posts but I must have hit back arrow instead of reply, as
I notice it is not there.

It was a good reply too. I'll try again. I am happy you were able to
get back to this thread and renew it. You have some very insightful
thoughts on the subject.

Do you think there is too much pressure on the teachers to pass a
student along? For a time I thought that might be the problem, however,
in the last few years I've had the opportunity to meet so many new
people and to be honest, I have been surprised at the ones who are
teachers. Upon finding out, I try to boost the conversation, by using a
wider range of vocabulary and often delving into a conversation a little
deeper. What I have found, more often than not, is that this is a
person who is very knowledgable about the subject or subjects they teach
or majored in through college, but they still lack the basic language
skills to communicate on a higher level. I will say two things, first
I'm talking about a hand full of teachers in a couple different states
who teach between third grade through high school. So this is in no way
meant to be a blanket statement, mught just be coincidence. I have
talked with a couple college professors recently who find it difficult
to teach certain subjects as the vocabulary of the student just doesn't
measure up.

One last thing - I have known and worked with many programmers. I have
many friends in that area. More than half of them have never finished
college. A couple of them are from other countries, they did finish
college, and speak two or more languages fluently. In all these years,
with all these programmers, I have never once met one who was not
extremely well versed in the english language and not only that, get
them on a topic you are interested in, and you will probably learn a
lot.

So Ocean, the programmer thing, is that because they are
language-oriented and therefore, have or take an interest in reading, no
matter what it is?

Ahhhhh....books!

A couple of weeks ago I broke my book addiction, and actually started
divesting myself of some, preparing to leave my home for travel
adventures....

Recommendation: not a new book, but one with more new ideas per page
than ANY other book I've ever read: Neal Stephenson (sp?) SNOWCRASH.
Paperback. Fasten your seatbelt!

AND, a great a pserceptive focus on Language!!!!!

Oceans

You know, I am not a programmer, but have employed several and know many
more. Good question you are raising....

Maybe one of the keys is this: that to a person they pay a lot of
attention to two things:

1. Fault free communication: they are very aware of what is being
deleted from their communication, or what distortions and
generalizations they are making, and will correct these is they are
material to the communication. They are 'intuitive Korzybskis' (if this
makes any sense!).

2. They are very aware of what the listerner/reader knows and doesn't
know. They take responsibility to modify their communications and
information to match the level of knowledge of the listener.

Pretty neat, now that I think about it....

What do you think?

Oceans

Did you mention the language of mathematics? I have a Trig teacher, he
is very intelligent, I believe his major was physics. anyway he makes
some of these young-ins walk around with index cards with definitions of
math terms, because they cant understand what he is trying to teach. I
think its funny, He says tell me what to do to solve this problem, and
calls on a student and the boy will say something like I would take the
two of the two and dive it by the number under it,,,LMAO, He goes off
and they carry a couple cards around for a week or so. Sorry to get off
topic a little, but it is related to language and teachers. I think its
funny that these kids graduated High School, and they arent stupid, they
were just never taught the language.

read somewhere that they conclude that when we read we dont read words
but
recognize the approximations of what the word is and the brain throws
the
correct word up there for you..implications that our language may be cut
up
into bits w/o losing the essence of it.... tty ool nt ou ink?

You cant learn something, like Trig or computers, or electronics, or
communicate with colleagues in many professions, if you are unable to
speak the language. I dont mean English or Spanish either, but rather
the language of the trade, or in school the subject being taught. I am
enrolled in Electronic Engineering Technologies at school, and when
writing a report, or reading a journal the first thing I noticed is that
many of the terms and words used in Electronics are not always in the
dictionary. I had to add many to my word program dictionary, because
they dont exist on it. In this regard language is very important, but
politician's, often forget the language of the common people, and begin
to speak over the majority of the population. Most of these people will
never reach a higher level of education, and have no interest in doing
so. This might be good when politician's dont want to be understood, but
can become a hindrance, as well, when people skip over half of what they
write or say, and the message does not get read or understood.

Oceans, I will have to find the book you suggested, love a challenging
read. I understand what you are saying about programmers and how they,
not only view language, but concentrate on the perfecting thier own
communications into accurate pictures of the idea they want to get
accros. Seems to suggest that programming is a natural choice of work
fields for them. I certainly envy your ability to pin down the the
answer to my question.

davinci - I think I know what you're talking about. It explains the
reason why we can comprhend a word spelled incorrectly, or inverted,
without thinking about why it was wrong. We might notice it's wrong,
but it does not usually stop us from following the thought or the
picture presented in the writing. It's a very interesting study.

fanta, point taken, I think this is part of what Abra was saying when he
said that we are too structured in school. He said what's wrong with
teaching a child the things that interest him/her. I agree, a child can
learn about language and communication from any interest they have, as
long as it's taught correctly.

A general question....

We seem to be agreeing (and lamenting) that so many people have in one
way or another 'dropped out' of the learning world, whether through
disinterest or ineptitude.

Do you think it is at all possible to reinvigorate these Americans with
curiosity and a desire to learn?

Oceans

Oceans
"A general question....

We seem to be agreeing (and lamenting) that so many people have in one
way or another 'dropped out' of the learning world, whether through
disinterest or ineptitude.

Do you think it is at all possible to reinvigorate these Americans with
curiosity and a desire to learn?"
-------

I think you can correlate this to the deemphasis of the Arts in school
corriculums
dont you think?...we remove funding for music, visual arts etc..and
increase
funding for sports....What are we teaching the children when we do
that?...
Our role models were once intellectuals & inventors...now they are pop
stars..

Oceans wrote:
“We seem to be agreeing (and lamenting) that so many people have in one
way or another 'dropped out' of the learning world, whether through
disinterest or ineptitude.”

Try boredom.

I dropped out of high school in the tenth grade because of boredom. I
was neither disinterested nor inept. On the contrary as soon as I
dropped out I enrolled in a vo-tech to learn mechanics. When I finished
with that I enrolled in another vo-tech to learn electronics. When I
finished that I went to night classes at a community college for
physics, biology, chemistry, and mathematics.

In fact, I’ve been sitting in classrooms basically my entirely life. I
also worked for high-tech companies in R&D and attended (and presented)
many technical seminars. They even had learning centers and I took
technical classes there. I spent my entire life in a classroom of one
kind or another. I love to learn!

Later in my life I decided to teach, and I got myself into a teaching
position in a private college where I taught math, electronics, and
computer technologies.

Yet, I dropped out of high-school because it was BORING!

Oceans wrote:
“Do you think it is at all possible to reinvigorate these Americans with
curiosity and a desire to learn?”

I personally don’t believe that it’s a lack of interest on the student’s
part. I think the educational system just really suck beyond belief!

I know a LOT of high-school aged students who are bored to death with
school. They are probably much like me. It’s not that they aren’t
interested in learning. They are just totally bored with the way things
are being taught.

Trying to reinvigorate the students with a curiosity and desire to learn
is not the issue. That’s barking up the wrong tree!

What need a completely revamping is the way we teach! The whole
compartmentalize approach of separating classes into separate subjects
has go to go! That’s BORING!

Put me in charge of a high school with the complete freedom to organize
it however I see fit, and I’ll turn out happy excited students who will
not only be enthusiastic about learning but who will also come out of it
with a higher level of education that most kids have who are graduating
college today!

In fact if you put me in charge of a whole 12-year high-school program
with fresh students I guarantee those students will come out of my
12-year program with a level of education that would be equivalent to
that of a Ph.D.

Our current high-school programs are THAT inefficient!

The problem is not with the students. It’s with the educational system!
I could prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt in just 12 years. Just
give me the school, some cooperative teachers who are willing to embrace
my methods, and a bunch of students. I’ll give you back a bunch of
Ph.D-level graduates at the end of 12 years. And I don’t even need
exceptional students, just give me your average masses.

While the use of words and language skills have faultered; So did they
when I was younger, and when my mom was a young person.
Mulitple use words are also in play here. There is where a problem
occurs, without a face to see expression. Hense; the mistaken context,
or frequent and polite apologies.
It appalls me to no end, the language skills (or lack of) that this
generation has, or has not.
But, in the defense of this brand new generation: Schools are not, for
the most part teaching proper grammar or punctuation.
I do not know who to blame it on, but it is not unusual to see kids of
today not being able to read, or even understand what they read,
comprehensively. Much less spell.
I have been privey to the kids not spelling words correctly, or
understanding the meaning of a word, and of course that means; they
cannot formulate statements in concise and proper terminology.
Does this mean we are to be expected to conform to them? Or should we
keep trying as educated adults, to try and teach what we know? The only
way to truly understand, and be understood by those that haven't been
taught correct vocabulary (and punctuation), is to learn the ways of
those in question. Then we will have the ability to help them, and be
taught as well.
Kat

Good morning, Kat!

It seems like a not uncommon patterns among those who speak 'ghetto
Ebonics' is that they can also speak and understand 'normal' English.
They can switch easily between the two. So there may be less need of
learning how 'they' speak than you are suggesting.

My preference is for learning languages other than English, and
preferably languages spoken by significant populations...

French, Arabic, Urdu, Russian, German, Chinese, etc.

Whew! It's a long list!
Oceans

Over here, our schools are "leaving no child behind". That's their
mission. Some graduates applying for job's can barely spell, cannot
solve or articulate scenerio's, can't do extended math problems and alot
of them fail the english comprehension testing that is required. While
the public educational systems can be found at fault, they are not
entirely to blame. Kids today have internal and social tangles most of
us never had to deal with while growing up and going to school. Life
was much more simple back in the days. Many have problems in the home,
within their family, in their peer groups....

Education as well as everything else needs to keep up with the changing
times, in a postive and progressive manner so that quality is not tossed
over for quantity. The world is a different place now than it was 15-20
years ago and it will continue to change.

Davinci...I read the online reviews about that book you
mentioned....Earth Abides. It sounds very interesting, something I
would most like to read. About a depopulated world that takes back the
marks of man, the erasure of mans influence, and the importance of the
relationship between the past and future is part of what I am reading
about it. Apparently it is next to impossible to find a copy and amazon
may be the only place to get one, will keep searching online.........

JaneBond
Earth Abides has been on my list of favorites for a long time..would
be a great movie ....not exactly sci fi...but it had me intrigued...I
have
a copy on my shelf...along with Dune, Gods of Eden, Architects of the
Underworld,
12th Planet, .....too many others....cant leave out Lady C's Pressed
Fairie Book..haha huh?