Monday, November 25, 2019

The War Against Good Grammar


It is well enough know by now, but bad grammar is bad for business. When you send a barely literate text or email, the recipient will judge you ill if it is riddled with grammatical mistakes.

And yet, in New York schools today, grammar is an afterthought, when anyone teaches it at all.

Apparently, teachers believe that they must choose between individual self-expression and good grammar. Yes, you heard that correctly. This, from the Wall Street Journal:

Whether in public or private schools, teachers worried that their students with bad writing mechanics would suffer in college and the workplace. Some felt torn between their desire to enforce the rules and their fear of sucking the joy out of self-expression. And many were uncertain about how to help teenagers who weren’t taught—or didn’t learn—the foundations of grammar in earlier grades.

Apparently, the Self that you are being told to express is a functional illiterate. Of a lower social class. 

And, how will these children succeed at an SAT verbal aptitude test if they know nothing of grammar? Will they be going to college? Evidently, it is not in their future.

As it happens, there is a social class aspect to all of this. Having bad grammar, speaking barely literate English will consign an individual to a lower social class. No one is going to sit around a dinner table with people who do not know how to speak correct English. 

5 comments:

Derek Ramsey said...

"how will these children succeed at an SAT verbal aptitude test if they know nothing of grammar?"

No need. Colleges and universities will just no longer require the SAT for acceptance.

trigger warning said...

"And, how will these children succeed at an SAT verbal aptitude test if they know nothing of grammar?"

SAT Verbal? Piffle.

"BERKELEY — The chancellors of UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, along with the University of California’s chief academic officer, say they support dropping the SAT and ACT as an admission requirement..."
--- LA Times 11/23/19

Anonymous said...

Since many children do so poorly on the SAT/ACTs, colleges will drop this requirement. Administrators and social science profs need to keep their phony baloney jobs. They need a pipeline of dupes to carry on with their 'work'.

Chris

UbuMaccabee said...

The race to the bottom continues. I wonder what's at the bottom we are racing toward?

trigger warning said...

"I wonder what's at the bottom we are racing toward?"

Turtles. It's turtles all the way down.