December 21, 2008
(South Carolina) -
We're not going to talk about the Governor's crazed power-grabs, this week. No,
we're going to talk about your children and grandchildren.
If your child graduated from a South Carolina public school, the odds are that he
or she does not speak or write proper grammar, even in formal circumstances.
Unless, you, yourself, taught your child grammar - and that from a grammar book
from before 1960 or Canada - your child may be ignorant of perfect grammar,
even if she or he went to a private school.
Now, that's not to say that they have learned nothing in our state's high school English
classes.
To the contrary, your child has learned some passages of literature that matters, but
more likely, hours of information on global warming and the efficacy of non-competitive
sports. Your child has read that if you're an American and especially a Southerner,
you're probably bad. There would have been learning about the evils of firearms
and how a peaceful society must love the restraints of police so long as they favor
the views of Karl Marx and "banana republic" leaders. He or she has learned that
words didn't matter, and it didn't matter how the words they did say and read were
written and pronounced.
More to the point, none of this nonsense can be disputed. The insular character
of the bureaucracy that is the SC Department of Education forbids it!
I know I'm going to catch hell for this, but it appears to me that this state is spending
far too much time certifying teachers for areas which have nothing to do with the
subject taught. State Ed. is far too interested in the proliferation of ways
of teaching than effective teachers. The theory that "a good teacher can teach
anything" simply is not true. Colleges have known for some time that it is a rare
teacher who can teach anything - most can teach many things in the same field, but
generally, not outside a teacher's proven curriculum.
Another problem with the State's teaching certification is the ADEPT system, which
is far too subjective and depends more on a teacher's ability to schmooze the people
involved with the evaluation than the ability to teach a subject. I have seen it with
my own eyes, and it is a horror that will come back to haunt us in the form of lawsuits,
broken teachers, and embarrassed education leaders. The system WILL fail. The
problem is that it won't become obvious until the people who thought it was a good
idea are retired and there's no-one left to shoot!
All of this is in aid of the fact that your child doesn't know good grammar. Ask
your child what a gerund is. Ask her what the subjunctive is. Ask him to diagram
a sentence. You'll most probably get a blank stare. Then ask your child to text
you the definition of a "ho" - I'll bet he or she gets that one right.
What I am saying is this: It may not be entirely their fault, but most English Teachers
don't know English as a language anymore. They're pretty good at lit, but that's
it. Those who do know grammar don't have time to teach it because of the ridiculous
way the state has interpreted the No Child Left Behind rules. Besides, it's
easier to teach lit.
And here's one more dirty little education secret: It's the colleges our elected
officials have cut off at the knees which are having to re-teach the grammar high schools
are failing to teach.
We are guaranteeing that our children will be unfit to lead or follow. That, in turn,
will cause us to eventually submit to a more assertive culture. And you can bet,
the next language we speak will have its grammar rules enforced.
