Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

Fe = ...iron?

TheAnswerIs42 wrote:I do still remember that 28d was the "improper use of you or it", because I still catch myself doing that and stop myself. As in, "Sue found that it was really hard to walk through the snow" because "it" doesn't refer to anything previously identified.

Well, now I get to have my rant, because this is complete and utter nonsense. There is a class of pronouns in English (forgive me—I can't remember the technical term off the top of my head), where the pronoun doesn't have an explicit antecedent, as in the phrases "It's snowing" or "There's a hole in the bucket." Those sentences (and the one mentioned above) are perfectly good English and anyone who says otherwise has no clue what they're talking about.

The study of language is an actual scientific field, called linguistics, which includes a subfield—syntax—which is the study of what laypeople generally call grammar. And there are people in the world—syntacticians—who use actual scientific principles and methods to do studies of which constructions are and aren't considered valid by native speakers (and which constructions are technically valid, but potentially confusing).

Unfortunately, the vast majority of English teachers wouldn't know an actual principle of language if it bit them, and instead go on spouting nonsensical, idiotic, and frequently inconsistent grammar "rules" which were apparently pulled out of thin air.

ahem. wrote:Fe = ...iron?

"irony"

Whistler wrote:like diagramming sentences is going to help you organize a research paper... </Fe>

they're only in middle school, so they have plenty of time to learn that, and that's a skill that's developed throughout the years, whereas grammar hasn't been recently. but the amount of papers that get turned in with "i dunno how i feelz bout this prmpt! lol!" is astounding. and the handwriting! goodness! it's AWFUL.

I don't think you need to memorize every grammar rule in the book to be a good writer. You should have a basic understanding of good grammar, but you need not be an expert. Mostly, I think good writing is something captivating, interesting. Learning to write well is basically just learning how to captivate an audience through various methods. For example, using sensory description to depict a scene instead of just saying where you are. Proving your points with concrete examples instead of just stating what they are. Choosing your words carefully--one of the best things I ever learned is how to be concise. Lots of people lack that skill.

Waldorf and Sauron wrote: For example, President Obama plans to replicate the success of the Harlem Children's Zone in other cities. You can read about that project here: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... A9629C8B63

I was pleased to find a number of interesting and useful ideas in this New York Times Magazine article about Geoffrey Canada and his Harlem Children’s Zone. Here are the ideas I came away with:
1. “Poor parents aren’t doing a good enough job of rearing their children.”

2. You need to fund education to get some results, but that money must be very judicially applied. Basically the money should go to make up for the inadequate parenting: day-care centers, prekindergarten schools, numerous after-school programs, teaching parenting techniques, and parental counseling. Charter schools are also a good idea. You have to have money to bribe parents with prizes, free movie passes, free groceries, or a month’s rent so the parents will do the right thing for their children and allow their children to be enrolled in the free programs.

3. Children with two parents who “have got it together” don’t really need help.

4. Emphasize accountability and testing, but work especially hard with the underachievers.

5. Only a few studies have been done to show what “interventions” actually work in the long term, and even those studies tend to be spotty and subject to debate.

6. It will be 8, 10, 12 years down the road before we know if the Harlem Children’s Zone is a success or failure, says Canada. Foundations which make short-term grants to pet projects and the nonprofits that spend all their time chasing money have had “a vested interest in maintaining the reassuring fiction that failing programs were actually succeeding.”

7. You need to put the existing public schools out of business, which means expanding charter schools and eliminating the teachers’ union.

I wonder which ideas President Obama is interested in pursuing.

Which ideas with regards to education reform are YOU interested in pursuing, Vorpal?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on what ought to be changed, even with the caveat that your time out of school now exceeds your time spent in school.

thebigcheese wrote:I don't think you need to memorize every grammar rule in the book to be a good writer. You should have a basic understanding of good grammar, but you need not be an expert. Mostly, I think good writing is something captivating, interesting. Learning to write well is basically just learning how to captivate an audience through various methods. For example, using sensory description to depict a scene instead of just saying where you are. Proving your points with concrete examples instead of just stating what they are. Choosing your words carefully--one of the best things I ever learned is how to be concise. Lots of people lack that skill.

While that may be ideal, I don't think you can teach these skills on a large scale basis. Thus why educators often "settle" for grammar rules and such. At least students are learning how to coherently spell/construct/punctuate their ideas.

The AIMS (Arizona's standardized tests) writing standards emphasize the following traits: Conventions, Sentence Fluency, Ideas & Content, Voice, Organization, Word Choice.

Now, if it were feasible to effectively teach all of those things (let's not even get started on effectively grading them), then every student in Arizona would be a fantastic writer. Alas... earwax.

While you can explain the concept of having a "voice" in your writing, it is basically impossible to teach someone how to implement that concept in a classroom setting.

So I have no issue with students being taught simplistic grammar rules and being forced to diagram sentences. You've got to start somewhere. Many will hopefully come to embrace a different approach to writing, but at least everyone will have a realistic baseline to start from.

i'll just be glad when i stop getting papers written in text speak. right now i could care less about the voice or organization because the basics aren't there! you have to learn the basics BEFORE you get into the more ephemeral stuff like "voice" and "ideas." i will never get your idea (which may be brilliant) if you write everything like a 14 year old girl talk to her friends. the kids even add filler words into their papers like "um" and "idk"!!! DRIVES ME CRAZY!!!!!!!!! if diagramming some sentences fixes those problems early, then i say go for it. kids have plenty of time to learn about other stuff when they get to high school and college. if we teach it early, maybe high school teachers can just do some review of more difficult concepts and then really focus on developing ideas.

ahem. wrote:While that may be ideal, I don't think you can teach these skills on a large scale basis.

I disagree. There are some basic concepts you can teach students that will dramatically improve their writing ability. One of the most important ones is show not tell, which is basically (but not entirely) summed up by what I said before:

thebigcheese wrote:Using sensory description to depict a scene instead of just saying where you are. Proving your points with concrete examples instead of just stating what they are.

A few posts ago, I mentioned my high school writing teacher. Sometimes she taught by showing us examples of good writing, then showing us examples of bad writing (side by side, for comparison). But it really drives the point home when you get your paper back with a big red "C" on top and "show not tell" written all over the parts where you weren't specific enough. This is a key principle -- in my experience, very few teachers take the time to write comments in the margin. How are you supposed to learn the concept if someone doesn't explain where and why you messed up? Her favorite thing to write on our papers was "BS" meaning be specific.

She also liked to write "BMW" on our opinion papers, meaning b****, moan, and whine. In other words, whenever we wrote debate/persuasive papers, we got marked down if we turned them into rants. First, we stated our arguments. Then we had to back up each argument with at least one or two examples. She also taught us that our persuasive writing would be the most effective if we appealed to three basic human needs: rational, emotional, and ethical. If you can write a paper that addresses all three, you've got a winning argument.

Under no circumstances were we allowed to use adverbs. Or be verbs. Ever. Oh, and she gave us a chance to turn in re-written versions of our papers for a better grade. I've always appreciated the teachers who allow this.

There's a lot more, but this class was seven years ago...and it's getting harder for me to remember all the little details. But now I want to go dig up my old notes. I still have them after all these years! Anyway, my point is that these things are not unteachable. That teacher had a well-known reputation (I believe the state awarded her "Teacher of the Year" once) for taking 120 students and making them into stellar writers, every single year. So it's not necessarily the teaching methods that are the hard part. Now, if you want to get into the standardized testing side of the issue, that's a whole different story. But that teacher was hands-down the best English teacher I've ever had. No contest. She did more for my writing skills than most of my other teachers combined, including my college professors. We need more teachers like her.

For teaching writing, class sizes are especially important. It can take a TON of time to grade papers especially if the teacher is to write lots of helpful comments. In order to have a manageable workload for teachers (and TAs in college), it's really important to have, as thebigcheese said, "more teachers like her." Good writing is absolutely teachable, but it's very labor-intensive.

she only had 120 students a year? must be nice. most teachers in my district have anywhere from 150-400 students a year, depending on how big their room is (i'm not even joking. they tried to put 80 kids in a period of my roommate's theatre class because he has 80 chairs).

you know what often discourages people who could be great teachers? the COST. it probably cost me close to $7,000 in the past two years to get my standard certification. that included my teaching program that i did online, plus testing, fingerprinting, application fees. it is an almost crippling expense if you haven't found a job or are not getting paid very much. people don't want to put in all the extra work that goes into being a teacher because you don't get paid enough for it. if there was some sort of "education class forgiveness" or even if the state would cover testing fees, that could possibly draw people in who otherwise can't afford to become teachers. i'm lucky my mom is so generous. she paid for all of my testing, otherwise i just wouldn't have been able to afford it.

Imogen wrote: if there was some sort of "education class forgiveness" or even if the state would cover testing fees, that could possibly draw people in who otherwise can't afford to become teachers..

Oh, but there is.

(My cousins are doing this exact thing, and it's working out wonderfully for them.)

that's for a stafford loan (which i'm already getting forgiven) not for education classes and testing.

Marduk wrote:Which ideas with regards to education reform are YOU interested in pursuing, Vorpal?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on what ought to be changed, even with the caveat that your time out of school now exceeds your time spent in school.

Let’s see: I was 46.5 years old when I finally got out of school, and I’m not yet 93. If you count the years of schooling I’ve had that would be 46.5 - 5.5 (before kindergarten) - 2.5 (mission) – 6.5 (I took a break) = 32 years of schooling, which is exactly half my life (as of three days ago). However, I have had children in school continuously for the last thirty one years, some of those years with seven children enrolled simultaneously. That ought to count for something.

Going back to the article about Dr. Canada, I agree with him. According to Dr. Canada part of the problem is the teachers’ unions. In many ways they hinder the teaching of our children. But the biggest part of the problem is probably simply “poor parents aren’t doing a good enough job of rearing their children.” It isn’t the fault of the education system in this country; it is the fault of the parents. With a few exceptions we have well-trained and motivated teachers. For the most part we have adequate books, teaching aids, libraries, classroom facilities, teacher-to-student ratios, and all the rest that money can buy. Often the school districts that spend the most per child have the worst performance. Generally speaking what we lack, and what is hurting most the ability of children to read, get good grades, and graduate, is good parents.

What Dr. Canada is trying to do is substitute for poor parenting. Children should be taught by parents at home certain social skills, abilities, and love of learning. Dr. Canada seeks to teach parents how to do their job, and in addition does the job of failing parents with prekindergarten schools and programs. Children should be kept busy after school doing homework or involved in learning and growing activities. Dr. Canada uses volunteers and charity funds to offer numerous after-school programs. Children should be encouraged by parents who love them and care about their success in life. Dr. Canada tries to substitute volunteers who mentor, nurture, and care about these children. Dr. Canada tries to implement an all-encompassing network of support, motivation, learning activities, and care which would all be unnecessary if these children had parents who were doing a good enough job of rearing their children.

So, basically what needs to be fixed is not the education system in America per se, it is poor parenting. I think there is a correlation between poverty and educational success, but to put it bluntly that correlation is between poverty and poor parenting, which in turn determines educational success.

So, will Dr. Canada’s programs ultimately succeed in breaking the cycle of poverty and poor parenting? No one knows, not even Dr. Canada. He says he won’t know for another 8 to 12 years. I hope he does succeed. If you can substitute for all the many ways good parents help their children to want to learn and be able to learn, those children might actually make it. But then my question is, will those children when they grow up and have children of their own revert to letting others do their job as parents for them, or will they have learned to be good parents and break the cycle? I don’t see that they will have learned to care and provide for their children, but I hope I’m wrong in this.

How will Dr. Canada’s approach work in other cities if caring volunteers and self-sacrificing individuals are replaced by government employees? Will it be easier or harder for the children to learn to grow up and be good, responsible, and effective parents who know how to raise their children if all they have seen is a government takeover of parental responsibilities?

Parenting is a divine responsibility, and I’m not sure if there is an effective secular or governmental solution. It will be interesting to see if Dr. Canada’s social experiment is a success.

The only program I’m aware of that is successful would be to send in some inspired and inspiring people to teach the parents of their responsibilities in a way that those parents had a spiritual awakening. The heart of the parents would be turned to God, and to their children. These parents would, of their own free will choose to become better parents. They would have an increase of inspiration and knowledge of what they can do for their children. They would willingly attend meetings for at least three hours a week, where they would be instructed, motivated, and inspired in such a way that they would become better parents. They would join an organization that loved and cared for them and their children. That organization would provide role models for proper father and mother behavior. The organization, out of love, would strive to help everyone achieve his or her divine potential. Loving male teachers would visit the family in the home at least once a month, and caring females would visit and teach also at least once a month. These individuals, with inspired oversight, would help to guide and assist the families in all their daily struggles and trials. Knowledge would be seen as a divine attribute, and reliance on God and on oneself to be in a position to help others and care for others would become a deeply held personal conviction. Any idea where I might find such an organization?

And that is how I would fix what is wrong with education in the world today.

So we just need to convert the entire country to Mormonism? Hrmmm..... while helpful on a number of levels, I don't see that happening any time soon.

You mentioned that you believe that overall, the system in this country has adequate teacher:student ratios. What do you consider adequate? There are systems where this ratio is as low as 1:10, and systems where it is higher than 1:30. Are both adequate? If so, then are those at the low end simply wasting more money? Is teacher:student ratio even an important consideration in education? If so, how important?

Marduk wrote:So we just need to convert the entire country to Mormonism? Hrmmm..... while helpful on a number of levels, I don't see that happening any time soon.

I tend to think of solutions in terms of having "necessary" and "sufficient" conditions. Converting the entire country to Mormonism, if they were really and truly converted (not all Mormons are) would be a sufficient condition. But it wouldn't be a necessary condition. Wouldn't you agree? The point is that we are familiar with a solution to the problem of helping parents become good parents, which is the root cause of the education problem, and I think it is helpful to point that out. Since good parenting is what the problem is, the solution must solve this problem. Perhaps Dr. Canada has another solution. I have my doubts, but at least he is attacking the real problem, not teacher:student ratios, and the like.

Marduk wrote:You mentioned that you believe that overall, the system in this country has adequate teacher:student ratios. What do you consider adequate? There are systems where this ratio is as low as 1:10, and systems where it is higher than 1:30. Are both adequate? If so, then are those at the low end simply wasting more money? Is teacher:student ratio even an important consideration in education? If so, how important?

I believe the answers to your questions depend on the subject being taught, on the teacher, and on the students. I'm sure there are "optimum" ratios and ratios for effective and ineffective teaching, given the kind of students in those classrooms today. And with the students as a given we might have better educational outcomes with smaller teacher:student ratios in some cases. I just think that in most cases smaller teacher to student ratios will not help.

On the other hand, you can do a lot more in a classroom with students who are all self-motivated, prepared, hard-working, socially well adjusted, and well behaved. While not every child from a good home will be an ideal student, teachers tell me that their problem students invariably come from problem homes where the parents are not doing a good job of raising their children. If all of the students came from good homes then an ordinary teacher could adequately teach a much larger class than is possible with a mix of good students and students from troubled homes.

Decreasing the teacher:student ratio doesn't help much, if at all, if the students come from homes where the parents aren't doing a good job, unless that teacher can become a sort of substitute parent and provide all the love, nurture, encouragement, and support that an ideal parent could provide. Great teachers might be able to do this. But in general, I believe that current teacher:student ratios are adequate -- with some exceptions I'm sure. The real problem is bad parenting. Does that make sense to you?

My friends, remember to stay on topic. If you would like to continue discussing vb's birthday hop over here: http://www.theboardboard.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1934

bobtheenchantedone wrote:My friends, remember to stay on topic. If you would like to continue discussing vb's birthday hop over here: http://www.theboardboard.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1934

Wait, threads are supposed to stay on topic? I was under the impression that every thread is required to morph into a new topic at least once. Twice if you really want to be cool.

Dragon Lady wrote:

bobtheenchantedone wrote:My friends, remember to stay on topic. If you would like to continue discussing vb's birthday hop over here: http://www.theboardboard.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1934

Wait, threads are supposed to stay on topic? I was under the impression that every thread is required to morph into a new topic at least once. Twice if you really want to be cool.

Nope. At least in Reader Response and Less Than 100 Hour Board, we want topics to stay on topic. Random Chatter we don't care as much. : )