More fucking around with education

[Camerus]

Just to choose one specific point, poetry analysis and writing is such a specialized skill, IMO it's hard to justify its inclusion in the curriculum perhaps beyond a single unit in one of the high school grades.

There is so much wrong with this statement, I don't even know where to begin. The purpose of literature and poetry reading and analysing in the literature class is not to give pupils a "specialised skill", it is to generate well-rounded people who know basics of the cultural foundations of our civilization. It's about creating a common network of ideas that is shared by our culture. Since most of culture created these days is for mass consumption (and thus mass appeal and mass understanding of new cultural works is a prerequisite for its success), this is more important than ever before.

If we make all education only skill-oriented, we will be creating horrible drones and our civilisation will be doomed in a few generations.

Who's talking about all literature?  I was talking about poetry.  I do agree that part of the purpose of education is to instill culture.  But even if we accept that premise, we must admit that poetry no longer forms an important part of our cultural (even high cultural) landscape.  That role today is filled by novels, essays and magazine articles.

Secondly, though I view literature studies as important, I'm not sure I'd argue it's *more* important than building effective writing and argumentation skills.

[Warspite]

I think making students read Democracy in America is a good idea, but I don't think there is much to be gained from forcing children to read government white papers.

Rigorously teaching children how to express themselves clearly in writing (Yi's point above, with which I agree) can be done with literary texts. Though this is a different issue to what children read in school.

I suppose the obvious point is that schoolkids should be reading non-fiction in their other subjects, like maths and history. I don't understand the chemistry teacher in the article saying they taught only the subject matter: presumably the students need to be studying a textbook? No need to fill English lessons with non-fiction, unless it's of particular literary merit. Although that said, in the UK at least we have a division between English literature and English language lessons, with the latter serving to educate about techniques of writing and comprehension; does this not already exist in the US?

[CountDeMoney]

The Romans had it right.  Mastery of the language and its rules is the first building block of the thinking man.

Isn't that what basic grammar instruction is for? Why'd we diagram sentences in 7th, 8th and 9th grade then?  Every schoolkid would get that little brick of a Simon & Schuster Handbook For Writers before they got novels to read. 

When did they stop teaching English in English classes?

[CountDeMoney]

If we only teach students hard professional skills then we will effectively shut off ourselves from creating more artists and creative people. Not to mention, early education is the only real tool we have to maintain some level of social mobility in modern societies.

This is a horrid, horrid idea. I find it surprising so many people here are so thoughtless as to support it.

Yes, it is a horrid, horrid idea, but just like everything else arts-related, they're slowly pulling funding for that sort of stuff anyway.  Everybody'll be proficient in Microsoft Project instead.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Lifespans and working lives are both getting longer and automation continues to take over relatively simple tasks. A youngster currently in school will probably still be working in 2060. Given that, it is a shame if they are being given training to be cogs in the 2012 workforce rather than a education.

[dps]

Although that said, in the UK at least we have a division between English literature and English language lessons, with the latter serving to educate about techniques of writing and comprehension; does this not already exist in the US?

Well, yeah, though as always in America, it depends on the state or local jurisdiction you're in.  In WV when I was in high school, you had to take 4 years of high school English.  Basically, that was 2 years of language instruction and 2 years of literature (1 year of British literature and 1 year of American literature).  I think that was fairly standard, and AFAIK, it still is.  But the time spent on language instruction was spent on things like knowing the parts of speech, diagramming sentences, learning the history of the language, building vocabulary, etc.  There wasn't really any time in the 4 years of h.s. English that we dealt with knowing how to read and write technical reports and the like.

At the college I attended, all incoming freshmen we required to take Technical English, regardless of their major, probably because they knew that most students wouldn't have learned how to deal with reading and writing technical material in high school.

[Warspite]

Hmm. The thing about reading technical reports and so on is that they're often written very badly. Engineers and scientists generally (though not all) often have a poor style of written English; lawyers sacrifice readability for obvious considerations; politicians and diplomats have to couch ideas in the language of necessary ambiguity, confusion or consensus. I can't speak for other sectors, but even major government statements are often rushed and/or the result of contradictory demands and last-minute alterations.

You'll achieve much more by teaching every student how to write a clear essay: knowing how to express an idea simply and place it in a helpful structure is an essential skill for a lot of things in life... from dealing with bureaucracy to writing one's own technical reports down the line.

I can understand first-year university students having to do "Technical English", but isn't that more about learning the particular jargon of a given industry or sector? "Technical English" for someone going into a career in property law will be very different for someone going into labour economics, the military, health and safety compliance, nuclear engineering, etc etc.

[garbon]

Lifespans and working lives are both getting longer and automation continues to take over relatively simple tasks. A youngster currently in school will probably still be working in 2060. Given that, it is a shame if they are being given training to be cogs in the 2012 workforce rather than a education.

Probably best that we have them focus on the life of the mind, so that we can financially ruin them with a college education.

[garbon]

Btw, purely an anecdote, but while I liked reading as a child (strongly encouraged by my parents), I absolutely detested most things when presented with them during high school and earlier. Similar with history - they had a way of taking the joy of out of it.

[dps]

Hmm. The thing about reading technical reports and so on is that they're often written very badly. Engineers and scientists generally (though not all) often have a poor style of written English; lawyers sacrifice readability for obvious considerations; politicians and diplomats have to couch ideas in the language of necessary ambiguity, confusion or consensus. I can't speak for other sectors, but even major government statements are often rushed and/or the result of contradictory demands and last-minute alterations.

When did governmental writing get like that?  I recently read the actual text of the Washington Naval Treaties and was surprised at how short (I've read purported summaries of them that were longer) and clearly-written they are.

You'll achieve much more by teaching every student how to write a clear essay: knowing how to express an idea simply and place it in a helpful structure is an essential skill for a lot of things in life... from dealing with bureaucracy to writing one's own technical reports down the line.

I can understand first-year university students having to do "Technical English", but isn't that more about learning the particular jargon of a given industry or sector? "Technical English" for someone going into a career in property law will be very different for someone going into labour economics, the military, health and safety compliance, nuclear engineering, etc etc.

No, you get the actual jargon in your core courses in your field of study.  Technical English is (was?) more general, at least at my college.

[dps]

Btw, purely an anecdote, but while I liked reading as a child (strongly encouraged by my parents), I absolutely detested most things when presented with them during high school and earlier. Similar with history - they had a way of taking the joy of out of it.

Yep, that was my experience as well. 

[Martinus]

Because people need formal educational settings to develop their interests and hobbies?  Did we all take strategy game classes?  Is that how we got here?

We got there by reading history books first, which is provided by education. Besides, in many cases if such interests are not engendered by schools, they are engendered by parents - which brings me to my argument that education is the only great equaliser that can overcome cultural baggage (or lack thereof) in some, mainly poorer students.

Again, this is pretty basic - a society built around "equality of opportunity" is nothing if it is not creating these interests and does not enculturate kids. I am constantly surprised by your self-proclaimed leftism and yet a complete failure to grasph the basics of leftist ideology - you seem to just have a strong sense of entitlement and envy with not an ounce of leftist philosophy underneath.

[Martinus]

I completely understand where you are coming from here but we really have to develop basic skills before we can start on high culture.  I would prefer our English classes focus on producing people who are halfway literate.  I felt like my education really suffered when they just stopped teaching how to frame arguments and sentence and paragraph structure and the like and went to nothing but literature after 7th grade (age 13 or so).  I would like to see a bit more balance.

I don't see why appreciation of literature cannot be combined with learning to write clearly. From about third grade until the end of my pre-college education (so 9 years in total), my literature class essentially followed the same model - i.e. reading a work of literature, then discussing/critiquing it in class, then writing an essay on some related topic (sometimes spanning several works of literature, e.g. "Depiction of women in Shakespearean drama" or "Different visions of patriotism in Polish romantic poetry" etc.), and being graded both with respect of understanding of the work in question, as well as drafting concisely, in a structured manner and without spelling and grammar errors.

Sure, this meant myteacher had to read and grade around 10 or so essays a year from every student, which added to quite a large number compared to just grading multiple choice tests, but it offered a much better education experience.

[garbon]

Because people need formal educational settings to develop their interests and hobbies?  Did we all take strategy game classes?  Is that how we got here?

We get there by reading history books first, which is provided by education. Besides, in many cases if such interests are not engendered by schools, they are engendered by parents - which brings me to my argument that education is the only great equaliser that can overcome cultural baggage (or lack thereof) in some, mainly poorer students.

Again, this is pretty basic - a society built around "equality of opportunity" is nothing if it is not creating these interests and does not enculturate kids. I am constantly surprised by your self-proclaimed leftism and yet completely failure to grasph the basics of leftist ideology - you seem to just have a strong sense of entitlement and envy with not an ounce of leftist philosophy underneath.

Is that really the goal of public education - so that some small handful of kids from poorer backgrounds try for a better life because they read Romeo and Juliet in freshman year of high school?

[Martinus]

Because people need formal educational settings to develop their interests and hobbies?  Did we all take strategy game classes?  Is that how we got here?

We get there by reading history books first, which is provided by education. Besides, in many cases if such interests are not engendered by schools, they are engendered by parents - which brings me to my argument that education is the only great equaliser that can overcome cultural baggage (or lack thereof) in some, mainly poorer students.

Again, this is pretty basic - a society built around "equality of opportunity" is nothing if it is not creating these interests and does not enculturate kids. I am constantly surprised by your self-proclaimed leftism and yet completely failure to grasph the basics of leftist ideology - you seem to just have a strong sense of entitlement and envy with not an ounce of leftist philosophy underneath.

Is that really the goal of public education - so that some small handful of kids from poorer backgrounds try for a better life because they read Romeo and Juliet in freshman year of high school?

"Small handful"? Seriously?