Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/07/02
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Bingo! And bingo to Bob as well. I think Leonard is a bit off on this one, as I don't think it has anything to do with the student's lacking a sense of self-worth - I think they often have far too great a sense of self-worth, nurtured by the 'I'm okay and everything you do is super' philosophy that governs many an elementary school classroom. I am going to guess that all of the decline in the teaching of writing - which is what the decline in the quality of writing is all about - goes back to the introduction of more and more "relevance" into the grade school, middle school, and high school curricula. Something had to give, and what gave was what we old farts would call 'the basics.' Students now days believe that they are being persecuted if they have to write more than a page or two. Real term papers, and real writing assignments, have gone the way of reading books, rather than little snippets in anthologies. Blah, grumble. And what we end up with is George Bush in the Michael Moore movie, attempting to get out the line "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." It comes out, as best I can recall, "there's an old saying in Tennessee, 'fool me once....' pause, pause, ...'shame on you.' Fool me......you won't fool me again.' " Ah well...and he graduated from Andover, Yale, and Harvard Business School. ;-) -----Original Message----- From: lug-bounces+bdcolen=earthlink.net@leica-users.org [mailto:lug-bounces+bdcolen=earthlink.net@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of Jeffery Smith Sent: Friday, July 02, 2004 11:27 AM To: 'Leica Users Group' Subject: RE: [Leica] declining quality now why are these illiterates When I taught at Dillard University, even the top-of-the-class honors students felt that using correct grammar and syntax was really only necessary for job interviews. Jeffery Smith New Orleans, LA _______________________________________________ Leica Users Group. See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information