Teachers!!! Is what I see written representative of our childrens' communication skills?

Well, where to start, where to start. I taught for 30 years as a reading specialist/master reading teacher. Over those years I saw the level of our childrens learning decline. In the late 70's and early 80's we saw the effects of the 60's drug culture on our children. We began to see many more children with neurological problems that affected their learning. We began to see the effect of "modern parenting". Letting the children do what they wanted with no consequence.

Teachers were not allowed to discipline the children in any manner. Children were not expected to respect their teachers. If the student refused to do the work in class they were allowed to take it home as homework and more often than not came back finished (more likely than not incorrectly) by the parents.

In the late 80's we began to see the state education agencies telling the local schools what they needed to teach the children so they could pass all the new state mandated tests. Teachers were "forced" to teach to the test or suffer the rath of the administration.

Students were not to be given a failing grade. The assignment could receive no less than a D-.

Students were not to be asked to learn anything by rote. ie: presidents of the United States, State Capitals, Poems, The Preamble to the Constitution, etc., etc.

"Inventive Spelling" was the norm.

It was and is a mess. Many teachers are leaving the profession. New teachers are coming in and staying two to three years and leaving.

Speaking of new teachers. Well , I won't even go there because their education as teachers has suffered also. Many of them can't tell you who the presidents of the United States are or the state capitals, or locate Lithuania on a map.

I could go on and on, but you get the picture.

I couldn't keep my moral up and that is why I am now a retired teacher.

Teachers, is what I see written representative of our children's communication skills?

Basic grammar, linear thinking, and Spell Check are poor substitutes for skilled writing. Have our children lost the ability to express concepts? Where is it? Can some of you explain what is happening or not happening with these children and students? How do you keep your morale up?

To address your questions, what you see written depends on what and where you read. If you are judging by postings on an internet forum, you probably will not know the age of the writer for certain. People lie on the internet, and children are no exception.

Basic grammar is a good skill to have, so I hope you are not sorry to see it.

Linear thinking is also a developmental step, and not to be judged without knowing the age of the thinker.

Spell Check is a useful tool. Would you judge your neighbor for digging up his garden with a shovel rather than his hands? Tools have their place, but they don't take the place of knowing the word you want to use and having at least a guess of how to spell it. Spell Check is little more than an easily accessed dictionary.

I never lose my morale with students. They are still children, and I'm still working with them. It's the adults that can't think or write that make me sad. I wonder how their teachers let them get out of school without skills, and what will happen to them now that they think they are educated, when in fact, they aren't.

Language changes as a culture's needs change. Our communication style as a nation today is much more fast-paced then it has been in the past. Instead of formal letters, we use IM and texting. Therefore, our language is also evolving to keep up with our culture. Can you imagine texting if we texted like we talked or wrote?

I think the new issue for teachers to deal with today is teaching students how to manage the variety of language patterns that we use. Before, writing was much more formal, but with the introduction of the computer and cellphone into the average American's life there are now many more avenues for us to use informal language.

That's not to say that this isn't frustrating for us teachers. I've heard from veterans in the field who are frustrated with how the U.S. educational system has changed over the years. So it goes, though. I'm not about to quit because my students thing LOL is a word.

If you're referring to online posts, there is no definitive style guide to say what is permitted and what is not. I don't worry about grammar or 'linear thinking' when talking to friends and that's what a lot of forum posting and IM chat feels like--casual communication. It's easy to forget that you are writing.

For example, look at what you wrote. Your first two sentences are not sentences, you use a double exclamation point, all caps several times, and it looks like you misspelled 'morale'. Does that mean you're an ingorant child? No. It means you made a common mistake.

In other words, relax. That, and check your submissions before posting about how bad other people's grammar has become.

Primary school seems to be dropping the ball.

I have been trying to find good web sites for SENTENCE DIAGRAMING and CAN'T FIND THEM.

It's almost like a lost art.

Kids read well. They talk basically well.

Their MATH and SPELLING and GEOGRAPHY and WRITING skills are just down the tubes.

I seriously think we need to start introducing STYLE in the 5th or 6th grade with research papers and GIVE THEM BACK with annotations for RE-WRITING when they dangle participles

Write things like

My vacation

I had a nice vacation

It was nice

We went to the lake

It was nice

That is 4th grade writing and I see some 10th graders doing that today!

It's called ungramatical babble.

The comma -- and I'm a big offender on this and I'm a published author -- is the most over used and wrongly used tool there is.

9 out or 10 documents put an comma before AND

Jill went to homeroom, PE, Spanish One, Chemistry, and English classes.

NO proper close to the senetence (incompete) and a comma before the AND)

THIS IS COMMON.

I dangle PARTICIPLE like you wouldn't belive (it).

It's an EASY THING TO

It's called GETTING A SETENCE HALF ARSED BACKWARDS

It's called a MALFORMED sentence

It's putting your horses after your carts.

It's writing like YODA speaks!

Write like this, they do!

And READING doesn't solve this problem.

TAKING A SENTENCE APART does

LEARNING how to make POWERFUL SENTENCES does (do you like the way this one dangles!)

No ENGLISH teacher in 6th grade is spending time going over their papers and showing them what is wrong and getting them to do it right.

Now, do understand something

60 Minutes once showed a FIRST DRAFT from a school Principal who has a D ED and it was written like she was a 5th grade drop out.

SO, if people with ED D and PH D are writing so poorly, how can we except 16 year old Johnny and Susan to do better!

What you need to do is take the MASTERS DEGREE approach by grade 9 or 10 maximum.

They do ONE PAPER for class and they do it over and over and over and over until it SQUEEKS

They use the RIGHT WORDS in the RIGHT PLACES (Vocabulary), the ANNOTATE and REFERENCE (style), they use PERFECTLY FORMED SENENTENCES WITH NO WASTE (is it WAIST or WASTE?) and their PUNCTUATIONS MEET the HArbrace College Handbook.

Maybe, just maybe, we need to employ PROFESSIONAL SECRETARIES to teach high school English.

You ever seen a secretary red pencil a letter!

GEES they are VICIOUS

They make you feel LIMP and IMPOTENT

Lots of students have good grammar and spelling. It may be that the ones who spend hours on Yahoo! are not the ones studying pre-college English!

It is frustrating how many students write poorly. One problem has been poor education funding. California, for example, is #48 of 50 states in its per-pupil education funding. It's hard to provide the best spelling books with that low expenditure. Another problem is the attitude that, "Spelling doesn't matter! They can always use Spell Check!" They can, but if they don't, their spelling is still atrocious!

Scary, isn't it? When I read Answers, I'm amazed at a lack of a basic command of the english language. At least I know my five kids will look like stars in the workforce if what I see on Yahoo is any indication.

How is it that the schools continue to allow kids to graduate that are functionally illiterate? Sometimes I think we're so worried about non-academic garbage that the basics are ignored.

You know, I blame SO much of it on the fact that these kids are so used to "Internet speak". This past school year, for the first time, I had a kid actually put "lol" in his paper, and he couldn't for the life of him understand why that wasn't okay. We had to have an entire class lesson on the difference between the way we communicate with our friends over IM and text messages, and the way we need to present ourselves in written texts to the rest of the world.

The British choose became astute adequate to tutor faculties that the action picture should not be shown with out grownup supervision. i think of, if not for political correctness, he would have long gone directly to assert that the toddlers shouldn't see Al Gore with out supervision. So, the action picture is rated R and it became made via a guy who must be dealt with as a pedophile. of path, the communist instructors union interior the U. S. alongside with the ACLU would on no account enable such stable sense to be triumphant on American soil.

Want to talk about education? Don't you mean morale (and not moral)?