teacher rants (was "Nostalgia/ancestors"

[Sojourner]

At 12:08 PM 7/11/97 PST, MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu wrote:

>A long and deeply probing post from sojourner.  A lot to chew over, but I
just wanna 
>shoehorn in a comment here in response to this passage:
>
>>My aunt is a teacher (working on HER PhD) at a prominent Northeastern
>>university.  I asked her, out of curiosity, to tell me about the writing
>>skills of her students.  Almost across the board, she told me they were
>>horrendous.  Not just "a few errors" or "strange development of themes" but
>>awful, horrible mistakes.  I know that you (all) know this is not the
>>exception, but the rule. 
>
>I have been teaching writing for more years than I wanna recount,
>( 'specially given this nostalgia thread.  Suffice it to say at 45 as of 1
July
> I feel like the old man and the koan).  It think that
> the *problem* with our atrocious student writers is made more
> atrocious itself precisely by this way of conceiving it--always in terms
> of *mistakes* if not * horrible* mistakes.  Our entire quantitatively-
>obsessed educational sysytem constantly shoots down students
> as writers, at every  level, with this *mistakes* bugbear.
>
>  It is dead wrong to evaluate writing in terms of *mistakes*.  
>The assumption behind that is so prescriptiuve as to not need detailing, 
>as though there were some Platonically pure mistake-free writing
>that would therefore, and on those terms qualify as *good* writing.
>
>There is no such thing as *writing*--there are only occasions of writing.
>
>Handbooks of writing rules NEVER match the way real people use language.
>
>Please tell your aunt that in my experience Grad Students are the 
>worst tyrants at intimidating undergrads as writers,
> prob'ly cuz grad stoodints are themselves being put
> through a winnowing experience of great 
>cruelty (I survived it--though maybe not with all of my
> F-A-C-U-L-T-I-E-S intact--so I can say it).
>
>Students are rarely validated for the IDEAS they try, however painfully
>and *incorrectly* to express, instead it's out with the old red
>pen and circlin' ALL those d-----d subject-verb agreement errors and,
>uh oh, look here child, you, young Thomas--you used *messhuginah* as
> an adjective in your *How I Spent My 17-Year Hiatus* essay.
>Hmmph, it's clear no one will ever respect YOUR writing, and no Ivy
>League university or Genius Foundation will ever be interested 
>in what YOU have to say, no, there will be no internet
>lists devoted to YOUR work in the future, saucy Mr. P. 
> I suggest you hone up real quick on your
>
>JOB skills.
>
>

hahah yes I would agree 100 percent!  My aunt is a classic ivory tower
intellectual.  The other day I asked her what she thought of the growing
popularity of NASCAR.  She said, Nascar?  I said, you know, the national
organization of stock car racing.  She said, stock car?  You mean like
Indianapolis 500?

*grin*

Aristotle/Plato the bastards, with their 100 levels of rhetoric, yes this
is not the way to go about writing or almost anything else except long and
tedious discourse of any "theoretical" subject, and therefore ungraspable
and un-real.  What I was attempting to relate was that the students had a
hard time expressing themselves, not for the rigidity of my aunt's demands
on the mechanics of their writing, but of poor writing skills altoghether.
I'm as big a fan of Absalom, Absalom as I am of GR, and neither one of them
passes much muster when it comes to technically correct writing.  But
atrocious and incomprehensible spelling, no logical layout or theme
development etc. are poor writing and if you cannot at least say what you
want to say in a manner which is at least UNDERSTANDABLE to your teacher,
then you do not merit a passing grade in a Platonic/Aristotelian mainstream
university.

Thanks for the rant though amen 100%!


	"If men thought of God as much as they think 
	 of the world, who would not attain liberation?"

			--Maitri Upanishad 6.24