Usually, I write carefully worded advice for high school and occasionally middle school or college kids on some topic having to do with succeeding in high school or college. When I work with kids each week, I am usually the model of patience and optimism.
Inside, I am often seething.
Kids can’t write. Kids can’t read. Kids have no idea how to construct a sentence and often aren’t quite sure what a complete sentence consists of. Kids have an alarmingly truncated vocabulary. (Yeah, like they would even know what “truncated” means.) When I talk to kids, I modify my speech so I don’t appear threatening by using big words. And these are kids who have grown up with educated parents in a middle-to-upper-middle-class suburb with a highly-regarded school system who are headed for college and professional careers.
I’ve been tutoring high school kids in my town for about 22 years now. I’ve decided it’s not all the kids’ fault.
Sure, they could read more than the two books assigned for summer reading in their spare time. Of course they could read the whole assigned book rather than read Spark Notes for the chapter summaries. But if the teachers are going to gauge student compliance with the reading assignments by giving quizzes which ask the kids to regurgitate those summaries, the students would be foolish not to give up reading and go to the Spark Notes when time is tight. I’ve asked nearly every student I’ve had over the past five years or so why their teachers are assigning literature to read, and not one of them has been able to articulate a reason.
So my first rant is about English teachers. Not all English teachers, mind you, deserve censure. Some are good (I like to think I’m pretty good). Some are GREAT (thank you, Mrs. Joyce Garvin of River Dell Regional High School, the best English teacher in the world, as far as I’m concerned).
But I know an English teacher whose assignments so regularly contained grammar errors that my students had a find-the-error competition going on. I know an English teacher who was surprised to hear me say that most Elizabethans didn’t speak in iambic pentameter. I know an English teacher who told a student that “between you and I” was correct.
I’ve never heard of an English teacher who said, “Everyone should clear his desk.” Or “Did each student bring his assignment pad?” It only sounds odd because you’re not used to hearing it.
Even worse, most of the students I know can’t imagine reading for pleasure because they’ve never been given anything pleasurable to read. Reading comes with chapter quizzes, outlines, skits, posters, but not with a purpose. Books like A Tale of Two Cities and The Good Earth were taken out of the curriculum, I suppose because the teachers weren’t able to help the students understand them. Instead, they were replaced by books written in the first person. Even good books written in the first person, like Catcher in the Rye or To Kill A Mockingbird or The Great Gatsby don’t have complex vocabulary or sentence structure because they are trying to use colloquial speech to sound natural and realistic.
Where I’m from, English teachers generally don’t assign plays unless they were written by Shakespeare or Arthur Miller. English teachers don’t assign novels or short stories written by authors from any country other than America or England. English teachers (with one notable exception in a nearby town) don’t assign essays or speeches. And English teachers never, ever assign anything humorous.
I know kids who’ve gone through high school taking Regents English classes who NEVER had a take-home essay to do. Well, I shouldn’t say never. Perhaps they had one in four years, but they couldn’t remember it. That’s shameful. All the essays are in-class so the students can practice for the Regents exam.
My son got to college and had to take a freshman writing class. After his first assignment, on which he got a less than stellar grade, he called me to say that he couldn’t imagine why his college writing teacher hadn’t asked them to do a poster or a presentation or a skit since he had become so proficient at them in high school. Why, he even learned how to write in bubble letters and how to use a glitter pen!
So maybe the problem isn’t with kids after all.
I’m sure I’ll have to duck some harsh criticism about this rant, reminding me how television and computers have made it all but impossible for English teachers to teach reading and writing to kids today, but I can’t hold it in any longer.
What can parents and school districts and English teachers do to improve the situation? Here’s what I’d love to see:
- Introduce students to works of literature from different periods of time and from different cultures. How about a Russian short story or a play from the 1920’s?
- Offer students reading that’s slightly above their comfort level. That’s how they’ll grow. A juicy Agatha Christie is fun and challenging for most students.
- Try humor. Have you ever read P.G. Wodehouse or James Thurber and kept a straight face? How about Dave Barry or Ephraim Kishon?
- Tell students about why the work is considered worthwhile before you read it, not afterward. Maybe then they’ll start the book with a sense of purpose.
- Read for pleasure. Have your kids read for pleasure. No tests, no papers, no essays, no posters, no bubble letters. Just pleasure. Have “reading time” in school just like they do in second grade. Let the kids sit on the floor and eat a snack while they read.
- Don’t be afraid of a little controversy. Read and discuss TIME or Newsweek’s back page essays with kids. Read the letters to the editor of those magazines, too, and figure out why the writer is really writing.
- Ask kids to share their favorite authors with each other. Some kids do read because they want to, and other kids should see that.
There. I feel better now.
Do you have something to rant about when it comes to education and kids?
Wendy Segal
High School 2 College 