Re: pulling out the hair of kids who can't write well

[Nora Merhar <merhar -at- ALENA -dot- CORP -dot- ROCKWELL -dot- COM>]

Matt Hicks blames poor student performance on parent apathy, and students
who expect teaching to be active and learning to be passive. My feelings
about this were contained in one of my legendary lost messages, but I'll
try to recreate them.

I feel that lack of learning in American society can be blamed on the lack of
respect in our society for intellectual achievement. The best paid people in
this country are athletes--paid for their physical abilities rather than their
intellectual abilities. High school students fear being "nerds", parents want
their kids to be well-liked and popular, and any solitary activity (reading,
writing, studying) is considered suspicious, if not downright weird.

We prefer that our children be well-liked rather than well-informed.

We would rather that our children have high self-esteem than actually offer
them constructive criticism. Let's face it, most people in this country have
a much higher opinion of themselves and their abilities than is actually
warranted. A little humility--an admission that you NEED improvement, that
you aren't the best you can possibly be, would be the best thing for the
U.S. population. How else can we explain the generally high opinion American
students have of themselves and their generally poor (and getting poorer)
academic performance? When I was teaching freshman English in graduate school,
I had students who couldn't put together a coherent sentence, let alone create
a simple position paper. When their papers didn't pass, they would come to
me, saying "But I always got A's in high school!" I let that pass, generally,
but the fact was that it was all I could do to get them up to MINIMUM standards
(much less teaching them to write WELL). After 2 years of that, I was pretty
discouraged about the state of American education.

I'm afaraid this is getting to be kind of a rant, so I'll stop here. In general,
I did well in English because I loved to read, and was willing to try out
things I had read in my writing. I was also not afraid to be unpopular or
wrong.

P.S. Hey Matt! I haven't heard "Wonder Twin powers--ACTIVATE! (Shape of--a
 bucket
 Form of--water!" in YEARS. Was that from Superfriends, or did those kids have
their own show?