Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Speaking of red ink (PP FCPS alumna and English major), my English and US Government teachers used to return my essays and research papers and typed final exams with extensive, handwritten comments.

Sometimes, we’d discuss these comments in class. This was a great way to learn with the teacher leaping up to further explain by example. You had to be brave to speak up and ask about your specific critique.

Misspelled words would be circled. Teachers corrected with editing marks like stet and paragraph breaks and long comments in the margins.

We had to learn editing marks, too.

99.9% of current professions no longer use those editing marks. It’s not worth teaching the kids how to read them.

Anonymous wrote:What is making all these people so insistent that we hold onto every last thing that was taught when they were young? Because they were proven methods that had consistent results, such as memorizing times tables, learning how to do long division, etc., rather than the lattice method or whatever the fad of the day is. People weren't smarter or better educated in the past. Really, ever been at at store where the cash register is offline, younger people can't even do the math to make change. Different things were prioritized. Agree that we have moved on from an agrarian and industrial society to an information society, even more reason for kids to learn fundamental math skills, early so that they are ready for more complex math in middle and high school.

I don't think extensive learning of the parts of speech is that relevant anymore. A quick pass is good enough. We are in an age with AI assist built into software, speech-to-text, AI generated text. Even if you write a book, there is no longer a human editor marking up your grammar (I just finished writing one last year--for a major publisher). Editors comment on your tone, audience, originality etc. Grammar checks are automated with a light review. At the same time, texting and on-line communication forms are rapidly evolving to become less formal and non-verbal. Yes, texting is less formal, and the business world is quickly adopting it as the preferred means of communication, particularly for developing contracts. There is little agreement on proper grammar. Perhaps for the minimally or uneducated. By the way you realize that non-verbal means not involving or using words or speech, so I assume you are referring to solely emoji based texting.

There are many important things to learn and diagramming sentences may not make the cut anymore. Just encourage kids to read widely, write freely and learn to make good arguments using evidence and logic. Tough to make good arguments if one doesn't have and understanding of grammar and can't form coherent sentences and express them effectively either orally or in writing.

I think a lot of people are just trying to hold the children back from the future because they are afraid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is making all these people so insistent that we hold onto every last thing that was taught when they were young? People weren't smarter or better educated in the past. Different things were prioritized.

I don't think extensive learning of the parts of speech is that relevant anymore. A quick pass is good enough. We are in an age with AI assist built into software, speech-to-text, AI generated text. Even if you write a book, there is no longer a human editor marking up your grammar (I just finished writing one last year--for a major publisher). Editors comment on your tone, audience, originality etc. Grammar checks are automated with a light review. At the same time, texting and on-line communication forms are rapidly evolving to become less formal and non-verbal. There is little agreement on proper grammar.

There are many important things to learn and diagramming sentences may not make the cut anymore. Just encourage kids to read widely, write freely and learn to make good arguments using evidence and logic.

I think a lot of people are just trying to hold the children back from the future because they are afraid.

Most writers and readers are lamenting that publishers have fired lots of editors and proofreaders. You're the first I've seen who is happy about it.

And fyi, people were better educated back in the day.

Anonymous wrote:What is making all these people so insistent that we hold onto every last thing that was taught when they were young? People weren't smarter or better educated in the past. Different things were prioritized.

I don't think extensive learning of the parts of speech is that relevant anymore. A quick pass is good enough. We are in an age with AI assist built into software, speech-to-text, AI generated text. Even if you write a book, there is no longer a human editor marking up your grammar (I just finished writing one last year--for a major publisher). Editors comment on your tone, audience, originality etc. Grammar checks are automated with a light review. At the same time, texting and on-line communication forms are rapidly evolving to become less formal and non-verbal. There is little agreement on proper grammar.

There are many important things to learn and diagramming sentences may not make the cut anymore. Just encourage kids to read widely, write freely and learn to make good arguments using evidence and logic.

I think a lot of people are just trying to hold the children back from the future because they are afraid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Speaking of red ink (PP FCPS alumna and English major), my English and US Government teachers used to return my essays and research papers and typed final exams with extensive, handwritten comments.

Sometimes, we’d discuss these comments in class. This was a great way to learn with the teacher leaping up to further explain by example. You had to be brave to speak up and ask about your specific critique.

Misspelled words would be circled. Teachers corrected with editing marks like stet and paragraph breaks and long comments in the margins.

We had to learn editing marks, too.

99.9% of current professions no longer use those editing marks. It’s not worth teaching the kids how to read them.

I have two graduate degrees and a PhD in literature and I'd never even seen editing marks until I came down to Virginia, and then only because there was one professor in my department, like 110 years old, who still insisted on using them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is an embarrassment with not teaching grammar. These young elementary kids are missing out. They should memorize and understand irregular verbs, parts of speech, pronouns, contractions, sentence fragments, compound sentences, conjunctions, plural conventions, etc. And, yet they go head strong and all puffed up saying, look the students can write a news article, a fiction piece, a poem, etc. Yet, they are not taught foundation material—the basics. It’s Lucy Calkins at her finest—just write kids! Who cares about teaching sentence structure with subjects and verbs? Who cares about adjectives or adverbs? Just be more descriptive, kid. It’s pitiful.

A couple days on these things is not really teaching them English. It’s a lot of BS tjough I have to say that this is one area that public schools have lagged behind parochial and private schools for decades.

Our kids are not taught English. They do not know the names of various verb tenses. They might know what the subject of a sentence is but not what a direct or indirect object is. When I transferred to parochial school it was eye opening. (I will also say it was eye opening how much Catholic school lagged in grade school math — though classmates caught up quickly and a some went to MIT, Michigan, Stanford, and other well regarded schools and have made names for themselves in their respective fields).

I had reasonable expectations for FCPS but those were quickly dashed. AAP has expectations closer to what EVERY student in a mainstream classroom was supposed to glean from school up until the 80s. My public middle school classmates would be BORED at the pace that classes move today .

If I could afford to move my kids out of FCPS, I would do it in a heartbeat.

My kids have had some awesome teachers but they are hamstrung by the system. It makes me sad and angry. Don’t even get me started on the soft racism of low expectations for FARMS students.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Speaking of red ink (PP FCPS alumna and English major), my English and US Government teachers used to return my essays and research papers and typed final exams with extensive, handwritten comments.

Sometimes, we’d discuss these comments in class. This was a great way to learn with the teacher leaping up to further explain by example. You had to be brave to speak up and ask about your specific critique.

Misspelled words would be circled. Teachers corrected with editing marks like stet and paragraph breaks and long comments in the margins.

We had to learn editing marks, too.

99.9% of current professions no longer use those editing marks. It’s not worth teaching the kids how to read them.

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is an embarrassment with not teaching grammar. These young elementary kids are missing out. They should memorize and understand irregular verbs, parts of speech, pronouns, contractions, sentence fragments, compound sentences, conjunctions, plural conventions, etc. And, yet they go head strong and all puffed up saying, look the students can write a news article, a fiction piece, a poem, etc. Yet, they are not taught foundation material—the basics. It’s Lucy Calkins at her finest—just write kids! Who cares about teaching sentence structure with subjects and verbs? Who cares about adjectives or adverbs? Just be more descriptive, kid. It’s pitiful.

Anonymous wrote:Speaking of red ink (PP FCPS alumna and English major), my English and US Government teachers used to return my essays and research papers and typed final exams with extensive, handwritten comments.

Sometimes, we’d discuss these comments in class. This was a great way to learn with the teacher leaping up to further explain by example. You had to be brave to speak up and ask about your specific critique.

Misspelled words would be circled. Teachers corrected with editing marks like stet and paragraph breaks and long comments in the margins.

We had to learn editing marks, too.