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Today my biology teacher complained to the french teachers about how much 12nd graders made so much mistakes and made up un-comprehensible sentences in a test and she blames it on the internet and chatrooms and then we had for 75 minutes of grammar in french class due to that complaint.

The teacher gave us a sheet explaining groups in a sentence(like the subject group, the verb group, prepositions and all that stuff) and she started talking and talking and talking, giving examples on the board and i was pretty much unable to listen to anything because it was awfully boring and not interesting at all, so i drew stuff in my drawing notebook.

It's not like i have trouble writing, but i don't remember most of the french/english grammatical rules i was taught at school, i simply write by instinct from what i've self-taught myself from books or the internet in terms of language.

So i'm thinking about this and here's the conclusion i get to this: someone who hated reading/writing from the first grades because school made it so boring and didn't learn any proper base when it was the time to(the only things you actually learn in school about language are reading and writing in the first grades, after it's all about memorizing grammar rules, dissecting texts mindlessly and doing a huge load of homework), that doesn't have any other resource since that person thinks reading and writing sucks because of the wonderful experiences he had at school and ends up talking on the internet in what teachers call "the horrific internet language" on which they blame the quality of the language teens have.

Are our public schools killing language? I think so.

It's not fair to place the blame on the schools themselves. The policy-makers at the state and federal levels (I speak as an American, here. I have no idea how it works elsewhere) are the ones making the decisions that are the partial cause of this problem.

The other end are the students themselves. With text messaging, chatrooms, videochatting, walkie-talkie cellphones, and so on, the emphasis repeatedly falls on quick communication, sacrificing clarity, grammar, and spelling for the sake of saving a few pushes to the button or strokes to the keys. Or sacrificing writing altogether fore solely oral to aural contact.

Bluntly put, the majority of students don't see a real-world need for actually knowing how to write coherently and well. They get along fine in their daily lives with WTFOMGBBQ and KTHXDIE. The teachers can only give lessons so many different ways, and it's a rarity to get a student who's not already engaged to come over to the oratorical side. It happens, but the vast majority of the seething masses... well, standardized testing doesn't punish an inability to construct sentences, and in America, the only thing critically important is passing those multiple guess tests. Even college entrance exams are multiple choice.

Personally, as I deal in a text-specific medium for most of my social activities, and write extensively, I find that a good working knowledge of English is absolutely critical. Of course, I grew up reading, long before the internet was more than a novelty for most folks. Since then, I've done my best to maintain good habits, even via text message. I use proper spelling and punctuation. Which annoys some people to no end because it's so slow.

I am blaming the public education system, therefore them. And the school system works pretty much the same way here in Canada than in U.S..



I agree but the students have trouble making a coherent sentence normally(not by chat and the such) by writing and got trouble reading(YES, in 12nd GRADE!), i do that sometimes and am still able to write, read and speak correctly.



Again, i agree but i was talking about first graders earlier and the cause of the problem, i don't think a 3rd grader is talking with WTFOMGBBQ and KTHXDIE. And, on a unrelated note think standardized testing(exams) is bad, everyone learns in a different way and most of these only test your memorizing skills(see how much you can cram in your head) and not how much you know.



Pretty much the same for me.

Welcome to school. Stay awhile, you might learn something.

Are you suggesting that memorizing is the same thing as learning?

When I am able to use what I had memorized in real life, I call that learning. You're doing it wrong if you stop at memorizing.

It's a trick question!!

Amending my previous statement; all we did was read a story then take a glorified 'true-false' quiz on what happened in the story. That's it.

I still don't see the problem. The quizzes are meant to make sure you read the material. Reading the material expands your reading/comprehension skills as well as your vocabulary. Sounds to me like they're doing their job.

The American public education system is an embarrassment to mankind. No Child Left Behind makes it even worse. Being smart is looked down upon when it should be praised and all the little dumb people should be made to feel bad for not being able to keep up with the rest of the class.

As a student and a member of school-survival.net, i will say that THIS education is a waste of time. I am not a person that fails at school, all my grades but Gym are above 70%. I won't let my schooling interfere with my education.

When you say "All this and the majority of the students coming to us", do you realize that they are forced by the law to go at school until they have the age to drop out?

Since i don't want to repeat the same stuff, here are some articles about anti-school

http://www.school-survival.net/about/anti-school.php

http://www.school-survival.net/articles ... eacher.php

http://www.school-survival.net/articles ... docile.php

http://www.school-survival.net/articles ... boring.php

http://www.school-survival.net/articles ... r_time.php

http://www.school-survival.net/articles ... t_Fine.php

Look up the other articles at http://www.school-survival.net/articles/ and you can also come and register on the forums http://www.school-survival.net/forums/ , don't worry, we won't eat you :3 , we actually enjoy having teachers share their point of view(but akdonn, because he's totally an [censored] )



Ok, i've ignored this post because i skimmed through it but now i'm gonna take on it really bad.

What is being smart to you? Because at school, all i do is memorize things to apply on a sheet of paper, tests never test how much i "know" on the subject, always on how much i can cram in my head.

I think the only smart person here would be the person that cheats and succeeds.

No Child Left Behind does it's job wonderfully, our education system is made to raise obedient ant workers that are intelligent enough to do the job but too dumb to complain about the increasing [censored] jobs, [censored] salaries, [censored] job conditions.

Why would our system promote intelligence when it promotes blind obedience?

If they can drop out or not is irrelevant, Wynni is saying that students that come through are in a bad way. Why would you include people that aren't students anymore or that don't want to be? Also education is part what you do. You can go to school stare at the person in front of the room, go home muddle through your work and repeat the process next day. Or you can go above and beyond, the education system is tailored for those at the bottom, so if you're above that group, its your job to do more on your own, not complain about how the system screwed you over. opportunities are made, not given.


A drone memorizes, a smart person comprehends. If you take the subjects of math, memorization can only get you so far because of cases that fall outside what normal functions do. If you take english, being able to engage in a conversation on the meaning of a work is far from memorization. If you look at Political science, being able to understand the way politics works and have a stimulating conversation about it isn't memorization.

My point is, is that school is what you make of it. They don't force you to do anything but answer questions and chances are if you just want out of school thats all you do, but anything you do above and beyond the questions anything after that is what makes someone smart.

As for no child left behind, I don't think you understand what it is. It was a law that introduced testing into school systems, any school who didn't have a certain % pass rate would have its federal funding taken away, when I was in highschool they just fudged the numbers and let you go even if you failed 3 times. It was meant to help children but its just more red tape in a system that doesn't need it.

And I'm glad they do force students. 5 years ago, I may have stopped coming to school given the chance. But, because they "forced me to come" and "forced me to graduate", I ended up getting into a respected university. And notice how I'm not flipping burgers for a living. So, yes, I'm glad they force students to stay in school until 16.

I may have missed a few. Gimme a break, I'm not an English major!

No Child Left Behind, does, in fact, not do a good job. It prevents smart kids from progressing because everyone has to wait for the kid who doesn't understand to catch up.

Being smart is being quick thinking and quick learning. If you can take in and recall information quickly you're smart. And believe me, it's looked down upon.

Workforce program. Mmhmm.