Muttering, Stuttering and Suffering
How Skilled are the Students Writing the General Paper at A' Levels, I wonder?
If only people were taught the art of sentence diagramming. Absolutely no substitute for a solid foundation. You cannot possibly imagine the teachings that have been etched into the crevices of my young cranium, back in the days. For instant, I remember my first grade teacher telling me that my composition, " Myself, A Day in the Life as Dog" must be structured the way I ate my Sunday's dinner, and that I would not have had the jello on top of the rice and peas with chicken. Other English principles that were pounded in my head were the differences between, next to and the other; take it there and bring it here; among and between; much and many, etc.
I am not even going to get into the other nuances regarding the misused of idiomatic expressions, the disregarded use of parallelism or the common criminalization of grammar, not to mention, the misplacement of the use of the 'comma' that can result misinterpretation and unintended rubbish.
The catch-22 of today's less is not more worldwide education systems, is that, on one hand, students are bogged down with doing endless research on the Internet, tons of homework and myriads of subjects to widen their breath of knowledge, and believe me, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, really. On the other hand, most 'teachers' are not themselves educators but are people depending on a paycheck. That said, juxtaposition these two situations, are students better off in this technological advancing self teaching world than they were in classrooms a generation ago?
In the final analysis, are the days of one's early childhood education of being tortured by 'Hooked on Phonics', the constant reciting of bible verses and studying from the proverbial holy grail of the 'Student's Companion', as well as, the 'First Aid in English' served as a precursor to an educated society and skilled workforce? The problem paradox lies in not the 'Jack of all trades scenario or in the specialty in the fair division of labour, but the inability of the learned to transfer what they have learnt, theoretically to practicality.
