Xref: utzoo comp.edu:3891 sci.edu:1122 misc.education:1277 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!think.com!linus!linus!faron!bs From: bs@faron.mitre.org (Robert D. Silverman) Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.edu,misc.education Subject: Re: Against educational fads (was: math credit) Message-ID: <127218@linus.mitre.org> Date: 11 Dec 90 14:52:14 GMT References: <15425@cs.utexas.edu> <1805@blackbird.afit.af.mil> <1990Dec11.152706.467@darwin.ntu.edu.au> Sender: usenet@linus.mitre.org Followup-To: comp.edu Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, MA 01730 Lines: 31 In article <1990Dec11.152706.467@darwin.ntu.edu.au> black_pd@darwin.ntu.edu.au writes: :In article <1805@blackbird.afit.af.mil>, dlindsle@blackbird.afit.af.mil (David T. Lindsley) writes: :> My unsolicited $.02: :> :> One of the reasons that students are becoming less and less capable :> of putting together coherent sentences is the loose structure of the :> English language -- it makes teaching grammar nigh impossible. (Anyone :> I've ever known who teaches a course on the structure of English has :> at some point referred to that course as an oxymoron.) Teach them a :> foreigh language (preferably Latin), with emphasis on grammatical :> structure, and start early. : The MAIN reason students today are less capable of writing coherent English than students of a generation ago, is that they are reading much less and watching television much more. Too much TV. Too little reading. Together, they are a powerful tool for promoting ignorance. It has very little to do with the loose structure of English. If they read enough, they will acquire said structure. -- Bob Silverman #include Mitre Corporation, Bedford, MA 01730 "You can lead a horse's ass to knowledge, but you can't make him think"