Death of the English language?
As I was checking my Yahoo! mail account earlier, I noticed this news article featured on the main page. Seriously now people, how much lazier can we Americans get? I've seen my share of grammatical and spelling atrocities over the years, but this really takes the cake.
Perhaps it's ignorant of me - I'm no expert on the subject - but I refuse to acknowledge any validity of the argument that simplified spelling would allow children to learn faster and cause illiteracy rates to drop. The problem, I believe, is that there isn't enough emphasis placed on the importance of education in American society. For a nation that's come to be seen as the superpower of the world, our academic averages are dismally low. And at the state level, the numbers (scores from standardised tests, etc.) are all across the board. There is no uniformity in our schools, in both curriculum and funding.
As my poly sci professor had put it, American children aren't hungry enough for education. Instead, we're hungry for Burger King, designer jeans, iPods, and being the next American Idol. It would be a long, arduous, and hotly-debated decision-making process, but I truly think that we need some sort of national standard when it comes to the curriculum that's being taught in our schools. As far as funding goes, I think if there was a national tax for education, not only could that be used to fund schools, but the awareness level of the significance of academics and, subsequently, literacy would be raised.
Of course, American English has gone through some major changes in the past 225 some odd years, but damned if we turn into a nation where "AOL-speak" becomes mainstream. The article doesn't even touch on the fact that in countries like Russia and Japan, where the writing and language systems are apparently more complex than English, children are studying calculus and physics as early on as the sixth grade. And it's because (1) there is a great emphasis on education and (2) they have very high educational standards. Whereas, in the United States, our educational standards have actually been dumbed-down over the years.
Obviously, parents and students possess their own degrees of accountability on this matter. But what kind of message is being sent when people advocate to further simplify a system that has already been simplified? Yes, our students aren't reading at the appropriate levels so let's just make it so they don't have to work as hard. Absolutely brilliant...
If America gets much more stupid, I'm moving to Canada.
Perhaps it's ignorant of me - I'm no expert on the subject - but I refuse to acknowledge any validity of the argument that simplified spelling would allow children to learn faster and cause illiteracy rates to drop. The problem, I believe, is that there isn't enough emphasis placed on the importance of education in American society. For a nation that's come to be seen as the superpower of the world, our academic averages are dismally low. And at the state level, the numbers (scores from standardised tests, etc.) are all across the board. There is no uniformity in our schools, in both curriculum and funding.
As my poly sci professor had put it, American children aren't hungry enough for education. Instead, we're hungry for Burger King, designer jeans, iPods, and being the next American Idol. It would be a long, arduous, and hotly-debated decision-making process, but I truly think that we need some sort of national standard when it comes to the curriculum that's being taught in our schools. As far as funding goes, I think if there was a national tax for education, not only could that be used to fund schools, but the awareness level of the significance of academics and, subsequently, literacy would be raised.
Of course, American English has gone through some major changes in the past 225 some odd years, but damned if we turn into a nation where "AOL-speak" becomes mainstream. The article doesn't even touch on the fact that in countries like Russia and Japan, where the writing and language systems are apparently more complex than English, children are studying calculus and physics as early on as the sixth grade. And it's because (1) there is a great emphasis on education and (2) they have very high educational standards. Whereas, in the United States, our educational standards have actually been dumbed-down over the years.
Obviously, parents and students possess their own degrees of accountability on this matter. But what kind of message is being sent when people advocate to further simplify a system that has already been simplified? Yes, our students aren't reading at the appropriate levels so let's just make it so they don't have to work as hard. Absolutely brilliant...
If America gets much more stupid, I'm moving to Canada.