the failure of the educational system

WARNING: frustrated english geek rant ahead. read at your own risk.

Alright, so I'm down to reading my last two artist statements... my apologies in advance not only for my cramped illegible handwriting (and the huge disgusting loopy font on my own statement - hadn't time to fix, windows fonts do not equal osX fonts), but for the massive amount of things scrawled all over everyone's paper. I just want to formally say that I don't mean anything personally, except to whoever sets the english standards anymore. Really. There's not a person in the class who I don't think is highly intelligent, I'm really blown away by everyone's ideas, but..

Grammar and sentence structure and everything along those lines just *aren't* taught well anymore, and it drives me up the wall. The only reason I do alright is because I spent my entire childhood reading, and absorbing writing styles. (And I read old books. Like all the old girly things, everything Louisa May Alcott ever wrote, as much Lucy Maud Montgomery as I could get my hands on, that sort of thing. I read exactly one Goosebumps book, and while at first it was intriguing, the ending was so pathetically lame that I never read another one again. Point being, I tend to write crazy old-school, as any of you who've taken a glance at the stories for this project will know.)

I'm not sure offhand if any of you were in Systems Languages and Protocols when Tom Loughlin taught it like I was, but, remember that time he tried to draw an analogy between writing and coding? And we diagrammed a sentance in class? And only two people had any fuck clue what was going on?

...I'm not promoting diagramming sentances by any means, I spent the better part of fifth grade doing it (wooo for homeschooling) and hated it and didn't really retain anything useful from it. And I'll be the first to admit, most of my apparent skill with grammar and syntax and things is intuitive, I tried to help my sister with some homework the other day and I hadn't the faintest what a.. good lord I can't even remember what it was called, some sort of propositional something or another.

Point is, when people can barely get the difference between noun verb and adjective, I start to worry.

I help friends with their papers now and again, I really don't mind doing it, I like being able to help. But to be honest, there have been numerous times when a foreign student's writing has far surpassed someone who's spoken English all their lives. (Though admitedly, she's an amazing writer, and once she's worked out a few more of the eccentricities of our language, any of us who'd like to write will be DOOMED.) I'm not a grammar nazi by any means, I use as many abbreviations online as anyone (I've made my own up, for that matter...though I will NEVER use "u" and crap like that, ugh), my speech is full of slang, I spent half my childhood purposely saying "ain't" and not pronouncing the final "g" on "-ing" things (I wanted to be a country singer -_-;; ), my blog entries occasionally have no capitalization, and I write the worst run-on sentances EVER. But... when I want to sit down and write something that other people will be judging me on, at least it's comprehensible.

I realize writing isn't everyone's forte, and the way things are going, it seems it's going to be even less important of a skill. ...which to be honest, I think is very, very sad. Writing can be so incredibly beautiful, and can convey so much, of both a person and their ideas... but so many times, poor structuring can completely obscure what great thoughts are caught within the words.

Again, I'm not trying to rag on anyone at all - promise I'm not, you all know I'm one of the least pissy people in the world - I'm just really sad, because I look around me, beyond this class and this college, and I see that so many teachers and mentors along the way simply don't take the time to work with people and help them build a skill that will enable them to present themselves as the intelligent people they are. I'm all for the honesty of vernacular, but, take a look at "Huck Finn" and things - first time around, I literally had to read anything Jim said aloud, I couldn't read the dialect silently, but even so, things made sense when I read it out loud. The dialect was there and perfectly (as far as I know) accurate, yet by accurate and appropriate writing, it was completely intelligable.

My younger sister is a phenomenal writer, won't be long before she's far better than I am, but even she admits that spending extensive time on aim and in irc damages her grammatical abilities. The Internet doesn't give two shits if your grammar makes sense, all it asks for is your attention and for you to say something that grabs someone else's attention. It won't ever correct you, nor will any of your friends, and what begins as a small time-saver ends as habit and custom. It's not cool to use capitalization and punctuation, let alone get on someone else's case for a sentance fragment. And I worry, because what isn't practiced is *very* soon forgotten, and I don't think it's unlikely at all that our kids will hardly see a red mark on their papers, unless they got a fact wrong. I lucked out and had a phenomenal teacher my senior year of high school, but aside from a few bits here and there, how much have we been taught about mechanics since elementary school? Yeah it's boring as hell but y'know what, it's worth it.

...I'll save my rant on drawing for another day very late night when I should be sleeping.


ugh I shouldn't even post this, it's such a rant, I sound like such a cranky little grammar nazi. honest to goodness this was NOT a result of reading the statements, guys, this has been building up for years. but I'll feel better if I get all this out. thanks for being understanding and not taking anything personally (because it's not meant that way) and not hating me. ^^;;;