I really don’t see the problem with this policy, and can understand the sentiments behind it. While Cory may be able to move between linguistic forms at will, this is almost certainly because he had a solid educational foundation in the prestigious linguistic form: it’s a lot easier for the rich to go slumming than it is for the poor to crash cocktail parties.
Indeed, linguistic research has shown that low-status forms are picked up with relative ease subconsciously, while it takes conscious effort to pick up prestigious forms. (For information on this, you can look at David Crystal’s How Language Works, pp. 361-62.) Given this, it does make some sense to try to encourage high-prestige forms as much as possible, since they can only be fully internalised through conscious effort.
Now, what would you call a woman with that strength in her have to die of influenza, and what become of her new straw hat that should have come to me? Somebody pinched it, and what I say is, them that pinched it, done her in.
I don’t mean this in a snotty way toward Cory, but I’m surprised this is even news. I went to an otherwise crappy school in rural Pennsylvania, and in spite of what were otherwise pretty pathetic academic standards, we were regularly shamed/punished by teachers for using slang, “like,” and “um.” Isn’t that normal? I’m not saying it’s pedagogically sound or helpful, but I would have guessed it was SOP for most schools, even if it wasn’t official, school-wide policy.
There appear to be some gaps in logic and information here. Restricting vocabulary is unlikely to reduce creative communication; rather, restriction is more likely to increase creative expression–witness “a draught that could trip a chicken” or “sharp like a bag of hammers,” both the result of limited vocabulary further limited by abstention from obscenity. Or witness a poetic form like a sonnet, or a rhythm tike, say, iambic pentameter. On the topic of skimming the bright kids from the public system, perhaps you could comment on the benefits of three-legged racing teams consisting of a track star and a kid with muscular dystrophy. As a person who spent some time enrolled in the worst schools in a couple of cities, I can assure you that the intellectual equivalent is not great fun for either member of the team. On the topic of schools profiteering through the sale of junk foods and uniforms, you may wish to drop into any convenience store within a couple of blocks of any school restricting food to healthy choices during any noon hour and drawing your own conclusions. And any parent will tell you that even overpriced uniforms cost far less than whatever is fashionable for kids to wear this week.
Only your objection to privatized schools teaching young Earth theories and similar nonsense may hold water–and that only if there are no state examinations to ensure that a core curriculum is observed.
For the record, I also have a daughter. When state schools offered superior instruction, I sent her there. When the only available publicly funded schools were wanting, we strained the budget to pay tuition in good private schools. The results were a multilingual professional with a good degree from a world-class school. And a publicly funded school system much more responsive to children’s and parents’ needs than it was when my child first went to school.
Sure, I agree “like” is overused. They should even have “um” and “uh” on there as well - Obama can’t get through a single sentence without one. But the problem isn’t the words, it’s the syntax in which they use the words. What happens when the students simply switch words, but continue on with the same syntax? Ban more words, print more signs?
The academy here needs to do it’s job - educate these kids. Obviously their english dept isn’t getting it done, and banning a few words is no fix for that. Bring in public speaking / communications specialists maybe? Repaint those signs to say “Now Hiring English Comp Instructors - Ours Suck And Have Failed” maybe?
My cousin would type Facebook updates where every other letter was capitalized, p and q switched places, b and d switched places, s was replaced by $, etc. At some point she stopped writing like this (I think because people were teasing her) and I found out that she actually knew basic spelling and punctuation rules. So I would not discount the idea that the kids have been educated properly, but are choosing not to follow those rules for whatever reason.
Stop using “like”, “um”, and “uh” or you’ll end up stuck in a dead-end job with no room for advancement. Like President of the United Fucking States of Goddamned America.
[quote=“genre41, post:47, topic:12164”]
On the topic of skimming the bright kids from the public system, perhaps you could comment on the benefits of three-legged racing teams consisting of a track star and a kid with muscular dystrophy. As a person who spent some time enrolled in the worst schools in a couple of cities, I can assure you that the intellectual equivalent is not great fun for either member of the team.[/quote]
I’m not going to deny the anecdotal power of your personal experience.
However, the evidence-based outcome of mixed-ability classes is that - usually - both the track stars and the kids with muscular dystrophy, to use your charming turn of phrase, do better. The track stars develop their abilities as teachers by helping the other kids (and the best way to learn something is to try and teach it) and not incidentally get to work on their empathy, while the kids with muscular dystrophy do better because they have positive role models that they actually know, right there in the class with them, instead of all the thickos being shunted off to the unheated prefab behind the gym hall with the not-so-subtle message that they aren’t to rise above their meagre station in life.
You do understand that charter schools are primarily for profit, rather than education, right?
Charter schools profit in the same way that military academies profit. There is a perceived value in what the academy delivers and the way they deliver it, and people (parents) will pay for it. Better yet, with charter schools, the parents and the taxpayers get to pay for it.
