Melinda

Dear Pam,

What a great way to make the points.

THIS is the kind of poster I'd love to know is
adorning the space between bordettes on Emglish class
room bulletin boards.

As for the appreciation of study of rules of writing.
I am 100% in favor of everyone delighting in immersing
themselves in whatever subject matter stirs their
inspiration.

What I object to is the mandatory, coerced and
pointless wholesaling of it to a captive audience.

I spent 2 years in public school classrooms as a Full
time substitute teacher in a very large metropolitan
school system. That experience allowed me the view
from the other side. I got to sample what a day is
like in more than a dozen of the schools in the
system. k-12. All parts of town. Subjects from Art
to Math and Vocational EMS.

I became a preferred sub in several schools. Despite
my lack of an education degree, I was requested as a
long-term sub on many occasions. A request that
required the principal signing off on it as my Masters
in Communications made me less desirable than those
with Bachelors that included training in classroom
management and other techniques mandatory for
certification.

I have very mixed feelings re. my experiences over
those 2 years. I know that part of what made me
in-demand was the ability to "control" the
classroom. To "produce". To fulfill the requirements
in the teachers planning book for the day. To keep
order. To prevent fighting, etc....

The comments from students who I'd had previously as
they see me in their doorway, "Oh man, it's Ms. Nolan
... she's gonna make us work." ..... Gave me a sense
of satisfaction back then. I knew it meant I had
established the kind of reputation that the teachers
and school administrators appreciated. No nonsense.

Now.............. Blech!

I was often nothing more than a crowd control officer.
Force feeding them their daily rations of gruel. (As
in grueling.)

I tried to make it pleasant. To make the day's
mandatory information as palatable and personally
relevant as possible. But much of the material is
just not Interesting or meaningful.

I also found that when I tried to show some respect
for students .... give them the benefit of the doubt
.... offer some trust, that I was regularly put back
into my place and criticized by the "real" teachers.
" WE don't allow them to take a bathroom break before
10. It's in your Sub notes."

Blech and double blech.

How much more humiliation can we put kids through?
Requiring that their bladders snap to it and stay on
schedule.

Too close to "keep the trains moving on time." for
me.

It was those experiences, and many more too numerous
to mention here, that cemented my homeschooling
tendency and turned me into a full blown Unschooler.

And of course my own 12 years in the same system as a
student.

I do understand the fulfillment in teaching what you
love. I had what was for me a Great Assignment near
the end of that second year. A teacher took leave to
care for her dying mother. She requested me as I had
been with the students a few times before. It was at
a magnet high school; the best in the system by my
estimation and by those who measure such things by
National Merit Scholars, etc....

Though it's public, application and admission is
required. It also serves the school for the
performing arts.

Anyway, I found myself teaching "Our Town". My
undergraduate is in Theatre. Master's emphasis is
Theatre and Radio-Television. I was in heaven. (Oh
yeah, I played Emily in college too.) Knew it
backward and forward. We discussed Thornton Wilder,
what makes it a "Great American play", The time
period, etc....... We watched the Robby
Benson/Glynnis O'Connor version, which I also adore.
The teaching was thorough and, with very few
exceptions, they all did well on the tests. It left
me thinking that maybe I would do the year program
currently offered by U of L that allowed grads to
become accredited to teach in 15 months.

When I came down from the experience, I realized what
I had always known; that all of the "have-to's were
not OK with me.

When I think back on it now, i am glad that I gave
them what was probably a Superior experience than what
their real teacher would have. Because my Passion for
it came through. But I also know that there were
kids in that class who were most likely bored and
resentful at having to learn about something they had
no real interest in. And I doubt that that coerced
requirement, even with my glorying in it, lead them
to Appreciate the American theater or Thornton Wilder
or theater in general.

There are many ways to learn the basics of any
subject.

As far as that goes, the real excitement is in doing
it a way that no one ever has before. Language is no
more concrete than most other subjects. Even "hard
science" gets turned on its head on a fairly regular
basis. And usually by someone who has tuned out to
the rules and discovered a new path.

I am less and less appreciative of the step1, step, 2,
step 3... approach. Interested learners will come to
the knowledge they need to produce what they desire
when the time is right.

That is Unschooling for me.

Melinda




>
> This is from another list -- I thought it good
> timing for our discussion
> here. <g>
>
> Pam
> ----------
>
>
>
> >Rules for Writing
> >
> >1. Always avoid alliteration.
> >
> >2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences
> with.
> >
> >3. Avoid cliches like the plague.
> >
> >4. Employ the vernacular.
> >
> >5. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
> >
> >6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are
> unnecessary.
> >
> >7. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
> >
> >8. Contractions aren't necessary.
> >
> >9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
> >
> >10. One should never generalize.
> >
> >11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson
> once said: "I hate
> >quotations. Tell me what you know."
> >
> >12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
> >
> >13. Don't be redundant and don't use more words
> than necessary because
> >it's highly superfluous.
> >
> >14. Profanity sucks.
> >
> >15. Be more or less specific.
> >
> >16. Understatement is always best.
> >
> >17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than
> understatement.
> >
> >18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
> >
> >19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a
> snake.
> >
> >20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
> >
> >21. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid
> colloquialisms.
> >
> >22. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be
> derailed.
> >
> >23. Who needs rhetorical questions?
> >
> >24. Sentences without verbs--bad idea.
> >
> >25. Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read.
> >
> >26. Don't use no double negatives.
> >
> >27. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
> >
> >28. Avoid commas, that are not necessary.
> >
> >29. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially
> in long
> >sentences--such as those of ten or more words--to
> their antecedents.
> >
> >30. Use parallel structure when you write and in
> speaking.
> >
> >31. Take the bull in hand and don't mix metaphors.
> >
> >32. Never use a long word when a diminutive one
> will do.
> >
> >33. Unless you are quoting other people's
> exclamations, kill all
> >exclamation points!!!
> >
> >34. Proofread carefully to see if you any words
> out.
>
>

=====
: D Melinda

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