Pam Hartley

((Sent to me by a friend, I'm passing it along -- Pam))


Taught to remove all thought

> Writing by the numbers, as dictated by Tallahassee, has created a
> generation of students whose words lack passion, creativity and
> original ideas.

By LYNN STRATTON
© St. Petersburg Times
published July 7, 2002
I'm about to become a college dropout for the second time in my life.
The first time, I was a freshman in New York City during the last years
of the Vietnam War. I decided I didn't want to be a part of what we
called "the system."
This time, I'm not a student but an instructor. And I'm dropping out
again. It will be hard, very hard, because I love teaching.
But I know when I'm beat. I can't do this job anymore.
Here's the problem: In our zeal for numbers, for measuring our kids so
we can report that they really can write because they've passed a test,
we're focusing on the forest but forgetting the trees.
Writing is putting ideas on paper. That's all -- and it's a lot. It's
one of the most important things we can learn to do, putting our ideas
on paper, expressing what we think. Putting our ideas on paper can make
magic.
But to make kids pass our standardized tests, we force them to see
writing as simply a formula, as anything but what it really is. Writing
should be dangerous stuff -- and it was before we killed it.
We tell kids, "Okay, this is how to write. You must have five paragraphs
in your essay, and the first paragraph must have a thesis sentence in
which you specify the three main points of your paper, and each
paragraph must have four to seven sentences, and each sentence must have
eight to 10 words." (Yes, trust me; that's what they're being taught.)
But we forget that we're not talking about words and sentences and
paragraphs; we're talking about ideas. What we're really telling
students is that they must have exactly three ideas in everything they
write, and each idea must be exactly such a length. And it's ludicrous.
Ideas can't be measured; they can't be quantified.
But I'm clearly in the minority now, marching in the opposite direction,
going against all the educators and bureaucrats. Still, I refuse to
teach -- even to allow -- this mediocre writing, this uninspired thinking.
So, I quit. Our children, our teenagers, are victims of the Stockholm
Syndrome; they've begun identifying with their captors. Our schools have
brainwashed them into believing that writing -- that thinking -- is
simply a matter of numbers. I can no longer teach them because, more
than ever, they no longer believe me when I tell them that writing in
the real world isn't like that.
Look, I tell them. Read something that's been published. Do you find
everything in five neat paragraphs, with four to seven sentences in each
paragraph?
They look at me. Why am I telling them this?
And look, I say. Don't real writers repeat words? (Oh, yes -- they're
told they must never repeat words.) And their eyes give away their
mistrust of what I'm telling them. I'm denying the validity of their
belief system, contradicting everything they've been told.
But I keep trying. Look, I say. Don't all these writers, these people
who have been published, don't they often use the word "I"? (They're
told they must never use that word in most schools.) Don't some of these
real writers use paragraphs that are one sentence long, or sentences
that are one word long? These people you're reading are real writers,
and they know there are no formulas to follow in writing.
As I say it, though, I know I'm telling them a lie. There are formulas
in writing, the ones the people in Tallahassee use to show us that our
children can write. That the system works.
Yes, it works: It produces unthinking teenagers who produce automatic
essays full of, well . . . nothing, really. Because another thing
they're taught is that opinions are bad. Of course, opinions express
ideas, and if you follow that thinking through to its logical
conclusion, then ideas are bad. I'll have my students read a
particularly good essay, and they'll say, Well, but that's an opinion.
Yes, it is, I answer. And? And, well, that's bad. You can't have
opinions, only facts.
So they go out into the world, and they're timid; they're afraid to have
an opinion. Ah, but that's good: good for business, which likes people
to do as they're told; good for the country, because dissent, especially
now, is . . . well, not good.
So I tell them, You know, it was a crime in most of this country many
years ago to teach a slave to read or write. Why do you think we had
those laws? Sometimes, one of the less timid students will cautiously
raise a hand and take a stab at it. Because slaves could get ideas?
Right, yes. Slaves could get ideas, and ideas are dangerous. The owners,
those in power, didn't want that. Do you see any parallel between that
and what's happening in our schools?
No, they don't. Oh, I might have one occasionally who gets it, but the
majority have been trained so well they don't see any connection.
Most of them think I'm nuts. Just another crazy, ranting professor.
Their eyes blink off, and they go someplace where they don't have to
think about what I'm saying. They're planning lunch or their trip to
Ybor City that night. Someplace safe.
But I'm trying to steer them away from that safety, that sameness. I'm
trying to make them dangerous. I'm trying to get them to think.
They'll have none of that, thank you. Our young people have had the
thinking beaten out of them. We do it in our classrooms, in what we have
them write. We do it especially in what we have them read. It's no
longer a secret that our standardized tests, even our textbooks, have
been sanitized. They've been cut up, had all the important ideas taken
out of them -- all the tough questions, the conflicts.
I explain to my students that writers don't write about nice things;
they write about the hard things, the difficult ideas. No one writes
about what a nice day it is.
But all this has been going on for years. So why am I quitting now?
Because it's about to get much worse. Now that Tallahassee has taken
over completely, now that we're to have one seamless educational system,
prekindergarten through graduate school, the practices entrenched in our
schools will become entrenched in our colleges.
It's happening already. The students who have been trained to write this
way are now teachers who teach writing this way. More and more, I
encounter college writing instructors who insist on the formula: five
paragraphs, no more -- even in advanced courses, even in other
departments. The older professors, the ones to whom the formula essay is
simply bad writing, are retiring. The younger ones are taking over,
passing on their wisdom about writing, what they were taught: Count your
ideas. Be careful not to have too many.
And if a student dares to have four ideas, instead of three? . . . Toss
one out. Only three ideas allowed. I've seen students fail assignments
because they had the wrong numbers.
And they can't stop writing that way. Many have told me, even in tears,
that they try to write differently, but they can't.
Brainwashing does that. Now, imagine the future. Imagine these students,
your children, afraid to write, to put their ideas on paper. Imagine
them trying to fight for what they believe in -- if they're brave enough
to believe in anything at all.
Imagine them in business. In medicine. In law.
In politics.
As for me, I have no children, other than the ones I've worked with over
the years. But I no longer can fight this system, the one that tries to
deaden our kids, to make them afraid to think. Worse, I'm afraid that
eventually they'll get to me, too.
The first time I dropped out of college, I was afraid the system would
kill my ideas and make me less human. I didn't want any part of it.
This time, the system is different, but the result will be the same.
I don't want any part of this system, either.
-- Lynn Stratton has taught writing at the University of South Florida
for 13 years. She lives in St. Petersburg.
http://www.sptimes.com/2002/07/07/Floridian/Taught_to_remove_all_.shtml


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]