"Hot seat" on ADS-L (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Geoffrey Steven Nathan]

I remember being taught, in Junior High (I think) the parts of the eye (vitreous humor, cornea etc.) and of flowers (pistil, stamen, etc.). And we had to make leaf and seed collections. This is no different from teaching (very) basic vowel charts or consonant charts, or very basic tree structure. In fact we did do 'parsing' in our Toronto public schools (identify subject, 'bare noun'--opposed to what we would now call NP/DP). All that would have been needed would have been a module on dialect vs. language. That would have been politically unthinkable in 1960, but why not in 2012? And what the hell else are they learning?

Geoffrey S. Nathan
Faculty Liaison, C&IT
and Professor, Linguistics Program
http://blogs.wayne.edu/proftech/
+1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)

----- Original Message -----

> From: "Bill AMRDEC Mullins" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Sent: Monday, October 22, 2012 11:46:32 AM
> Subject: Re: "Hot seat" on ADS-L (UNCLASSIFIED)

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: "Mullins, Bill AMRDEC" <Bill.Mullins at US.ARMY.MIL>
> Subject: Re: "Hot seat" on ADS-L (UNCLASSIFIED)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE

> >
> > WB: Why aren't school children taught a science of language, on a
> > par
> with
> > other subjects?
> >

> Because the subject is more advanced than that? Because it requires
> as
> prerequisites things that aren't completely taught until high school
> or
> early college?

> Or, alternatively, if it were taught at a early level, it would be in
> lieu of something that is more important and fundamental, and as a
> group, educators don't want to make that trade-off?

> Classification: UNCLASSIFIED
> Caveats: NONE

> ------------------------------------------------------------
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org