Whining about our students

[Marta Sherwood-Pike]

Having a basic knowledge of Latin was definitely helpful in learning
Russian at the age of 36. The teachers I had who'd studied at Russian
pedagogical institutes knew how to teach. The teaching assistants who were
put in the classroom after a three day workshop in language teaching,
heavy on how to run a VCR and do all the paperwork were not. It isn't the
students' fault.  You can't learn what isn't taught, or is taught so
poorly that only an exceptionally motivated student who goes out of his or
her way to consult additional materials will really learn the subject.
Kids today? I've got a 15 year old, a straight-A student who's currently
on an exchange program in Thailand. (excuse the boasting). She's cynical,
though. What will taking out all these student loans get me? If any
increased income from getting a college degree is eaten up by repayment of
loans, if indeed I would have a higher net income working as a checker at
the supermarket, why bother? I don't have an answer. Perhaps she will be a
famous author or discover a cure for cancer, but most likely she'll make a
very small tally mark on the pages of history, if an at all, which, since
she's my parents' only grandchild, is a high price to pay for not
reproducing.

Martha Sherwood

On Sun, 11 Jun 2000, Richard Robin wrote:

> "E. Boyle" wrote:
>
> > So I suggest we stop moaning about the sorry state of American culture (an
> > opinion I don't share), stop whining about how "kids today" are completely
> > uncultured (they are not)
>
> I completely agree with Eloise. Each successive generation complains about the
> sorry state of "kids today." And sure, I have my stock of horror stories of
> kids who can't define an adverb or can't name the capital of Poland. But for
> each horror story, there are many more success stories. I find that contrary
> to 20 years ago, I can rely on having students who can say intelligible things
> at the end of a basic sequence in Russian. Some of that is because we teach
> differently than we did back then. But students' ability to acquire some sort
> of useful proficiency testifies to the fact that their language learning
> skills overall have not gone into the sort of tailspin that many others see.
>
> As for the larger global issues of literacy, literature, and culture: sure,
> I'm concerned that we may arrive at a time when students don't read more than
> a screen at a time and that for them research amounts to doing key word
> searches and cut-pasting the appropriate quotes. But then I think back to my
> own Russian teacher who theatrically expressed his dismay that we came to
> Russian without a previous background in Latin.
>
> E. D. Hirsch aside, the syllabus of cultural literacy syllabus with
> generations and technology. No one in 1930 would have dreamed that film could
> be a part of a part of cultural literacy. The fluidity of what counts as
> cultural literacy comes through very nicely in "Tarzan's New York Adventure"
> (1942), in which the Johnny Weissmuller character finds himself being
> cross-examined in a New York courtroom (I'm quoting from childhood memory):
>
> Plaintiff's attorney:    Can you read?
> Tarzan:    Read?
> Plaintiff's attorney:    Yes, you know, read a book...
> Tarzan:    Can lawyer read trail in jungle?
>
> - R. Robin
>
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