Posted on 02/21/2014 5:24:09 PM PST by Zeneta
Why Can’t College Students Write Anymore?
Is it just me, or are student competencies like basic writing skills in serious peril today? Granted, I am about a decade in to my teaching career, but even within this fairly short span, I have noticed a startling decline in the quality of written work turned in by my students, regardless of which institution (community college, private, four year school) the papers are coming from.
It’s not just that students aren’t demonstrating critical thinking skills in their writing, basic competencies like proper syntax, spelling, and even proper structure like paragraph indentation and how to cite sources are being done very poorly. Teachers have been reporting anecdotally that even compared to five years ago, many are seeing declines in vocabulary, grammar, writing, and analysis (e.g. Westin, 2013; Bloomberg News, 2012). Moreover, on an international scale, our standards in literacy is similarly on the decline (McGuire, 2014).
There are only so many times you can correct a “their” that is meant to denote “there” before wondering, when was the last time this college student’s writing abilities were actually assessed? As a psychology professor, I am starting to feel like an English instructor, because so much of my feedback on these papers is focusing on such basic writing skills, that the coherency or theoretical merit behind the content is getting lost in the shuffle.
Snip
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-first-impression/201402/why-can-t-college-students-write-anymore
(Excerpt) Read more at psychologytoday.com ...
We are evolving into a nation of savages, led currently by our President.
The problem was, nobody ever taught them anything.
I don't doubt that many of their peers were otherwise, though.
Where does this knowledge come from ?
Being told or by experience ?
I'm not easy on kids. They are expected to be untrained humans. I am the trainer when they are around. Even dull kids get bright when material is presented in a matter of fact and interesting way.
Everyone leaves here having learned something. Some tidbit that they will never forget. Sometimes it's physics. Sometimes cooking. Sometimes safety.
With my grandkids, that's sort of normal operating procedure. With the twin teens... they go to public school and it's not something they get exposed to.
But they love it. They beg for more.
Kids want to learn. They aren't being taught.
/johnny
Can you explain what Rand means by this?
That was your link.
Are you kidding ?
It’s been written before.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote on this concept well before Rand.
It’s a simple concept. F***you. I am a man that won’t be told what to think.
Then again, their nations degenerated into oblivion within 200-400 years of their writings, while Christianity still remains.
No... that qualifies as a wall of text. No-one is going to read it. Scanning it causes eye strain.
A link to that information would be appropriate.
Paging down though a morass is not.
This is a conversation forum, not a PhD thesis draft dump area.
If you don't know your target audience, you've lost the crowd in front of you.
/johnny
That's an insupportable generalization.
I'm hard-core conservative. Ask my youngest grand-daughter and she knows that I think abortion is murdering babies.
But I don't push any kids away. If they need food, they get it. If they need a bandaid and a hug, they get it. If they need to cry about the latest boyfriend fiasco, they cry. I pretend to listen.
But conservatism to me is passing on the wealth of knowledge that I've been given. I can't do that by pushing young people away.
They gotta be close (and they want to be close) when you teach them physics under the guise of bar-bets.
/johnny
Your drill with the grandkids is similar to mine. We have dinner table conversations about current events. They have come to relish them...and they have come to expect answers to their questions. So, they ask questions.
When there is an opportunity for a demonstration -- e.g., the metamorphisis of a caterpillar into a butterfly -- they are invited to observe.
And I very much enjoy taking them on trips (or expotitions, as we call them, courtesy A.A. Milne). They provide the grist for geology, paleontology, geography, history and map-reading lessons.
They're anxious to learn...and I enjoy sharing what I know (and discovering new things myself).
Sounds like they'd enjoy visiting you, too.
Being told or by experience ?
See my post #81.
That can be the hard part. When the 4 year old in the back seat asks why the car makes noise when going over parts of the highway... daughter sez "'splain him". And that leads to a discussion, followed by demonstration, followed by flights of fancy that have to be grounded in real physics...
Yep. I love it.
I was going to grow up to be a grumpy old bastard, but something happened along the way.
Now it seems like most of my joy comes from the garden and my kids/grandkids.
/johnny
Because learning how to spell and how to write a proper sentence is b-o-r-I-n-g—dontcha know. The little ones must have fun at school. I was appalled that my kids didn’t have spelling books like I had from first grade to 8th. It’s really embarrassing to look at their handwriting too. Looks like second graders. It’s not taught anymore and the teachers now haven’t been taught it either.
So.
Thanks, But.
It’s not answers they want.
They want the right questions.
We had handwriting books and had to use fountain pens with ink cartridges. We could all write cursive and it didn’t look like a 2nd grader. Why can’t they just go back to these standards or when our parents were in school? It was strict, disciplined and it was highly embarrassing to get sent to the principle’s office or make a bad grade.
Then your answer is no.
I start a lot of my talks/demonstrations with "Let me show you how this part of the universe works". That never fails to get their attention. They want to know why stuff works. Or doesn't.
Self directed, interested learning is the only kind that sticks.
/johnny
My kid’s 4th grade Math teacher used @ for the X in multiplication
OMG
Ayn Rand and Objectivism is not new.
I was Director of Operations at a networking company, and my job was hard. She was my assistant.
It took about 3 weeks before she was asking what she needed to know about X, Y, or Z for just some hints at where to start looking.
She learned to ask the right questions.
Doing research told her what the wrong questions were.
She recently graduated with a geophysics degree and is knocking down big bucks with an oil company.
She bought my beer last time we spent time together.
Full disclosure: I'm sweet on her mom, but that just makes me harsher on results.
/johnny
What do you know.
What do you own ?
What would you die for ?
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