Posted on 02/06/2005 1:32:00 PM PST by Willie Green
They have cell phones, BlackBerries and Palm Pilots and live by instant messaging and the Internet. Yet many graduating college students get bad grades from employers for their communications skills.
When Debra Vargulish recruits on college campuses for Kennametal Inc., for example, the students she meets are often inarticulate and shy.
"They seem to be way better at using technology than older people. It's actually the content that is missing," said Vargulish, a training administrator at the Latrobe-based global tooling company. "A lot of them don't know what to say at all, and that's not good."
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
What is also true is that for years the public schools have not really TAUGHT students to read. Instead of basic phonics and systematic reading instruction, they teach "whole language" reading.
My daughter's teacher actually instructed her students to "look at the pictures and guess" when they didn't know a word. The only time words had to be spelled correctly was on "spelling tests" (8 words/week and the word was counted wrong if the "i" was not dotted). During "creative writing" lessons the same word could be "sound-spelled" (mis-spelled!) and was not even underlined, much less corrected. The whole language approach to reading nearly destroyed my daughter's reading ability.
We transferred our children to a non-denominational school starting in 3rd grade. While she still doesn't read for pleasure (and does IM, etc. as you mention), at least she CAN read. She's now a college sophomore and on the dean's list.
Partial illiteracy is a major problem for many of these job-seekers.
Excellent point. Basics like a meeting agenda beforehand and meeting minutes afterwards are not so basic, it seems. Nor is showing up on time.
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