Posted on 04/04/2011 4:58:33 AM PDT by Kaslin
I’m getting to be a crabby old man and I’m not even fifty. But working at a liberal university for eighteen years has taught me never to accept responsibility for my actions or my disposition. Instead I blame my most recent bad mood (the one I’m in right now) on a student who just asked me a question about the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case United States v. Leon, (1984). Wanting to know the holding, he asked if it meant “that the police can rely upon a search warrant they don’t reasonably no is invalid.” I almost told the student there was know way he was going to pass my course if he didn’t no the difference between “know” and “no.” But I just new I would get in trouble if I did.
Of course, when criticizing the low quality of students in higher education it’s important that we not pick on males only (that would be sexist). No discussion of the declining quality of student communication skills would be complete without talking about the role (or was that roll?) of female students. After all, they make up more than 50% of the student body on the average college campus. You are (like totally) aware of their presence when you hear a conversation like the following, which occurred last Tuesday right outside my opened office door:
“I’m just like not real sure what I want to do when I graduate? I like thought I would like major in business but there’s a lot of like math and stuff? Plus, the classes in sociology are like easier and like way more interesting? I just seriously like need to focus on like what I want to do when I get out and stuff?”
None of the young woman’s sentences were actually questions. But the inflections at the end of each sentence (along with the general lack of confidence in anything she said) made them sound like questions. I mean, it made them like sound like questions? I’m sure that that woman has a Facebook account with a “like like” button. So she can like seriously like. And stuff.
Of course, it is racist of me to have just given two examples of declining student quality using white students. Let’s (like totally) fix that by recounting a conversation I heard just this morning as I was walking up the stairwell in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Building, which is sure to be re-named Mike Adams Hall after I retire.
“You did dat. I did not do dat. Yo. Dats right. It’s yo fault. My situation? What about yo situation? I do dat. I do dat. But dats because you done did dat. Dats what I’m sayin’. Dat’s what I be sayin’.”
I have no idea what that young Hyphenated-American student was saying to his cell phone. All I know is that I have the song “Zip-a-dee-do-dat” stuck in my head. Thanks to the Diversity Office it’s the new “Song of the South”!
As much as I enjoy broaching these topics with humor the results aren’t funny when these students get out into the real world to compete in a full-time job applicant pool. So there has to be a serious discussion of how this problem became so pronounced and what can be done about it.
It would be tempting to blame these kinds of problems on the university English departments. After all, they rarely teach students English these days – opting instead to indoctrinate them into post-modern philosophy and radical feminist politics.
It would also be tempting to blame the Schools of Education that pay wacky professors like Maurice Martinez to teach “black English” to white students. Instead of asking the minority to conform to the majority they do the exact opposite – probably because it is more difficult and, hence, would require greater government intervention (read: greater federal grant opportunities).
But the problem is much broader than that. It is a problem stemming from our basic educational mission of promoting multiculturalism and diversity. In this age of diversity we are reticent to correct students for speaking in a “wrong” way or to reward them for speaking in a “right” way. To do either one of these things is to admit that there is a right or wrong way of doing things in any given cultural or social context. Professors who are unwilling to agree that English is the “right” language to speak in this country are hardly willing to assert that there is a right or wrong way to speak it.
President George W. Bush was considered an idiot by most college professors simply because he was inarticulate. One of my colleagues even circulated an email saying that Bush was responsible for the fact that most college students are inarticulate. But Bush is no longer in office and the problem keeps getting worse. Multiculturalism has come up short in our efforts to promote linguistic skill and social competency. It’s time for a new strategery. I think you gnome sayings. Gnome sayin’?
On a more positive note, our quaint native patois will amuse our Chinese masters.
*******************************
NO TALK! YOU WORK! WORK NOW!
And BTW-I am like bookmarking? slike I no I’m knot aloan dealing with all this stuff?
BTW-I’ve lost my swag-or so I’ve been told....I was informed of this while watching the Kid’s Choice Awards the other night and made a comment about kids (10 or 11) singing about swag, love and giving it all to the love of their life...
U cant makeup this stuff...
This is really said, but it shows how lazy teachers are
When we had a local near-revolution concerning the too-easy exams for teachers, one local teacher attempted to uphold the difficulty of the exams by writing to the newspaper that “I and my collegues...”
Like, U could just go do a taping of "Girls Gone Wild" before you decide to take your degree in Art History and move back in with your parents and stuff?
My son Beau, I mean, Bill, he of the perfectly-styled locks, recently said to me, "If you go to Walmart today, can you get me a hair dryer or something?" "I suppose I could," I replied. "A hair dryer or a bunch of bananas? A hair dryer or a package of new socks?"
LOL!
That doesn’t mean that Mike Adams thought that President Bush was an idiot, probably just the opposite and I think he admitting that he himself climbed the stairwell. Which I believe he used figuratively
Mostly true. Of course, I don't want to paint with a broad brush and say that "all" teachers are lazy -- but most definitely are. Teachers in government schools are vastly overpaid for the quantity and quality of the work they do. They will whine that this characterization is unfair, but they're just wrong.
We need to close down government schools, and let parents send their children to schools where actual learning is demanded. Teachers at such schools will perform or be fired. No unions, obviously.
they can join me in my world...
It was brung too you by singel paier edukatashin. Please enjoy sigel paier helth car.
With what sounded like the blinding flash of illumination, from the back of the room came a young, female, BLONDE voice "Oh! Like the car!"
Brought the house down.
no what Im sayin????
that must be the same blonde that borrowed her sister's car...before returning it, the "Wash" light came on...so she washed it..
With respect, I must dispute your contention that teachers are “LAZY”. I believe the proper word is “INCOMPETENT”.
Just take a close look at the result of their “labors”.
I am considering the possibility of having my boys learn a marketable trade rather than going straight to college. That way they will learn the value of hard work and have real world experience. With the glut of college graduates looking for work, a smart kid with those qualities will be better prepared to handle what the world throws at them than some poor kid who wasted their parent’s money majoring in PC.
Considered gunsmithing?
Yo, yous be speakin da troot! lol What’s really scary is that one of the most fun “made up” games we play is “Redneck Scrabble” wherein the only rule is “if you can ‘splain it, you can spell it” is becoming a societal norm!
I, on the other hand, just purchased Latin curricula for my 11-year-old son at the homeschool convention. ;-)
I think it also shows how lazy parents are these days. My son occasionally tries to slip in a “neighborhood cool” type inflection to his voice. (He’s only 11 - it’s natural.) It gets nipped in the bud rather quickly.
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