Your English Education

[McKenna]

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[gothgodess]

You did better than me goth girl and welcome to the madhouse

I too suffered from dyslexia when younger, but it was diagnosed as stupidity at school in the 1950's.

I learned English at a very early age, I heard my mum talking it, then dad started up, so I thought I'd try it.

I took electrical engineering at college, we didn't need much in the way of English, it was all maths and science based. The only English you needed was to read the sign which said 'do not touch'.

I've never taken a writing course of any description, just basic stuff while at school. Spent most of my informative years at school dropping my pencil and trying to see up Delia White's skirt picking it up.

pops............The thick one.

Pops you seem like a nice intelligent if slightly mad man.
Too be able to do Electrical engineering takes skill.
I always took signs that said do not touch as a dare.
i was lucky when I went to school my teacher went on the first course in our area designed to help teachers spot dyslexic kids, even so i had 8 years of being told I was just bone idle.

to stupid teachers.

 

[NoJo]

GG, don't let pop fool you with that "I'm thick" crap. He's double bluffing: He really is thick.

 

[raphy]

English Grammar School to 16 - I was an 'A' student in English. Luckily, I had an amazing English teacher, who instilled in me a perfectionist's love and joy of the language that I still have to this day.

Also, like Ogg, I've been speed reading since I was old enough to decipher letters - Read Lord of the Rings cover to cover in under 3 days at age 10, and like Ogg, a blockbuster paperback takes me only an hour or two to read. I'm a voracious reader. I'll read anything. Spy novels, action novels, romance novels, detective novels, anything. Words in a row.

I used to end up being late for the school bus because I'd get lost reading the back of the cornflakes box.

Two stories to tell about just how 'into' reading I am.

1) I was about 14 years old. My mother had left me in charge of the deep fat fryer in the kitchen, with orders to call her if it was left on too long and started to smoke. She came back into the kitchen 45 minutes later, to see smoke literally everywhere. You couldn't see your hand in front of your face. My only concession to the smoke had been to move the book closer to my nose so I could still read. I hadn't actually noticed the smoke, per se, only that there was something blocking my reading.

2) A few years later. We're having our driveway gravelled. I'm in the living room, reading. The guy's truck was one of those big dumpster ones, the ones with the hydraulic back. He'd backed his truck down the driveway too far and caught the back underneath the eaves of the house as the hydraulics tipped the gravel out. By the time he or my parents had noticed, there was a 6-inch gap of clear air between the wall and the roof where he'd actually lifted the roof up. I was sitting directly under the gap. Still reading. Hadn't noticed a thing. Not the falling debris, nor the grinding noises as the roof joists were lifted off their supports.

I love reading.

 

[NoJo]

How long would it take you to read the "Has Anyone Seen The Christ" thread?

 

[raphy]

Haha.

 

[McKenna]

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[Linbido]

How long would it take you to read the "Has Anyone Seen The Christ" thread?

Pfft. That thing writes itself faster than I can read dammit.

 

[lewdandlicentious]

God I feel about as intelligent as a baboon's backside.
Being a Brit I took GCSE english at 16 and failed. Took it again at 18 and got a B but thats it and to top it off I'm dyslexic.

Don't worry, your standard of education has absolutely nothing to do with your intelligence.

I took O level English in 1979 and barely scraped a pass. (Grade E.)

Same with Maths.

I was simply a lazy twat who hated revising, and had far better things to do with my spare time, like have fun.

Schools then didn't have revision periods, or other such study groups. the lesson we had were it.

In all honesty I realise now that some of the teachers weren't up to much either. Their lessons, whilst I'm sure were factually correct etc, were simply put, fucking boring.

I did learn how to read maps though, which was useful from the beginning in my army career. My woodwork knowledge has come in handy too during my DIY attempts, most of which were successful.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I have always wondered: Why do people major in English in college? If you intend to be an English teacher, it makes sense, but otherwise, why? Personally, I took up Accounting.

You study English because you love literature, that's why, and because you find a depth and meaning in the written word that you don't find elsewhere. You want to find what other people have thought about literature and you want to find literature you don't know yet or don;t yet know how to appreciate. You study English because ideas and their histories excite you, because poetry moves you, and because you think there's more to life than brute existence, and you'd like to know what other people have thought too.

As hard as it is to believe, there was a time not so long ago when colleges were more than vocational schools, when you didn't go to college to learn to be a cop or a computer programmer or run a hotel. Colleges were repositories of culture and learning, and that's why people went there.

And the one thing they don't teach English majors is grammar.

Sorry for the rant, but I've seen too many people denigrate the humanities as having no practical value, which is ridiculous. I've studied humanities and I've studied science, and the o9lder I get, the more I realize that the humanities rule.

---dr.M.

 

[Guest]

And the one thing they don't teach English majors is grammar.

They did in 'my day', Mab.

Thanks for your post, I didn't have it in me to reply.

Box: do you know the term 'liberal arts'? It's not a political statement.

Perdita

 

[SlickTony]

And the one thing they don't teach English majors is grammar.

I think they assume you learned it in grammar school.

 

[Boxlicker101]

You study English because you love literature, that's why, and because you find a depth and meaning in the written word that you don't find elsewhere. You want to find what other people have thought about literature and you want to find literature you don't know yet or don;t yet know how to appreciate. You study English because ideas and their histories excite you, because poetry moves you, and because you think there's more to life than brute existence, and you'd like to know what other people have thought too.

As hard as it is to believe, there was a time not so long ago when colleges were more than vocational schools, when you didn't go to college to learn to be a cop or a computer programmer or run a hotel. Colleges were repositories of culture and learning, and that's why people went there.

And the one thing they don't teach English majors is grammar.

Sorry for the rant, but I've seen too many people denigrate the humanities as having no practical value, which is ridiculous. I've studied humanities and I've studied science, and the o9lder I get, the more I realize that the humanities rule.

---dr.M.

Hi, Doc. I have always been a lover of literature but I learned to read in elementary school. It is possible, you know, to read and appreciate all the great works of literature in the english language without going to college, and that is what I did. When I did start going to college, at 40 years of age, it was with the intention of getting a degree that I could parley into a better paying job, and it worked out that way.

I think it was in the late fifties, right after the USSR launched Sputnik, that the US gov't started pushing people to take up math and science in college. In 1957, when I graduated from a small high school in WI, hardly any of my classmates had any thoughts of college. I certainly didn't and that was the norm at that time and that place.

'Dita, I have certainly heard of a liberal arts degree but I don't know exactly what it entails. I understand that it requires numerous courses in social studies, English, languages and a minimum of science courses. At one time that was a popular degree but that was when the purppose of college was to make a well-rounded individual and if a person could show that he or she had a degree, especially from a prestigious college or university, that person could secure a high-paying job. The purpose of college, at least in the US, has always been to make more money.

 

[pop_54]

Hmmmm

Pops you seem like a nice intelligent if slightly mad man.
Too be able to do Electrical engineering takes skill.
I always took signs that said do not touch as a dare.
i was lucky when I went to school my teacher went on the first course in our area designed to help teachers spot dyslexic kids, even so i had 8 years of being told I was just bone idle.

to stupid teachers.

Ha! Gothic young lady, you appear to have misinterpreted my character, I am in fact completely mad I too took the 'do not touch' challenge early in my electrical training, it was quite nice, the instructor had to give me the kiss of life, gave me quite a boner.

Don't take any notice of Sub Joe by the way, he's only jealous because I've got a smaller dick than him. He's one stop short of Barking as well by the way. Did you know he lives around London.

 

[Guest]

Grade B at 'A' level for me, in English, Politics, Classics and History.

But, I went to a selective grammar school and had damn fine teachers.

I've learnt a whole lot more relevent stuff in the past year, though, since I've been taking my writing seriously. Or not, as the case may be.

Lou

 

[rgraham666]

Sorry for the rant, but I've seen too many people denigrate the humanities as having no practical value, which is ridiculous. I've studied humanities and I've studied science, and the o9lder I get, the more I realize that the humanities rule.

That's the conclusion I've come to.

Science tells you how. Humanities tells you why, or more importantly, why not.

I think the biggest problem with our educational system, at least here in North America, is that the point of education has been changed.

Our system is now not supposed to turn out human beings, but human resources.

(edited to fix my poor typing skills)

 

[SlickTony]

Our system is now not supposed to turn out human beings, but human recources.

I couldn't agree more.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Hi, Doc. I have always been a lover of literature but I learned to read in elementary school. It is possible, you know, to read and appreciate all the great works of literature in the english language without going to college, and that is what I did. When I did start going to college, at 40 years of age, it was with the intention of getting a degree that I could parley into a better paying job, and it worked out that way.

Of course it's possible to read for pleasure without formally studying English in school, just as it's possible to love music without knowing a trombone from a treble clef. But if you're really into music, say, sooner or later you're going to get curious as to how it works and what makes some of it good and some of it not so good. You can teach yourself a lot of course, but you can learn a lot more by going to someone who really knows what's going on and studying with them.

---dr.M.