20 Nov
2012
20 Nov
'12
6:51 a.m.
On Tue, 20 Nov 2012, Jason White <jason(a)jasonjgw.net> wrote:
Russell Coker <russell(a)coker.com.au> wrote:
I read The Lord of the Rings when I was in grade 6. I don't think that any
teaching in regard to reading literature should be required in high school.
Anyone who can't read LOTR by year 8 is probably a lost cause as far as
serious reading is concerned.
On Tue, 20 Nov 2012, "Trent W. Buck"
<trentbuck(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Reading literature is valuable; English lit, now that is a subject that's
pure child-minding. Should
go back to teaching rhetoric and grammar.
The subject "English" should be about blogging, email, twitter, SMS, and
writing technical documents - with probably about that order of
importance. so is essay writing for anyone who studies
the humanities/social sciences. (Even in the natural sciences, beyond a
certain point one has to be able to write papers/theses/dissertations).
What portion of the population do a humanities course at university? I expect
that it's a lot less than half the population and I don't think there's any
good reason to force the entire population to pretend to learn about writing
essays about literature for that.
Yes writing essays is useful for science degrees and for any job that you
might get which requires a science degree. But the essay in question will be
more similar to writing technical documents and blogging than anything which
is taught in current year 12 "English".
I think there's an important role for serious
school education intended to
prepare people for rigorous academic study at university.
Unfortunately such serious education is incompatible with having every child
complete year 12.
On Tue, 20 Nov 2012, Roger <arelem(a)bigpond.com> wrote:
From next year, every teacher from sport, English,
math and science and
social sciences will have to teach IT.
Citation needed.
History is now history of Asia and aborigines, not
history of Australia.
Roger, make no more mentions of race in your messages.
--
My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/
My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/