Public School Writing Teachers

[readerMom]

I guess my point was the creative writing in second grade could have been because Lowell Elementary is an unusual school.  But my children are learning writing in a much different way that I did.  Their teachers are encouraging them to write before they learn spelling, grammar or any of the details and mechanics of the language.  I think this makes them more willing to write and less worried about getting something wrong.
It is also extremely humorous to read my six yr old's "letters" home.  She loves to write and sends letters to Grandparents and writes in her journal, all without knowing how to spell 85% of the words.  I think she will love writing for the rest of her life.  My other two school-age children have also benefited from this approach.

[Shaggy]

That sounds really great….I can see how that would be effective and beneficial.

[SarahG]

The danger is that they will never see the importance of the spelling and grammar rules - after all, they can write without them, so why bother learning ther "right" way?

[Shaggy]

Because if they don't, eventually they will start getting C's and D's. Then they'll learn.

[readerMom]

The danger is that they will never see the importance of the spelling and grammar rules - after all, they can write without them, so why bother learning the "right" way?

I do have that problem, but I think it is more a function of my eldest's Asperger's.  He wants a logical reason for everything and telling him "That's just the rule, deal with it." doesn't fly.  My other children have picked up this attitude.  It makes for interesting discussions and occasional arguments with authority figures.
If they really want to write, they will figure out the rules so they can communicate more clearly.  If they don't figure out the rules they won't be too terribly bad off because of spell and grammar checks.  Then their mother the evil English-major witch will get on their case as well.

[GorgonlaVacaTremendo]

Indeed, it is pretentious to think that studying Shakespeare will somehow enable an individual to communicate in ways that learning how to write creatively will not, and the same goes for many other silly (but perhaps interesting) things we are taught in school, such as how to multiply matrices.  It is also a false dichotomy to compare creative writing with non-fiction writing:  There is also such a thing as creative non-fiction (which is quite popular in literary circles, to be honest).

It has been my experience that the school districts which foster environments where students have more options and more freedom tend to promote excellence than those which emphasize only core classes.

Studying Shakespeare may not enable an individual inherently to communicate in ways that creative writing would not also teach.  But learning and studying classic literature does stimulate different areas of the brain, cause different neurological connections to be made and enhance different areas of logic, rhetoric and other abilities.  Reading does a very different thing to students than writing overall.  That being said, writing, creative fictional, non fictional or academic non-fictional is a huge booster to a person's ability to communicate, specifically using written word (obviously).  I've also seen research which suggests it can help people become more social, imaginative/original, and even intelligent. 

But we have other programs which are intended for these purposes, and partly because of logical reasoning, and mostly because of tradition, we have those programs at a higher priority than creative (specifically creative fictional) writing.  Adding creative writing at the cost of other programs is, I believe, a negative policy, considering most other programs we have exist for a purpose and help develop the brain in specific ways.  If we could add creative writing at a non-loss to every school, we should without question.  But it comes down to resources, not the least of which is time.  Students spend only a certain amount of time at school, and will spend only a certain amount of time doing homework.  Writing takes quite a bit of time for the average individual, and this would subtract from students' other studies if just tacked on to the current curriculum.

I maintain students who are interested in creative writing beyond their school's basic programs (which all schools should have, and some do not), they will pursue it on their own time as a hobby.  I'd also like to point out a lot of students have a polarized reaction to subjects they are introduced to by schools, disliking it simply because it is suddenly "work" instead of "enjoyment".  This is the case with me, for example, and reading for school.  Even today, in my senior year towards my bachelors degree, I hardly ever read my text books or periodicals for class, despite the fact that I fill my time reading similar materials on the same subjects for my own enjoyment.  I'm not saying we shouldn't offer it, but definitely we shouldn't make it, or any art, mandatory in upper level education.  I don't think anybody was saying we should, but I thought it warranted saying. 

[The Jade Knight]

A great many habits and institutions we currently have are quite unrelated to utility.  We support things because we are used to supporting them.  Have you heard the anecdote about a woman who cut the end off of her roasts before cooking them?  (It's a well-known piece of true folklore, but I'll share if you're unfamiliar).

The English language is filled with absurdities which are kept for tradition's sake.  An example is the word "island", which, historically, contained no "s", until some brilliant educators decided that it must have been derived from the Latin insula which gives French "isle", and as such should contain an "s".  In other words, "s" has never been a pronounced part of the word, and originally was not written in it either.  But, alack, we are in too deep to change our ridiculous habits now.

Shakespeare, I fear, is kind of similar to "island".  I must say that I wholly respect Professor Tolkien's strong distaste for the man's work.

This is not to say that there is no value to studying "literature"—I certainly believe there is.  But rigidity in education never seems to be the most effective approach.  Just ask any professional educator what they think of No Child Left Behind, eh?

[GorgonlaVacaTremendo]

I feel like we may be arguing the same thing.  I don't think rigidity is a good idea in education, or really in nearly any aspect of life.  But I do feel as though there is room for a standard base to spring from in a person's education.  Whether or not we continued to study Shakespeare, we DO need to continue to study literature the way we study Shakespeare.  I could really care less if the writer himself was dropped from curriculum--it is the process of studying, and not inherently what is being studied, that has the proper psychological outcomes.  If you would rather see kids read and study more literature of a different kind, that is fine.  But studying literature and writing achieve very separate outcomes on a neurological level.

I don't know the story.

No Child Left Behind has a lot of problems, I feel, many of which are as bad or worse than the rigidity it causes.  As I said before, creative writing should have a place in curriculum, and if the resources are available (which in a lot of places they are not) it should be also offered as an optional class.  But I don't support the addition of it to schools at the expense of other important programs, such as the sciences.  I also feel there are more important optional classes many schools do not have, such as multiple foreign languages, Asian and African history and arts study, etc. that I would rather see as optional curriculum than a creative writing class in high schools.  A good example of this is I went to a very good high school, but as far as foreign language goes there was not a single Asian language offered, and which you could take Russian, French, Spanish, or German, only the Spanish branch was really taken with any seriousness by both most faculty and most students.

[The Jade Knight]

Well, we may be arguing the same thing in different ways, as I agree with your first paragraph.

The way the story goes is that the mother of a young girl, whenever she made roast, would cut off the end and place it on the side of the roast.  Her daughter, being an inquisitive child, asked her why she did this.  After thinking about it, she said something along the lines of "I don't really know—I think it improves the flavor or something.  Your grandmother always did it."  So, since she didn't know, she decided to ask her mother.  When she asked her mother, her mother said she always did it because her mother did it.  So, the young mother went to her grandmother, who happened to still be living at this time, and asked her.  Her grandmother then replied that she did it because the roast would not have fit into the pot otherwise!

I agree that NCLB had lots of problems.  But I think that often we emphasize things which we, in our own fields or mentalities, judge to be important, which really aren't so.  Many things taught in the sciences and maths are of this nature—I have not used the vast majority of the math I learned in high school (I was an advanced math student) since, and this includes taking the GRE (to get into grad school)!  If I was less inquisitive, I'd have used less of the science, but the fact is that there's a lot of the sciences I've never used, either.  However, I use the French I learned in High School all the time.  I use the Welsh (an obscure language!) I learned in college WAY more often than I'm faced with the possibility of multiplying matrices or burning things to figure out how many calories they contain.  And, obviously, I use my experiences in Creative Writing all the time, as well.

The fact of the matter that any given bit of knowledge is only going to end up being useful to a limited portion of the population later on in life.  While I definitely think a basic knowledge of Math (say to the level of Algebra), History and Government, English (for literacy's sake), and Science (esp. understanding the Scientific Method) are critical to education, there's currently a lot of mandatory "fluff" in our education system which is biased towards traditional education.  Can our society not have artists as well as mathematicians?  (For what it's worth, a friend of mine who is currently getting his PhD in Math [specializing in Topology] tells me that art is, generally, more useful in life than advanced math.)

[Shaggy]

I see Gorgon's point. The point of school is not (necessarily) to learn skills/techniques or gain knowledge that will directly help you in life (although that is very often the case). At school, a variety of subjects help train your brain to think in ceratin ways and (like Gorgon said) to help make eventual automatic connections.

Chestknight–Knowing about/how to multiply matrices is NOT useless–it actually comes into play very often when working with computers.

[The Jade Knight]

You seem to have misinterpreted my statements:  I never said that learning to work with matrices was useless, simply that the vast majority of educated Americans will never need (or want) to use it.

[Shaggy]

OK, fine. But if they don't use teach it because "the vast majority of educated Americans will never need (or want) to use it," then those who DO need to use it in their field are at a disadvantage. So really, you can't say what to teach and what not to teach based on that statement.

[The Jade Knight]

Please read my arguments more carefully.

What I am stating is that we should not be unfairly biased towards the maths and sciences when what is being taught in them is frequently no more applicable than what is being taught in the humanities or arts.

So, in other words:  Don't say that all the stuff in the sciences and maths are being taught because they're useful, because an awful lot of it (especially the advanced stuff) isn't.

So, that established, don't say that the humanities and arts shouldn't be taught more because they're not useful, because a lot of stuff in the humanities and arts is at least as useful as a lot of what is currently taught in the maths and sciences.

[Shaggy]

My apologies. I'm generally trying to cram in some posting in between my schoolwork, so I read kind of fast. My bad.

[GorgonlaVacaTremendo]

I'd like to point out that while I am a working artist (a musician), and I am studying a "soft science" (psychology), I understand that a majority of what you learn in math and science can be unused in later life.  However, in the process of learning these things, my brain had physical, notable changes which do not occur when studying arts.  These changes allow me to think more quickly on a day-to-day basis about problem-solving, data reading (including social datums, my surroundings etc.), and the ability to remember and quantify larger amount of materials and numbers.  The arts affect different areas of the brain and do other impressive changes.  However, the goals of our educational system are in a large part to raise our skills in the areas I already listed, which are related to the sciences.

I think the arts are more important to me in my day to day life.  In fact, I know they are.  I feel like the arts are more important to most people, be they film, music, literature, etc.  But learning them doesn't achieve all of the goals we would like achieved as well as learning the sciences does.  There should be more arts in addition to the sciences, even if they are after-school programs.  But it comes down to resources--fortunately, students now have the internet to learn from, and you can get a jump start in any artistic setting by lessons you can find on it.