I recently read a book written in 1922 and refer to the built in dictionary probably every 10 pages.
[/quote]
Something came to mind a couple days ago when considering this thread and vocabulary. I believe that the literates of years or centuries past had a considerably larger vocabulary than we do now. Obviously the number of literates was infinitely smaller than today (insert high school joke here). But I haven’t been able to find anything to see if I was correct in that hypothesis.[/quote]
I have definitely read that average vocabularies are shrinking. Vocabularies for college graduates, I think, too.[/quote]
I have no evidence to support my claim, but it seems clear this is a result of less book reading. TV shows (even good ones) and reading shit on the internet isn’t going to build up a vocabulary like reading a good novel will. I know when I read a good book my vocabulary gets better. Read some Cormac McCarthy and if your like me you’ll be consulting your dictionary often and learn some new words by the time your done.[/quote]
You’re telling me you had to look up what a surbated company of catamites maundering canticles at the foot of a nightlit dolmen was? What an amateur![/quote]
Buncha bruised butt-fucked boys babbling bible ballads by a moonlit mausoleum.
I recently read a book written in 1922 and refer to the built in dictionary probably every 10 pages.
[/quote]
Something came to mind a couple days ago when considering this thread and vocabulary. I believe that the literates of years or centuries past had a considerably larger vocabulary than we do now. Obviously the number of literates was infinitely smaller than today (insert high school joke here). But I haven’t been able to find anything to see if I was correct in that hypothesis.[/quote]
Hey are you calling me stoopid???
I would guess colloquial language is much more prominent than it was in previous generations.
Previous generations of literati’s were more inclined to use the King’s English
I recently read a book written in 1922 and refer to the built in dictionary probably every 10 pages.
[/quote]
Something came to mind a couple days ago when considering this thread and vocabulary. I believe that the literates of years or centuries past had a considerably larger vocabulary than we do now. Obviously the number of literates was infinitely smaller than today (insert high school joke here). But I haven’t been able to find anything to see if I was correct in that hypothesis.[/quote]
Hey are you calling me stoopid???
I would guess colloquial language is much more prominent than it was in previous generations.
Previous generations of literati’s were more inclined to use the King’s English[/quote]
Shakespeare’s plays were all written in colloquial English. So were all of Dickens’ and Robert Louis Stevenson’s novels.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Just for fun sometime, go read The Count of Monte Cristo, unabridged version. The hardcover edition is like 1100 pages.
It is a fantastic story, but it is also full of hundreds of references that will not be obvious at all to a twenty-first-century American, but that were common knowledge to a 19th century European. References not only to the pop culture (opera, ballet, theater) of the day, but to classical literature: Dante, Homer, Ovid, Vergil, St Augustine… while being as relevant to the political “current events” of the moment as a Tom Clancy novel.
What strikes me about the Count is that it was not considered “highbrow” fiction by any means. It was written for the average educated Frenchman at the time.
Fast forward a hundred seventy years. Compare popular fiction today to anything written pre-American Civil War in any country.
Literature today has gotten dumber.
Because we have.
EDIT: momentarily forgot what century it currently is. This happens from time to time. [/quote]
[quote]BPCorso wrote:
How bad is it really? If you want a tough boy and want to allow him to act like a boy get him involved in competitive sports. And allow him to play with other boys. All that natural behavior can be expressed outside of the classroom.
Everyone needs to learn how to resist impulses and sit and shut the fuck up for long periods of time at some point in life. Do you think it’s natural to sit in a professional meeting for hours on end? No, it’s not. But we are a civil society so you suck it up. Boys need to learn how to do it sooner than later. Or else you have a bunch of barbarians when they’re adults.
Roughhousing and shit like that can happen when the boy is playing sports or playing with his friends. Getting kids to be respectful, keep silent, and listen isn’t a bad thing. We live in the 21st century. The fact of life is that most men will have to interact with women at some point in their professional life. People are acting like these kids are being forced to act effeminate.
Be a strong man, be the head of your household, allow your boy to be active and have friends, and there won’t be a problem. Don’t blame the teacher if your boy is soft or girlish.[/quote]
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
The current system for the most part is broken and the recently introduced common core material just makes the round hole/square peg problem that much worse.[/quote]
Can you elaborate on the common core material? I’m interested in knowing what is considered core these days.[/quote]
In a nutshell it is made up of the things that can be put on a standardized test. Someone came up with the idea that schools were teaching too much stuff that kids, and we can assume adults, don’t “need” to know. The trend in education is to have kids pass tests instead of actually learning. That is how success is measured. It’s what is being called a corporate approach to education. Teach for America, which sounds like a “great” liberal idea, is profiting from it and is actually behind it. In Bridgeport, CT the new superintendent brought in 100 or more “teachers” from TFA. They get paid, obviously, but TFA also gets 3,000 dollars a year for each “teacher” they place. The amount goes up every year that person still works. These are not teachers. They are recent college graduates who are nothing more than test tutors. They can’t teach because they don’t know how and honestly, how much can a 22 year old know anyway? They are not good with kids because they are kids themselves. In fact, if you want to get a job with TFA don’t tell them you want to go on and become a teacher as they want people who are only interested in teaching in the short term to make some money and pay off their loans before going to grad school and also have something that will look good on a resume.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
The flip side to this one though, zecarlo, is that you have to admit the same about reading the Bible because as you said it is good enough reason and it is all connected anyway.
[/quote]
The Bible (and religious studies) is something that everyone should be familiar with. It is important for cultural understanding since it obviously influenced our culture in many areas: the arts, philosophy, politics, etc. The Bible at some point should be taught as a work of literature. The problem will inevitably be that someone will get upset that religion is being taught, even if it is being taught as a work of “fiction”, but, someone else will get upset that the Bible isn’t being taught as a work of non-fiction.
Imagine how much trouble would get stirred up if other religious texts were taught as well? Another problem is that you would have to go out and find additional teachers as most are not well versed enough to teach the Bible, especially without any religious connotations. I took a class on the Bible as literature and it was taught by a very old professor. Young ones could never do that as they probably never read the Bible for scholarly or religious reasons.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Just for fun sometime, go read The Count of Monte Cristo, unabridged version. The hardcover edition is like 1100 pages.
[/quote]
You would also need to know French.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Just for fun sometime, go read The Count of Monte Cristo, unabridged version. The hardcover edition is like 1100 pages.
[/quote]
You would also need to know French. [/quote]
Read the unabridged Kindle edition then haha
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Just for fun sometime, go read The Count of Monte Cristo, unabridged version. The hardcover edition is like 1100 pages.
[/quote]
You would also need to know French. [/quote]
Read the unabridged Kindle edition then haha[/quote]
I know French.
[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
The current system for the most part is broken and the recently introduced common core material just makes the round hole/square peg problem that much worse.[/quote]
Can you elaborate on the common core material? I’m interested in knowing what is considered core these days.[/quote]
In a nutshell it is made up of the things that can be put on a standardized test. Someone came up with the idea that schools were teaching too much stuff that kids, and we can assume adults, don’t “need” to know. The trend in education is to have kids pass tests instead of actually learning. That is how success is measured. It’s what is being called a corporate approach to education. Teach for America, which sounds like a “great” liberal idea, is profiting from it and is actually behind it. In Bridgeport, CT the new superintendent brought in 100 or more “teachers” from TFA. They get paid, obviously, but TFA also gets 3,000 dollars a year for each “teacher” they place. The amount goes up every year that person still works. These are not teachers. They are recent college graduates who are nothing more than test tutors. They can’t teach because they don’t know how and honestly, how much can a 22 year old know anyway? They are not good with kids because they are kids themselves. In fact, if you want to get a job with TFA don’t tell them you want to go on and become a teacher as they want people who are only interested in teaching in the short term to make some money and pay off their loans before going to grad school and also have something that will look good on a resume. [/quote]
This pretty well sums it up. Although I did not know that about the TFA as our district dodges additional federal money’s and interference like the plague. It is an attempt to standardize material enough to be tested on large comprehensive subject area tests that must be passed to graduate, regardless of classroom grades. The theory is that it keeps districts from just letting kids slide through, getting passed along to make them someone else’s problem. The reality is that it creates an environment where teachers cant teach because they have to devote all their time to teaching a test and very little time actually getting kids interested in the subject matter. It results in a skimming of the subject matter without a full understanding and because every kid has to pass, and teachers, schools, and districts are graded based on their students performance, once you get your advanced students where you know they will score high, you concentrate on the lower ones to make sure they have adequate enough scores to make you look bad. Did I mention that our state requires you to give these tests to special ed children if you have a large enough class also? What good is it to put a high school biology exam in front of a teen with a 2nd grade academic age? I was part of the first class to be subjected to standardized tests here, however I think they have recently become more stringent from a national standpoint.
The sad part is that there are schools with issues, related to the community, and they need help. What they ended up doing is applying that “help” to all schools. Schools were not failing in the US; some schools were. And those schools which are failing are in neighborhoods that are failing. Fix the community and the school will follow. The kids that were going to succeed before testing are still going to succeed. The kids who were not going to succeed prior to testing still won’t succeed, they will just be better at taking whatever test McDonald’s has employees take.
I recently read a book written in 1922 and refer to the built in dictionary probably every 10 pages.
[/quote]
Something came to mind a couple days ago when considering this thread and vocabulary. I believe that the literates of years or centuries past had a considerably larger vocabulary than we do now. Obviously the number of literates was infinitely smaller than today (insert high school joke here). But I haven’t been able to find anything to see if I was correct in that hypothesis.[/quote]
It’s not just vocabulary. There were layers upon layers of cultural, artistic and literary references in the old literature.
Just for fun sometime, go read The Count of Monte Cristo, unabridged version. The hardcover edition is like 1100 pages.
It is a fantastic story, but it is also full of hundreds of references that will not be obvious at all to a twenty-first-century American, but that were common knowledge to a 19th century European. References not only to the pop culture (opera, ballet, theater) of the day, but to classical literature: Dante, Homer, Ovid, Vergil, St Augustine… while being as relevant to the political “current events” of the moment as a Tom Clancy novel.
What strikes me about the Count is that it was not considered “highbrow” fiction by any means. It was written for the average educated Frenchman at the time.
Fast forward a hundred seventy years. Compare popular fiction today to anything written pre-American Civil War in any country.
Literature today has gotten dumber.
Because we have.
EDIT: momentarily forgot what century it currently is. This happens from time to time. [/quote]
1000% agreed. I have the unabridged version sitting on my shelf :). One of my favorite novels.
[quote]zecarlo wrote:
The sad part is that there are schools with issues, related to the community, and they need help. What they ended up doing is applying that “help” to all schools. Schools were not failing in the US; some schools were. And those schools which are failing are in neighborhoods that are failing. Fix the community and the school will follow. The kids that were going to succeed before testing are still going to succeed. The kids who were not going to succeed prior to testing still won’t succeed, they will just be better at taking whatever test McDonald’s has employees take. [/quote]
Couldn’t be more right.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
The flip side to this one though, zecarlo, is that you have to admit the same about reading the Bible because as you said it is good enough reason and it is all connected anyway.
[/quote]
The Bible (and religious studies) is something that everyone should be familiar with. It is important for cultural understanding since it obviously influenced our culture in many areas: the arts, philosophy, politics, etc. The Bible at some point should be taught as a work of literature. The problem will inevitably be that someone will get upset that religion is being taught, even if it is being taught as a work of “fiction”, but, someone else will get upset that the Bible isn’t being taught as a work of non-fiction.
Imagine how much trouble would get stirred up if other religious texts were taught as well? Another problem is that you would have to go out and find additional teachers as most are not well versed enough to teach the Bible, especially without any religious connotations. I took a class on the Bible as literature and it was taught by a very old professor. Young ones could never do that as they probably never read the Bible for scholarly or religious reasons. [/quote]
Well, to be fair I wasn’t suggesting that it be taught in public schools. I can understand how you could have thought that though. I was suggesting that it is the mark of an educated man to read and be familiar with it. Ideological axes momentarily put aside while reading perhaps the single most influential book of all time (which of course is the hard part for most people, even keeled atheists included).
I was also, in roundabout style, taking a small poke at you for some of your assumptions in “other” threads :P. Apologies.
[quote]zecarlo wrote:
The sad part is that there are schools with issues, related to the community, and they need help. What they ended up doing is applying that “help” to all schools. Schools were not failing in the US; some schools were. And those schools which are failing are in neighborhoods that are failing. Fix the community and the school will follow. The kids that were going to succeed before testing are still going to succeed. The kids who were not going to succeed prior to testing still won’t succeed, they will just be better at taking whatever test McDonald’s has employees take. [/quote]
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Well, to be fair I wasn’t suggesting that it be taught in public schools. I can understand how you could have thought that though. I was suggesting that it is the mark of an educated man to read and be familiar with it. Ideological axes momentarily put aside while reading perhaps the single most influential book of all time (which of course is the hard part for most people, even keeled atheists included).
I was also, in roundabout style, taking a small poke at you for some of your assumptions in “other” threads :P. Apologies.[/quote]
I think it should be taught at a younger age. At the very least it should be taught alongside other literature. If a kid is reading Moby-Dick then there should be some supplementary Biblical study at the same time. I think that it is just taken for granted that kids know it because there was a time when everyone went to Sunday School. But like I said, believers and atheists (not all) would have a problem with it.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Well, to be fair I wasn’t suggesting that it be taught in public schools. I can understand how you could have thought that though. I was suggesting that it is the mark of an educated man to read and be familiar with it. Ideological axes momentarily put aside while reading perhaps the single most influential book of all time (which of course is the hard part for most people, even keeled atheists included).
I was also, in roundabout style, taking a small poke at you for some of your assumptions in “other” threads :P. Apologies.[/quote]
I think it should be taught at a younger age. At the very least it should be taught alongside other literature. If a kid is reading Moby-Dick then there should be some supplementary Biblical study at the same time. I think that it is just taken for granted that kids know it because there was a time when everyone went to Sunday School. But like I said, believers and atheists (not all) would have a problem with it.
[/quote]
I think that many of the different religious scriptures should be taught in public schools. Also, as a born again Christian think that kids should learn about evolution. I say that from the stand point of, if you are completely ignorant on the subject matter you are arguing against, then how do you propose to sound the slightest bit intelligent when you are arguing against it. You see it from both sides, Bible bashers who “quote” scripture that doesn’t exist or reiterate ideologies that are just blatantly incorrect, Bible “thumpers” that start ranting and raving about what some other religion believes or at the mere mention of natural selection with no real knowledge of what they are talking about.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
Well, to be fair I wasn’t suggesting that it be taught in public schools. I can understand how you could have thought that though. I was suggesting that it is the mark of an educated man to read and be familiar with it. Ideological axes momentarily put aside while reading perhaps the single most influential book of all time (which of course is the hard part for most people, even keeled atheists included).
I was also, in roundabout style, taking a small poke at you for some of your assumptions in “other” threads :P. Apologies.[/quote]
I think it should be taught at a younger age. At the very least it should be taught alongside other literature. If a kid is reading Moby-Dick then there should be some supplementary Biblical study at the same time. I think that it is just taken for granted that kids know it because there was a time when everyone went to Sunday School. But like I said, believers and atheists (not all) would have a problem with it.
[/quote]
I agree with you, but I didn’t say that because I know it to be utterly impossible and unworkable, from pretty much all angles.
Also jpick, agreed on both sides doing stupid shit like that.