|
Post by TJ Wagner on Apr 29, 2013 13:13:07 GMT -5
I stated previously in a diary entry that I first discovered my love of writing when I was about twelve. There was a lot going on in my life, and I found a way to express my feelings by putting pen to paper. It was such a release, and it really helped me to build up my self-confidence. From that moment on, I loved to write.
When I was in eighth grade, I moved to another school district. The English teacher was an older woman who was very set in her way, but I wasn't worried about this at first. She gave us a writing assignment one day that consisted of a brainstorming, rough draft, and final draft. I did as she asked, but I found that her version of brainstorming, which was just writing random words, didn't work well for me. I had given it my best attempt, but it wasn't helpful. When the teacher looked over my assignment, she began yelling. I tried to explain my feelings, but she insisted that I hadn't done enough brainstorming because I was lazy. She was also upset because there weren't enough changes before my rough and final draft. It didn't matter to her the final product because she knew it couldn't be any good since I didn't follow the steps. Needless to say, I was very upset. From that point on I learn to fake those steps. I wrote a rough draft, edited it for the final draft. Then, I took a pen and wrote all over my rough draft as if I made major corrections. Afterwards, I wrote down a bunch of words and called it a rough draft. The teacher was pleased and even acted as if my writing had improved since using the steps. I never told her otherwise. At that point, I had already decided I wanted to be a teacher and I said to myself that I would never do that to a student.
Fast forward several years to the point I had just graduated college and gotten my first teaching position. I was teaching fourth grade, and I was very excited. Writing portfolios are a big part of the school year, and I was determined I would help to nurture a love of writing. However, I soon found that I wasn't allowed to do so. There was this method that had been developed by another teacher that all the students had to follow without question, and it was ridiculous. If the topic was summer vacation, all the students had to write this paragraph: "Did you do anything over summer vacation? Well, I did. During summer vacation I did blah, blah, and blah." No one was aloud to make any changes because the scores were higher is all the students wrote in the exact same manner. I was helpless, and I felt bad for the students. I was told that they needed a strict structure and that I was to make sure no one tried to be original. What was worse is that I discovered one of my students had an amazing natural talent for voice when she wrote a short story, but I was to tell her to supress it so she could write like everyone else.
My title might be a little exaggerated because I don't think this experience necassarily kills a love of writing. I went through it and I still write, and I'm sure some of my students will as well. At the same time, it's maddening that the schools are so concerned with scores that we aren't fostering and developing this talent.
Any thoughts?
|
|
|
Post by Breakingchains on Apr 29, 2013 15:01:25 GMT -5
I had the mixed blessing of being homeschooled, so I don't have any first-hand experience here, but I've heard the horror stories from the writing community. The general impression I've gotten is that any time writing is involved in school, it's either bland, overstructured essays like the ones you had to give out, or taught by the sort of idiots who make up fake symbolism for books they don't understand, criticize their students' choice of genre for not being dull and pretentious enough, and think writing is a mystic process that none of us mortals truly grasp (while at the same time thinking there's only one right way to do it).
Regarding the bland essays, I'm indifferent. I personally feel like the school system's job, when it comes to writing, is to teach kids how to make sentences parse, spell with reasonable accuracy, and not use quotation marks for emphasis. The art of writing is separate from the mechanics of it, and a classroom setting is really more adept at teaching the mechanics. Thus, dumb, boring, easy essays--they're just a tool to make sure a student has got the structure of the language down. If that student genuinely has the passion to write outside of school, then a few pointless assignments won't put them off it.
When school does try to bring the artistic aspects in, while some students might benefit, you also create a suitable habitat for the aforementioned idiots to start popping up. And they're the ones who can--and do--eat away at creative drive like a bunch of piranha.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2013 19:14:14 GMT -5
I wrote a rant earlier this school year about how schools aren't only killing people's creativity, they're killing people's imagination and individuality.
...What I just read about sickens me. I think you should talk to the girl who you were told to tell to suppress and tell her that even though the school staff don't want her talent here, she should still use it. Tell her that you love her talent and that you don't want to eliminate it.
I honestly think that that school district sounds like a tyranny and I want it gone and replaced with people who have a little more respect for childrens' imagination.
|
|
|
Post by Coaster on Apr 29, 2013 21:01:45 GMT -5
I was fortunate enough to have an elementary school that, though it still required some use of the "formulaic" style, allowed plenty of room for imagination. (According to some of my old journals, I spent several of my summers saving the world in 100 words or less. ) I think the fact that the teacher yelled at you (and not the whole class, which could potentially make sense in some circumstances) over not following the prescribed writing process is a telltale sign that they really aren't cut out to be a teacher. I can see the reasoning behind "respond to a question in a given format" or "utilize some prewriting tools" (even if that's just saving copies of your notes and such), but I don't see why it would be taken to that degree, as well. In that respect, I agree with Saeryena--some serious schmaltz going on in that school district, it sounds like (especially quoting "make sure no one tried to be original"). But again, it's perfectly reasonable to get a prompt, go from that prompt, explore, and take it where you want it to go, following the conventions of the language you're using. That same principle applies to everything from integration techniques in calculus to improvising solos in jazz band to pretty much anything else that involves multiple possible paths to the outcome (except maybe law, but I haven't dealt much with that ). More personally, I did notice a marked shift towards the "academic" form of English towards middle school, which also makes sense, and in that regard, I also agree with Breakingchains. After all, not everyone is going to become a novelist, scriptwriter, or any other career that demands creative use of English, but most people will have to be able to clearly communicate through writing (reports, dull formulaic non-fiction, etc.) in a variety of jobs. Furthermore, there tends to be enough variety from high school English courses onward that you can decide what kind of writing or reading you're going for. The case of any of our particular school districts aside, though--if the focus is to teach a firm grasp of writing in all forms (not just creative fiction, not just dull non-fiction), and if it manages to strike a balance between the two extremes until there's enough course variety to pick for oneself, that's a good start. I do agree that standardized test scores are a pile of Kau dung, though, especially when the focus is more on them than on actual learning. Of course, scores mean funding, don't they?
|
|
|
Post by Omni on Apr 29, 2013 22:04:57 GMT -5
I was pulled out of the public schooling system early into my life when my parents realized that the school wasn't actually teaching me anything. (One example we commonly reference is when I came home from first grade with a list of "new" words and my 3-year-old sister could read them.) So yeah, I was mostly homeschooled, though I also had some private schooling. Still, my family heard a lot from teachers who taught in public school and people that have studied the public school system.
Believe me when I tell you it's not just the love of writing that's being targeted.
I'll try not to go into too many details because I can go on and on. Still, essentially, every aspect of the school system is targeted in some way. In general, a lot of things are taught over a long period of time with a strong focus on rote memorization, and little or no focus on the principles behind things. (Oh how I loathe the idea of 'sight reading' in English...) In general, a lot of things are also designed to be boring. I understand that history class is particularly made boring.
I heard a story about a class where the kids were told they were all going to learn how to play the harmonica, and the teachers didn't know what to do when one kid asked if he could learn something else. I also heard about a substitute Spanish teacher that decided to spend teach the class how to tell time in Spanish during the day he was substituting. He was later yelled at because then they didn't have anything else to teach for the rest of the year.
One of the teachers and public-school-studiers I mentioned described school as teaching 'a whole lot of not much over a very long period of time.' And from what I understand, it's not that way by accident. Same with a lot of other aspects of school. I could go on and on and on about the 'whys' and... *moan* for now I'll just say that I really don't like the public school system.
You may find it interesting that a lot of the most successful people either had trouble in school, didn't buy into it, or dropped out (not because they found it hard so much as it bored them and held them back). Einstein had trouble in school. Thomas Edison was sent home as a six-year-old with a note on his shirt saying 'He's too stupid to learn.' IIRC, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates dropped out to work on computers together. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
But yeah, I beleive public school is... worse than a joke. My parents taught me a lot of things that schools never would, even before I entered school. That or they supplied me with the materials to learn on my own. I plan on doing the same.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Apr 30, 2013 0:09:53 GMT -5
It's conversations like this that make me wonder if I'm in a different reality from you guys. Maybe it's just that my state standards are very different, but I've never really had that experience. Writing has always been a positive experience for me, with one exception: diagramming sentences in the latter part of elementary school (what you people might call "middle school", I suppose), that was torturous. Sure, I don't like doing academic papers, but that's because of my short attention span. I almost always do fantastic, and… *Laughs* Far from it that I was discouraged. Nothing can stop me from writing! Nothing!
My teachers were always actively encouraging my writing. I even let some of them see my NT and Forum stories. Most of my English teachers thought I would be an English major, and were surprised when I said I could never be. And now that I'm studying to be a teacher myself, literacy and writing are just integrated everywhere.
I've really come to the conclusion that the education system is what you put into it. My experience with teachers has been fairly positive for a long time, moreso after I entered high-school and I could start take subjects differentiated to meet my high-level learning needs.
Furthermore, it seems to me that a love of reading is directly connected to a love of writing. I know that I write because I want to read stories that don't exist, and I want others to do the same. This is all fueled by a wild imagination fed on a steady supply of books and stories. A lot of people I know just don't have the imagination or love of reading to sustain such a passion. And I can't imagine a life like that. It seems so… plain. :B
|
|
|
Post by Crystal on Apr 30, 2013 8:46:03 GMT -5
I didn't go to an American public school, so I have completely no knowledge or experience of that. xD I always liked English lessons, because I always got full marks, even when I didn't try. Hooray for English as a second language!
Malay was torturous. And partly, that was me, not wanting to learn it, because I was a teenager. I like the language a good deal better now that I don't have to write essays in it. I could never find the write (harhar) words to express anything. But I'm glad I know it now that I do.
That said, though... I'm going to be the weird one here and say I don't particularly care about 'killing people's individuality'. I don't place a huge amount of emphasis on it. Individuality is such a funny word like that. Creativity is lovely; may we all be able to express it. It would be wonderful if we lived in a perfect world where all kids learnt to really enjoy doing calculus and to be creative with their history (except maybe not).
Everyone I know is an individual. Their experiences made them so - not anything that may or may not have been done in the school system. You don't really need to be unique to be important... and being unique is not a goal you chase after, it's just something that happens when you chase after your goals.
|
|
|
Post by Komori on Apr 30, 2013 15:17:49 GMT -5
Mm, I loved school. I liked learning, and I never really had a problem doing well. I don't think doing anything in school killed my love for it. If you really DO love something, it's really hard to kill. And if doing something boring or tortuous is enough to make you hate something, then it probably wasn't for you after all.
And maybe I'm just being harsh, but I think it's probably for the best to weed out the people weak in their convictions. Would save a lot of people a lot of money in college tuition if they just found out earlier, when they were getting education for free, that they really didn't like a subject as much as they thought they did. Because let's face it; even being a novelist it isn't just writing whatever magical whimsy floats into your mind that day. You're probably going to have to write a whole lot of stuff you don't care much about, so you might as well get used to it when you're living under your parents roof and not trying to make rent with it.
|
|
|
Post by Yoyti on Apr 30, 2013 22:39:11 GMT -5
"Writing" is simply a catch all term for works of language transcribed visually. Writing is not, by definition, creative. And most certainly, not all of the writing which you ever will be doing is going to be creative. Schools, to the best of my knowledge, are not meant to teach you to write creatively, but rather, in a way which allows you thought to clearly be transcribed. People need to be taught to convey they're message clearly in the written word. It is important to be able to communicate. And that's what writing is. A form of communication. The movie Hans Christian Andersen comes to mind. In an early scene Hans tries to explain his situation to the officials in town through the use of a story. Now, we on the other side of the fourth wall know the whole situation, but observe it from the official's point of view. They are trying to have a serious conversation with Hans, and he's gibbering on with some fairy tail. And so, I would argue that schools are not crushing creativity, because schools have nothing to do with creativity. Art has no place in the raw education that is the public school system, but writing is not strictly an art form. I agree that school's had best keep there noses out of creative writing, but that does not mean that the writing curriculum as a whole needs to be remodeled. A teacher gives you an assignment. You are not expected to be creative. You are expected to follow the instructions. You can write creatively on your own time. English has never been my strongest class for this reason. I can never write anything without my own unique voice coming through-- and a very incomprehensible unique voice it is too. This gets in the way of clear communication. I will concede that I am poor at communication through the written word, and I am grateful to the school system for helping me out at least a little bit with that. So, basically... I guess I'm with Breakingchains on this (if this response has become self-referential to the point of not making sense (which I guess is the only way this post could be self-referential (excluding these parentheses))). And, Omni, Einstein doing poorly in school is likely an urban legend spread by motivators. I have, however, seen many conflicting accounts, so even if it's true, the evidence is shaky at best. To my knowledge, he excelled in the subjects of math a science, and while the humanities were not his strongest suit, he didn't exactly fail them. Thomas Edison was not nearly as smart as people give him credit for, and the same is true for Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. To quote Matthew Inman, "Edison was not a geek. Edison was a CEO," and "Edison was a good example of a geek who operated in non-geek space." (Someday I'm going to have to bring the Tesla vs. Edison discussion to the table.) . Steve Jobs may have dropped out, but Steve Wozniak didn't. And, well, you can see where I'm getting with this. But maybe that is a debate for another day?
|
|
|
Post by Nimras on Apr 30, 2013 22:50:18 GMT -5
Einstein did excellently in most subjects at school (though he confesses he was horrible in French). I would argue that schools don't crush creativity itself, what they do is crush your time to be creative. There are bad teachers, yes, but that's not exactly the fault of the school system as a whole. That said, since this seems to be focusing mostly on writing, learning different forms of writing is very important. I use them all the time at work, and I don't have what you would call an "office job" -- it was a pain to learn (I much prefer to write in a narrative style that's used in fiction and literature) but if I wrote everything like that on official statements for work, I'd get... well... a lot of negative feedback. Despite the fact that I'm ridiculously qualified for the job, I'd probably not have the job anymore. Even though it's a job that requires a lot of creativity.
|
|
|
Post by Huntress on May 2, 2013 14:08:41 GMT -5
Man, to have had the structured teaching some of the above posts have quoted. When I became a teacher, I had no such thing. I was thrown in and told to teach. Could've had the class writing Star Wars fanfiction in verse and nobody would've said a thing. (Especially if I'd entered the lesson topic as something nice and generic like "Creative writing class", which I always did anyway.) I flailed through my entire teaching stint doing whatever was available in the textbook and vaguely wondering if I was doing it right.
But we didn't really do creative writing in itself anyway. We did stuff that boring adult me deemed more important. Essays, yes. Writing boring structured sentences for a boring adult world that'll one day want your applications and official letters and customer interaction. Writing a resume that doesn't make HR specialists laugh and facepalm. (I was once a secretary. Resumes like those are so common, you have no idea.) Writing a report that had the students describe and analyse data from a graph. And also stuff like letters to friends and postcards and vacation descriptions, precisely to learn those different styles.
I remember when I got those same assignments in highschool (which was what, four years before becoming a teacher, so I based a lot of my teaching on the stuff I did myself back then) I used all those different tasks to, well, wiggle. You can be creative with a report or essay much like you can be creative when you're writing a story. It's just that the creativity is in taking the instructions as basis and then working within that frame. It's like guiding a ship through a rocky patch vs plain sailing. Much more challenging.
(Probably also why I got into writing for the NT xD It's all wiggling in some form. "O-kay, how to write a gruesome scene of falling off a building so that I'll get away with it?")
|
|
|
Post by Cow-winkle on May 2, 2013 15:15:33 GMT -5
If you really DO love something, it's really hard to kill. And if doing something boring or tortuous is enough to make you hate something, then it probably wasn't for you after all. I'm not convinced that you read the original post. This isn't about students not wanting to do something because it's boring. The students clearly have a lot of energy. This is about teachers being told to actively discourage students from exercising creativity. And maybe I'm just being harsh, but I think it's probably for the best to weed out the people weak in their convictions. If you wish to "weed out" 4th graders for being "weak in their convictions", then yes, you are just being harsh. It seems pretty obvious to me that the goal of a school is to help children learn more than they would learn without going to school (defined broadly to include homeschooling, etc). That is, to help children better themselves. Not just to "weed out" the losers and only pass people who were going to succeed anyway. --- From my own experience, I never had teachers who went out of their way to stifle creativity on quite the same level as any of the above examples, but I did get the impression that most of the assignments we were given were designed to be easy to grade, rather than fun or challenging to complete. An example would be having to write an essay or story or poem about a specific, given topic. I had plenty of ideas of my own. I wrote poetry and stories and essays on my own time, but so few opportunities came up to use them in class that I had to grasp at straws for any opportunity to do so. My problem is that this places an upper-bound on how much a student can actually achieve. I guess this is a bit cynical, but I'm starting to think that the main reason schools exist (besides keeping teenage boys off the streets) is to reduce the variance in student achievements, rather than to increase their achievements. That is, rather than a bunch of people doing really well and everyone else doing poorly, it's a system where everybody is made to be average. And it seems like the same applies to teachers with the curriculum. Without a meticulously predetermined curriculum, good teachers would be good and bad teachers would be bad. With a curriculum, they all hover fairly close to an average. I have a problem with this. I suspect that there's a way to encourage students to succeed at what they're good at while also ensuring that they have the basic knowledge down (e.g. arithmetic, grammar, etc). I don't claim to know the answer, but I'm not doing to dismiss it as a nonissue by throwing my hands in the air and saying "We don't have a perfect solution, so let's just keep everything the way it is!"
|
|
|
Post by Komori on May 2, 2013 22:45:50 GMT -5
If you really DO love something, it's really hard to kill. And if doing something boring or tortuous is enough to make you hate something, then it probably wasn't for you after all. I'm not convinced that you read the original post. This isn't about students not wanting to do something because it's boring. The students clearly have a lot of energy. This is about teachers being told to actively discourage students from exercising creativity. I'm not convinced you read the entire thread. This isn't just about the original post; it's about everyone's experiences in school. And yes, I happened to interpret being forced to write in a certain format as "boring and tortuous." And maybe I'm just being harsh, but I think it's probably for the best to weed out the people weak in their convictions. If you wish to "weed out" 4th graders for being "weak in their convictions", then yes, you are just being harsh. It seems pretty obvious to me that the goal of a school is to help children learn more than they would learn without going to school (defined broadly to include homeschooling, etc). That is, to help children better themselves. Not just to "weed out" the losers and only pass people who were going to succeed anyway. Sorry, if you're going to define school so broadly, why narrow my post to be intended for 4th graders? Like I said, this isn't just about the original post, and my post wasn't about 4th graders. It's not about failing anyone. It's weeding out people who aren't as dedicated to a particular subject, in this case writing. If school assignments are so strict and creativity-less so as to make people dislike the subject, then it's just as well that they don't major in that subject in college. You can easily despise a subject and still ace it.
|
|
|
Post by Mostly Harmless (flufflepuff) on May 3, 2013 13:50:47 GMT -5
To be honest, I had the opposite problem in school. I was encouraged to write, and so I did. I was able to create a (more often than not) nonsensical story that appeared cute to the teachers, and impressed my peers. Upon reaching middle school, that turned to pressure. Unfortunately, I made the same mistake I made in second grade regarding tests. Back then, I got answers wrong on purpose so other kids would stop asking me to help them. In middle school, I misspelled words and messed up my grammar structure on purpose so people would stop asking me to keep writing. It hasn't stopped there: when I read an STC beginning out loud to my mother, she asked me to write a children's book. This was one week ago. The only difference between then and now is that ideas are much harder to come up with and involve strain. I mainly write now for the fun of composition and competition.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on May 3, 2013 17:33:54 GMT -5
Komori, I want to ask you something (this is more directly related to the situation in the school the original post described):
Imagine you're a schoolteacher, and during her free time one of the girls in your class sketches really hilarious Neopets comics that remind you fondly of your own. Then, imagine the school principal telling you, "Hey, that girl who draws Neopets comics when she's done with all her other work and has nothing else to do? Yeah, you'll have to stop her from doing that." I know if I were in that position I would feel very hurt that this school official wants to stop a person who has such similar aspirations to my own.
I may be wrong, but your posts seem to say that's okay with you.
|
|