In a paper presented to a symposium on the national English curriculum, Monash University lecturer Baden Eunson argues that literature has subsumed school English to the exclusion of a study of the language, grammar, punctuation, spelling and usage.
Mr Eunson, a lecturer in English who teaches professional writing courses in second and third year, was responding to comments reported in The Australian on Monday by the head of Sydney private school Shore, Tim Wright, who questioned whether English should be compulsory, and said "the intellectual challenge (of the NSW English courses) was in fact beyond many students".
See, in a way, Tim Wright had it right. English as it is taught now in the final years of high school should not be compulsory. Not because it is too great an intellectual challenge but because it is an utter fucking waste of valuable time. In no way does the curriculum ensure that students are equipped with the skills to communicate their own ideas. Instead, they are forced to regurgitate useless tripe about the use of camera techniques in film adaptations of 'great works of literature' and other such wankery. I once was handed an essay written by someone whose marks in English rivalled my own, and my jaw literally dropped when I saw how poorly it was written. I knew that teachers weren't allowed to mark down for poor spelling, but the idea that an essay could be filled with sentences so poorly constructed as to be almost nonsensical and still receive top marks was news to me. As if the stupidity of the curriculum wasn't bad enough, the idea that slickly regurgitated 'key points' hidden in a vomitous mishmash of partly chewed words was enough to score top marks while original thought expressed with near-perfect clarity would be penalised was totally disheartening. Don't get me wrong- as I've probably noted before, I loved my English teacher. She did a perfect job of teaching that godawful curriculum as well as putting up with all the shit that came her way from what must have seemed a rather ungrateful bunch of overgrown brats. She was motivated for us to succeed, but I couldn't motivate myself to do what was needed to score top marks in a subject that I felt insulted my intelligence.
And what did 6 years of high school English at the highest level leave me with?
To this day I have almost no formal knowledge of English grammar. Much to my embarrassment, I have met numerous foreign students for whom English is a second language whose knowledge, if not grasp of English grammar puts mine to shame. Prolific reading as a kid provided me with the skills to bluff my way through life appearing to have a firm, if not quite masterful, command of the language. A perfectionist streak sees to it that I stomp all over errors in my spelling as soon as they are pointed out to me. I still have only a tenuous grasp on anything more complex than the 'full stop at the end of every sentence' when it comes to punctuation.
Mr Eunson said English was the only subject in the curriculum that had been deskilled, so that students had no terms with which to discuss language. "Every other subject has a meta-language of its own but English doesn't have a technical language any more. It's a study of opinions and comes down to 'the books I like'."
Mr Eunson told the symposium the entire debate about an English curriculum was built on a false dilemma: either literature or language. Yet until the 1970s, students were assessed on literary texts as well as on grammar and style.
"The great fiction of Australian English teaching, (is) that all that matters is fiction," he said. "In fact, non-fiction may be just as important, and language -grammar, expression, style- may be even more important.
"Marking criteria specifically mentioning sentence construction, spelling and punctuation have not appeared on any senior English examination paper for 30 years."
Amazing, isn't it? High schools around the country are sending their graduates off to universities. Whether a student becomes a journalist or a scientist they need to know how to communicate in a written form. Whether they're writing for a major newspaper or submitting their results to a scientific journal, they need to know how to construct a sentence in such a way that it doesn't immediately make an editor screw up their nose in disgust and send the document straight to the recycle bin. Sure, awarding passing grades to kids who can't spell or string a meaningful sentence together makes the state governments look good. That's why the problem still exists: it suits our leaders to ignore it and pass the buck to the universities or eventual employers of these hapless semi-illiterates. It seems quite obvious that the English curriculum should be designed first and foremost to provide the most basic of skills to students who will go on to pursue an incredibly diverse range of further studies and careers. Only once those skills have been attained should students be forced to read and write about Jane Austen, or even Shakespeare.
To the people responsible for the HSC English curriculum in its present state, I would like to present a token of appreciation for my rather shithouse technical knowledge of English. And don't any of you dare take credit for the skills I have now. I was lucky enough to be one of the kids who gained sufficient skills by immersion in truckloads of reading materials to appear to have a reasonable command of the language. No thanks to any of you.
7 comments:
"Mr Eunson, a lecturer in English who teaches professional writing courses in second and third year, was responding to comments reported in The Australian on Monday by the head of Sydney private school Shore, Tim Wright, who questioned whether English should be compulsory, and said "the intellectual challenge (of the NSW English courses) was in fact beyond many students."
ironically, the article itself has a single 'sentence' paragraph that's 59 words long.
I'm exactly the same way. And lately, after years of confidence, I've found myself paranoid about my use of apostrophes. It's like suddenly the (incomplete) rules I once knew have suddenly disappeared from my mind.
For someone that was put through advanced classes in English (I finished year 12 in year 11), my grasp of the technical side of the language is (I think) only slightly better than you say yours is, Sarah...
The thing that always grabbed me was that I finished high school without ever being taught how to write an essay, or argue a point of view - I picked it up by myself - yet easily scored a 16/20.
Breaks my heart to see that young people now are no better educated than I was. I went through the school system in the 1970's where 'experimental' education was the norm, so instead of learning things like spelling and arithmetic, a teacher with a beard would fetch out a guitar and say something like 'Hey kids, lets all sing a song about how Dick Turpin challenged the Capitalist state'.
Consequently, I left school unable to spell properly, or to use the four basic functions of arithmetic. Like yourself, I was a prolific reader, so could get by on an extended vocabulary and chutzpah. When I decided to become a journalist, I realised that it would be pretty much necessary to plug the gaps in my education, and I started buying books on grammar, punctuation and writing style. Mind you, in English, learning grammar and punctuation is a journey rather than a destination. I now work as a writer in a prestigious university and debate fequently rages of the proper use of the semicolon, or putting a comma after the word 'and'.
Like I say, it's a terrible shame that no-one appears to have learned from the mistakes foisted on my generation, but you seem smart enough to take responsibility for your own education... you'll get there.
I agree that I missed out on formal grammatical skills - somewhat ironic since I am now a report editor (though my skills are much better than they were and my supervisor is an ex Hansard report writer).
However a good English teacher can make you want to read. Some succeeded, some failed.
Catch 22 is my all time fave book. And that was straight from the year 12 curriculum.
Gam,
How is it ironic? The meaning and syntax are clear - perhaps a little clumsy around 'schools, Mark Wright" where there is a change of topic. That's not enough for irony though or do I miss something important?
you don't think there's room in there for at least one full stop, or even a semi-colon? for instance:
"Mr Eunson, a lecturer in English who teaches professional writing courses in second and third year, responded to comments reported in The Australian on Monday by the head of Sydney private school Shore, Tim Wright full stop Mr Wright questioned whether English should be compulsory, and said "the intellectual challenge (of the NSW English courses) was in fact beyond many students."
isn't that easier to understand?
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