No Time to Play

Again I read today the lament that students today in the US and other industrialized nations are losing the ability to write.

This is attributed to a variety of factors, one being: "It simply isn't taught in most schools."

My take: Schools make writing a scary, worrisome job instead of allowing it to be the joy it should be. Perhaps when writing is taught, it is not taught effectively.

Writing, like reading, is one of those things that is learned best by doing it. But if you're scared of it, or you feel like a failure every time you try, then human nature is such that it will be avoided and eventually hated. Writing can be reduced to a grammar and punctuation exercise--with the ability to "grade" it accordingly--but what about content? What about original thoughts and ideas? More importantly what about original thoughts and ideas with which an instructor does not agree? I have personally seen very good essays that were graded low because they did not reflect "correct thinking." This is when schools teaching writing become downright dangerous.

School, with all the mandated testing heaped upon students, leaves no time for play. No time for reading for the sheer love of a book, no time for writing for the sheer love of words on paper. Kids need time to write without pressure: no grading, no judging, no write or wrong.

The thing about learning is that you have to be willing to make mistakes to jump into something new. Our educational system is not set up to encourage risk taking. You do it, and if it's not right, it's a big deal--a big BAD deal. If it's right, who cares--time to move on to something else. If you don't know it, hurry up and learn it because we only have so much time.....

I understand that when it comes to learning we can't get obsessed with comfort. Learning isn't always easy and it isn't always fun. Stretching outside your boundaries is not a comfortable thing. Sometimes we--and our children too--have to be pushed or nudged in the direction of something new, different, or more difficult. But learning is hampered when there is too much fear, too much frustration, to little reward for the effort.

I also enjoyed this quote: "The reward of disciplined writing is the most valuable job attribute of all: a mind equipped to think." (from Writer Online News: http://www.writeronline.us/news/news-12-14-04.htm) Hmmm--so which is it Algebra or Writing? Or both--more than one way to build thinking skills, one for those "right brained" folks and one for the "left-brained" ones. Or do we learn to think by simply using our mind? Challenging it to find something new and to make mistakes in the process?

Just a jumble of words, not spilling very well today, but then I'm out of practice. Perhaps I'm just another one of those individuals out there who "can't write." :)