10 years ago (but really more like 11 years ago) I was in school to become an English teacher and I wrote this post on here about how English in classrooms was being taught in this very abstract, atomized, fundamental sort of way that I thought took all the joy and interest out of it. There was little to no attention given to words and phrases and ideas that really move people and inspire them and make them think and feel. Instead it was all zoomed in to the point where it was hard to imagine that any of it would add up to anything beautiful or worthwhile. The point of speech and language isn't to follow the rules. The point is to communicate. To share the human experience. And in my opinion at no point do you really need to know what a predicate is to do that. There are lots of things that anyone that speaks intuitively understands and by trying to catalog and dissect we've created confusion and frustration out of understanding.
Anyway, at the time I likened it to trying to teach someone how to run with the idea of "perfect form". If all you cared about was perfect form it's hard to imagine that you'd ever fall in love with the feeling of movement and actually doing the thing. Running has always meant a lot to me and it's partially because it's a thing I did on my own that I explored and grew with.
All that to say that it's funny to me now that I'm currently taking video of myself and doing jumps and bounds and drills in a parking lot and lifting and not actually doing much running at all to try to improve my form and learn how to sprint "properly". Or to get faster. Is a better way to say it.
But I'd argue that's the right order to do it in. Maybe not for absolute performance but at least for my enjoyment of it. For it to feel meaningful to me. I've gone out and done adventures and had the highs and the lows and run miles year round and at all hours of the day and night and gone on that physical and spiritual journey and now I want to step back and really focus on all the minutiae of it. To learn how to position my hips and knees and ankles to be springy and powerful. That stuff is boring, or at least a different kind of boring, and I'm ready to be boring.
My opinion about teaching English hasn't changed at all though. Grammar is stupid. Pedantic.
2 comments:
Ahhh, I totally agree with that english/grammar bit! As a not-english-major, I find it funny that I will often realize I've forgotten half of the grammar vocab that a middleschooler is expected to know yet I know I talk WELL. See? I did it there. Intentionally. I got my 'less' vs my 'fewer' and my 'effect' vs 'affect's all down PAT. Ask me do identify a participle and I'm lost.
Hell, put a gun to my head and tell me to identify an adverb and I think I'll start sweating. All that stuff can kinda make sense for someone to be able to learn and differentiate aspects of english when still learning to speak the language (small child or foreign speaker) but at a certain point you should just be considered free of the rigid shackles that bind us in grammar school and let loose to pester all the up-tight nuns and their posh accents with our fun street words what sound more good n stuff. Life's about livin! Speak dumb and getcher point across. Like why I gotta capitalize the e in 'english'? I'm an American. We dumped that tea in the HARBOR! AMERICAAAAAAAAA
But also I don't got no skills with editing my writing neither so go easy on me. If I ever became an author, I expect I'd just stream all of my content onto the paper and let the nerds that are paid to fix my words have at it. Not my job. I'm the ideas guy. You're the 'mmnneehh but akshually...' feller.
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