Ignorance? (was: Oh, That Rush! He's Such A *Kidder!*)

[Tammy Rizzo]

On 5 Oct 2003 at 21:18, msbeadsley wrote:

> Tammy wrote:
> > I think that it is a symptom of a society made up of ignorant 
> > people with a painfully limited vocabulary and nearly no 
> > understanding of syntax and grammar, since those were deemed, 
> > about twenty-five to thirty years ago, to be 'detrimental to the
> > creative potential' of the children, and were accordingly dropped
> > from the curriculum of most schools in the US.
> 
> Ah, 'scuse me, but isn't this oversimplification? I don't think 
> that "no understanding of syntax and grammar" is sufficient to make a
> person "ignorant." (My last formal education ended just about thirty
> years ago; most of my understanding of how words fit together is a
> result of autodidactic tendencies and has nothing to do with
> "curriculum.") There are many ways to be "ignorant," and many ways to
> be "educated."

Tammy (now) --

I suppose that *was* a bit of oversimplification, yes, and I'm sorry for that -- it's an all-too-easy 
stumble for me to make.  For this, though, I'm still reeling from the realization that grammar 
and syntax and other tools for effective speech and writing had been left untaught for nearly 
thirty years.  As a childless couple, we never really had much interest in what the schools 
were doing, and I had had no clue about this distressing direction in 'education' until I caught a 
newspaper article several weeks ago about how a teacher had started teaching grammar, of all 
things.  I wondered why this was 'news', and read to my growing horror about what the vast 
majority of our schools had been doing to a whole generation of us!   And while being untaught 
is not the same as being ignorant (the word does mean choosing to ignore things, not simply 
not knowing them), I've found that, in all the places I've lived (three countries, ten states, and 
over fifty towns or cities), I have run into an apalling THOUSANDS of people who *are* truly 
ignorant, in the classical meaning of the word, and who have very little desire or incentive to 
expand their horizons or broaden their minds.  So, yes, it was a bit of oversimplification, but 
with (in my experience, at least) solid foundations.

Now, I've never been too keen on debate, so I'll step down now, before my feelings start to 
carry me away.  *putting away the soapbox and picking up the boxed set of HP*

***
Tammy
tammy at mauswerks.net