The "in isolation" part doesn't happen, but there is a movement in all
content areas to make them meaning based.  What is happening in education is
a very interesting movement called "constructivism."  It is based in part on
the theories of Lev Vygotsky and M.M. Bakhtin, at least in the language
arts.  Basically, constructivism views learning as a social
construct--everythng from what is important to know to the acquisition of
that knowledge transactively.  Obviously in our culture the skill of
counting change is no longer a key piece of knowledge.  That has been taken
over by a smart took.  I realize that some of you don't like that.  But our
culture on a whole has decided it wants children to be able to work more
abstractly with real mathematics rather than arithmetic, a kind of
mathematical trick.  So, students spend a great deal of time engaged in
statisitical analysis--even as 6th graders.  They work with trajectories,
velocities, prime numbers.  They study algebra, geometry, physics and
trig--even as 6th graders.  They don't spent a great deal of time drilling
on math facts--not that those aren't important, but like the definition of a
noun in school grammar, things don 't stop cold until a students can pick
out a noun in a line-up.  They don't stop if a kid can't divide four digit
numbers on paper.  You may bemoan this, but I've seen these kids in action.
And our culture believes that we need mathemticians more than someone who
can recite his times-tables to ten on a burning match, or whatever.

I think I said in an earlier post that much of the disappointment that some
on this list feel about the "lack" of grammar teaching in schools can be
mediated by looking at how constructivist or transactive approaches change
the classroom.  Or perhaps even better, go into a middle school language
arts classroom and tackle the beast in her lair.  And I don't know whether
the beast is grammar or whether it is the students. :-)

I do have to say that if you do not have engagement, you do not have
learning.  This has always been the case, by the way.  We haven't bred a
gaggle of passive students who simply want to be entertained.  That's too
easy an excuse.  But we know more about how people learn, and we are seeing
far more students stay in school, students who would have dropped out at the
8th grade 50 years ago.  If we want all students to learn, then we have to
engage them in meaningful tasks.  Whether present company believes it or
not, grammar in and of itself is not meaningful to most students.  It never
was which is why we continue to have this conversation.  I might add that an
excerpt from a turn of the century English Journal article bemoaned the same
lack of interest in grammar that I hear today.  Times have not really
changed, but our knowledge of learning theory and our belief in democratic
classroom practices has perhaps changed.

Nancy G. Patterson, PhD
Portland Middle School, English Dept. Chair
Portland, MI  48875

"To educate as the practice of freedom is a way of teaching that anyone can
learn."

--bell hooks

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http://www.npatterson.net/mid.html

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