Christine,
 
Excpet for liking math, I'm with you (but I like music theory, which is a kind of grammar, too). It seems to me that most of the people who are hostile to teaching grammar are English teachers of my generation or a little older - I'm 58 (a.k.a., they're my colleagues). I just heard this week some anti-grammar comments from an  otherwise excellent English teacher. Some attitudes will only change, I suspect, as the old guard retires; however, though the newer generations may be more open to teaching grammar, they may not be well enough prepared to teach it (we've been seeing a thread on this issue again recently). What you say about beliefs that are puzzling rings home to me, too. 
 
Curiously, I am rehearsing my theatre kids in The Mouse That Roared, and there's a line from professor Kokintz in response to the question about his Q-bomb -- a WMD of immense power -- that it's "a peace weapon."  I see that as a laugh line!
 
Paul D.

Christine Reintjes <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Who are these people who are hostile to grammar teaching? Are they people 
who aren't knowledgeable about grammar and feel threatened? Why is it hard 
to define grammar? Isn't it the structure and patterns of a language? I'm 
wondering what is really at stake here.

I find grammar studies interesting and fun. Am I unusual? It's probably a 
combination of nature and nurture like most things. I also like math, and I 
know some people say they detest math, but no one suggests that as a reason 
not to teach math. I'm glad to learn about this controversy which I've been 
unaware of most of my life. I began my career as an ESL and college English 
teacher at my community college in 2000. I was amazed to learn that 
teachers were forbidden to teach grammar. I'm still amazed. It's so 
puzzling, but then many beliefs are mind boggling to me like using violence 
to make the world peaceful.

--

Christine Reintjes Martin
[log in to unmask]




----Original Message Follows----
From: "Stahlke, Herbert F.W." 
Reply-To: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar 

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction" (_Twelfth Night_ 3.4.127-128).

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