Of course, you're preaching to the choir here.  I know what lively round of
slander and name-calling this kind of comment would elicit if you were to state
it on, say, ncte-talk.

==Reinhold

"Kathleen M. Ward" wrote:

> My experience was different--we had grammar, systematically taught
> and reviewed every year from third grade on.  This was not in some
> tremendously academic pressure-cooker, either, but in in a working
> -class industrial town north of Boston in the late fifties, early
> sixties. By the eight grade, we knew a lot about grammar-certainly
> enough to be able to read a handbook.  And this was quite a universal
> attainment among students, as our high school teachers observed
> regularly.
>
> So, why not now?
>
> Kathleen Ward
>
> >Someone said:
> >And I must say we did expect all students to know something about
> >grammar, for years and years, until the sixties and seventies and
> >"language arts should be creative and fun every minute." Has
> >something changed in students that now they can't learn grammatical
> >rules now, when they did up to the mid-sixties?
> >
> >----------
> >This just isn't true. During my first twelve years of school, grammar was
> >either taught poorly or not at all. There was little attempt to make sure
> >students understood it. Mostly it was rushed through or ignored. This was
> >between 1930 and 1948. In college, it was merely assumed that you had
> >grammar earlier, but most students had not gotten any clear understanding
> >of it. My earliest understandings came in a graduate-level class, and most
> >of the students in that class were getting their first clear taste of
> >grammar as well. It may have gotten worse in the 60s, but it wasn't good in
> >the 30s, 40s, or 50s either.
> >
> >akra
> >
> >
> >Albert E. Krahn
> >PLEASE REPLY TO [log in to unmask]
> >(alternate, [log in to unmask])
> >http://online.milwaukee.tec.wi.us/eng-201 (course)
> >http://punctuation.org (home page)
> >PUNCT-L, a mailing list for the discussion of punctuation