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