Hello everyone,
This is getting to be the New Horrors List.
Thanks to Max Morenberg for the personal answer.Marcy Nicholas and
Kathleen Ward have also been very informative. This explains why (in the
past)  my old students sometimes returned to Germany from the States
with the impression, 'It's sooooooo easy over there! ' Of course, they
had had the advantage of learning English as a foreign language with the
tools of grammar rules which should also give insight into one's own
language. I use the past tense as things are changing here, too, and
with the new teaching methods grammar is taking a place in the back row.
I won't go into detail, although we could learn a lot from your
experiences in education as I think we are following just a little
behind!

However, Marcy wrote
>Before 7th grade, learning, writing, reading, creating were fun;
after 7th grade, boring, prescriptive <

I think lower grades should be exposed to examples of 'good' language
( No, I won't define it here!) in all its forms - classical to modern.
Rhythmically reciting ( which can sound very modern these days )or
acting act poetry in an explanatory setting can be exciting for younger
kids before they become too self conscious.
I used to begin a week by reciting a piece of poetry or singing a song
to my 5th + 6th grades (10 -12 year olds) and they'd pick it up by the
end of the week. I had one lesson a day, 5 days a week. It contained
structures and vocabulary they did now know and often didn't learn till
much later but when that time came it was much easier for me.It was 5 to
10 minutes well invested before embarking on the main lesson. My ten
year olds were keen on building sentences up with 'bits' I threw them
orally or on paper out of different coloured boxes. Later they'd reduce
their funny long  phrases, for example, to pronouns and then expand them
to sentences with completely different meaning.It was fun for them to
juggle the language around and with them being so young I could use
funny imaginative  images, like the Time + Place sandwich sentence , the
Gerund + Partiple Twins ( who like to be in different places)or shorten
rules to rhymes or optics relBdel (relative be deletion).
It was all a big 'Trick', we were saving time if we knew how to reduce
and join sentences, so we needed those participles etc. I can still use
some of these methods and  we are permanently expanding and reducing
sentences we come across to get the feeling for what is behind the
stucture. I feel I'm going into too much detail, which I did want to
avoid!

Basically I'm saying, I think the earlier age group should be exposed to
and later allowed to play with the language (under supervision an
tailored to age!) while you can still make it fun.They then develop
amazing creative pieces and I've even had kids looking at the board and
making me aware of how one of my own sentences could be improved
stylistically!  A good fundamental knowledge can always ( here's the
dreaded passive) be expanded on and makes working on linguistics or
style and rhetorics easier later.

I've been teaching for 25 years and have 5 children of my own. The bed
time story for my own kids was always the same for a week.Hence my
method at school.My kids loved it and woe betide if I got a word wrong.
It was mainly because I was a tired working mother they got a Grimm's
fairystory with all the 'grim' structures but they intetrnalized  a
variety of them and developed a wide vocabulary. By the way, they
haven't developed into wierdos spouting 19th century language! They
speak German, obviously and have learned English, Russian and some of
them a little French. My eldest (20)  decided she wanted to study in
Holland and spent a year learning that. I believe with more exposure to
foreign languages, the more a language can be grasped linguistically. (
This is the 'stuff' for another forum:-)  )

  I think we have to admit we're always a step behind language where we
think we're ahead. We're actually running behind it trying to nail it
down to rules. It's like bringing up your kids. It's our job to teach
them all we know, in the best way possible and then let them go. They're
the one who are going to change the world! I think it's our obligation
to give them the tools to use or discard after they have tried and
tested them.Isn't that the way language lives?

Although I've only hit the tip of an iceberg I hope this hasn't been too
long!
To those who have borne with me thanks and I'd appreciate any criticism

Patsi Reeve-De Becker