Welcome to Jed Dews, and thanks for your support of linguists as both 
linguists and educators.

Language arts is special because of the tradition about what "English" 
as a subject is. For a few centuries it meant primarily literature and 
rhetoric, and grammar study was intended to serve those two. Linguistics 
is newer than both of those disciplines -- by milennia in the case of 
rhetoric -- and has had to compete with them to gain a place in 
"English". But linguistics has advanced our understanding of language so 
far beyond traditional English studies that it is now irresponsible to 
exclude its findings.

What do you study if you want to teach high-school math?  Math. What do 
you study if you want to teach history and social studies in middle 
school? History and social studies. (Even though many schools are 
putting people trained in discipline A in classroom B, we know that this 
is not out of quality considerations; it has to do with budget.) So -- 
if you want to teach about the English language (and deal with students 
who speak other languages) you should study the discipline that has the 
most expertise about language, namely, linguistics.

If the current situation were phrased more accurately, there would 
likely be protests by parents: Teachers who know very little about 
language are being sent into classrooms to teach language arts. Compare 
that with equivalents for other subjects: Teachers who know very little 
about math are being sent into classrooms to teach math. Teachers who 
know very little about history are being sent into classrooms to teach 
history. In fact, this very complaint is part of what has sparked 
education reform, leastways in CA.

The problem is the breadth of what is understood under "English". Since 
most of the stakeholders and powerbrokers in ed. don't know linguistics 
exists, or have no idea what it is about, they don't miss it in K-12 
curricula. To double the whammy, since there is already a discipline 
called "English" which has traditionally had the job of teaching 
grammar, no gap is perceived.

Any linguist who teaches at any level is both a linguist and an 
educator, as math teachers and professors are both mathematicians and 
educators. It is, in fact, rather bizarre that Jed has to argue for 
membership in both categories.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Johanna Rubba   Associate Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue  • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184  •  Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone.  756-2596
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] •      Home page: 
http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
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