I don’t know if they all just happened to brain fart or if there is some kind of collective stupidity going round the college campus, but today I was in a class of 60-70 people. Teachers, they will all be, just in case you were curious.
The instructor was helping us develop overarching themes for a unit plan – the Big Picture if you will – and requested that we use complete sentences, which she was recording. One after another, these preservice teachers gave her statements void of either a subject or predicate. Every time.
I laughed my big old butt off.
Nice as she was, the instructor would stop and remind everyone that she was looking for complete sentences. She would say things like: “Could you restate that as a complete sentence?” Yet, the idiocy crept along with phrases popping out of their dumb mouths. One girl, empty-headed little thing, kept rearranging her phrase, shifting words, adding words, but she never made a sentence.
Finally the instructor stopped, obviously frustrated at the ignorance of the student body, and stated that a complete sentence has both a subject and a verb. Oh, good grief. I laughed. I was on the front row and the instructor saw me busting at the seams. She smiled back, ever so slightly, and finally someone helped the student dingbat create a subject.
And these, my dear readers, will be teaching your children some day. I think a bit more schooling is due. My guess is that the poor wretch is a teacher because she can play house and pretend to be a mommy, that is until she pops one out herself.
Sometimes I think we are doomed, civilization I mean. How can we expect to educate Americas youngsters when we can’t string four words together. God save us all from the stupid people of the world and there are a lot of them.
I asked my 7-year-old about complete sentences. “A verb is the opposite of a person, place or thing. It tells what the thing in the sentence or story is doing.” [big sign of relief].
The instructor was helping us develop overarching themes for a unit plan – the Big Picture if you will – and requested that we use complete sentences, which she was recording. One after another, these preservice teachers gave her statements void of either a subject or predicate. Every time.
I laughed my big old butt off.
Nice as she was, the instructor would stop and remind everyone that she was looking for complete sentences. She would say things like: “Could you restate that as a complete sentence?” Yet, the idiocy crept along with phrases popping out of their dumb mouths. One girl, empty-headed little thing, kept rearranging her phrase, shifting words, adding words, but she never made a sentence.
Finally the instructor stopped, obviously frustrated at the ignorance of the student body, and stated that a complete sentence has both a subject and a verb. Oh, good grief. I laughed. I was on the front row and the instructor saw me busting at the seams. She smiled back, ever so slightly, and finally someone helped the student dingbat create a subject.
And these, my dear readers, will be teaching your children some day. I think a bit more schooling is due. My guess is that the poor wretch is a teacher because she can play house and pretend to be a mommy, that is until she pops one out herself.
Sometimes I think we are doomed, civilization I mean. How can we expect to educate Americas youngsters when we can’t string four words together. God save us all from the stupid people of the world and there are a lot of them.
I asked my 7-year-old about complete sentences. “A verb is the opposite of a person, place or thing. It tells what the thing in the sentence or story is doing.” [big sign of relief].
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