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Mar
08
2009
Obamanomics 101 (Or: “A Prelude To A Meltdown”)
Posted by: BC, Imperial Torturer11:32 am
LC & IB Bob Parks jumps into Mr. Peabody’s Wayback Machine and travels back in time and digs up a little history lesson for those Drooling Ungulates who continue to blame the current economic hard times on anyone and everyone, except those who were directly responsible for it— namely, the Dhimmcrats Communists in the US government.
We know, we know… Anyone who calls out Teh One™ on his and his Misadministration’s lies, incompetence & malfeasance is just a bigoted, hood-wearing, racist KKK member. Take that up with the good Mr. Parks.
F.E.T.E.
Update: Feel free to steal borrow the ShopJob™.
Entries (RSS)
Terrapod @:
Terrapod,
Part of the problem with using the wrong word can be traced back to a lack of learning vocabulary words in schools, as well. It used to be that we learned the word, the spelling, the derivation, the homonyms, synonyms, antonyms (if any), the meaning…all that stuff.
All that kids seem to learn these days is “text-talk” and swear words.
I was educated in Goldwater’s Arizona in the 1960s and I learned to read and spell through intensive phonics and decoding. We moved to California when I was eight years old; and the beginning of the Great Society. My elementary school principal was Hispanic and he did not allow classes to be taught in Spanish so assimilation was better for immigrants (back in the 1960s there were more legal than illegal immigrants).
All through my education in California, we were regularly tested through SRA and McCall-Crabb reading and comprehension assessments, as well as writing essays for exams. By the time I was in my first quarter of junior high (7th grade), my counselor called me in to his office and told me what the results were of my reading and writing tests: I was off the charts. I read at the level of a freshman in college, comprehending 95% of what I read, while seeking a dictionary or a thesaurus to find definitions or substitutes for words.
He just sighed and said that the school did not have AP classes, but there were high schools that did have APclasses. I did get those classes in high school because they were a legacy from Ronald Reagan, who did a couple of stints as governor.
Back to the lack of bilingual education: Even though my classmates did not speak Spanish in classes, they never lost touch with their culture, and very few of them suffered from the stigma of learned illiteracy. To learn to spell, phonics has to be drilled through spelling, reading and actually taking the word apart and getting to the roots of it; either Latin, Greek or Germanic in origin. Learning about prefixes and suffixes also helped to identify the root of the word and its spelling and why spelling in English is normed the way it is. Once you understand that, spelling is not a problem.
Homonymns, synonymns and antonymns are necessary to help understand how words differ and why. It still goes back to the etymology of the word.
PS. I was also taught to diacritically mark the words on my spelling lists by the time I was in first grade. YES, IT DOES HAPPEN. Not only that, my teacher in third grade (before I moved to CA) insisted that we alphabetize our spelling words, then define them using a dictionary. Then that mean nasty teacher went a step further. She not only demanded diacritical markings for each word, but for each syllable in the word. We had to spell syllabically, like they did back in the 19th century. I know this because of my grandfather’s journal where he describes the method, as well as several books such as McGuffey’s Readers from 1900 which do the same. One of my hobbies is collecting antique schoolbooks. Yes, we have been dumbed down when we no longer teach trigonometry in high school, or even grammar.
Sky & Cricket
You are both making valid observations but are walking around the problem without seeing the cause.
I firmly believe that I can spell (perhaps not type), comprehend and write at an advanced level due to the rote drills, essays (and I mean an essay in every single literature, english, spanish and even history class) I was put through from 5th grade forward, one in class hour and more as homework for the next day. The side effect of that drilling was a love for reading that far outweighed TV, sports and other distractions as a path to increasing vocabulary and learning new words with which to impress my peers and the teacher. I considered this positive reinforcement even at the time (very high expectations by both the teachers and parents), not a negative which it seems to have become today.
I then came to the U.S. where I observed teachers allowing students to pass with poor spelling so long as their “intent” was discernible in their writing.
Where I was forced to write on the chalkboard in front of the class (as were other poor or lazy spellers selected by the teacher) to write sentences where the correct spelling and usage of my error were shown clearly. This served two purposes, it ingrained an aversion for poor work to thus avoid embarrasment and by rote made sure that I and the rest of the class rarely made that error again.
Unfortunately, 40+ years on I still see a laissez-faire attitude in U.S. schools where self esteem is more important than correct spelling, comprehension and construction of complete sentences that describe the thought to be conveyed from beginning to end.
This has translated into an epic fight within my own household to get my children to read as this is not reinforced or backed by the school system. I would like to think that my own children now have better skills than their peers due to parental pressure but see that they are way below what should be the norm, even after graduating from university with degrees in Economics and Marketing/Advertising, both career areas that depend heavily on correct use of language and numbers.
Perhaps I should not tar the whole educational community as I have a few teacher friends who buck the trends and do in fact force/entice their students to work hard and learn, but they are outweighed by a top heavy bureaucracy and tenured mediocrity that governs most of the public school system in the nation.
I simply fear that throwing more money is not going to improve anything until accountability is instituted and the ability to fire incompetence and reward achievement evolves and this simply will not happen under the present unionized and federalized school system.
The phonics exercises were the rote drills. What point is there to copying a word fifty times if the reasoning behind the spelling isn’t taught? That is part of the reason why homeschoolers have maxed the National Spelling Bee. Copying excellent writing of the Ancients and the Masters of Greece and the Age of Reason, then discussing their ideas and logic is what teaches children to prepare. It isn’t taught anymore, unless you can find a school that has a classic-based curriculum from parroting back what the child has learned to analyzing a written piece and defending a moral stand. That is why I homeschool my children.
To get your children to read? Turn off the television. Just have one night a week where you read to them. Bake some treats, build a fire outside and read ghost stories from your local area during the summer. In the winter, history and books like ‘Carry On, Mr. Bowditch.’ Trade hours of reading for time with their friends, or whatever gadgets they have. Mentor them. They won’t love it unless you show them a side of reading that they have never seen before. It can inform and excite them, as well as entertain.
I am in mortal fear for the next generation. I am finishing up my degree. I have a headstart teacher in my class who can’t spell, or write a coherent sentence. Yet she will be awarded a degree at the end of her course of study. She is an adult, has raised one child and thinks that I have somehow shortchanged my children because they didn’t get to go to the Prom, or have a locked in graduation. I wish I could read her posts without screaming, because to read a well-spelled, grammactically correct sentence is a pleasure. It is even more fun when there is logic. She lacks all three.
We did do the drills; the phonics stuff was in addition to it. You get to the point where you can read and decode. When Harry Potter first came out, my son (homeschooled little geek that he was) was pronouncing ‘Her-MY-O-NEE’ and his friends, who were publicly educated were saying ‘Hermy-own.’ He had had a course in how Greek words were pronounced, so never having actually read the name before, he knew from his decoding sessions with his spelling list exactly how her name should be correctly pronounced. His friends were all upset and calling him names…until Rowling herself prounounced that way in an interview. That is what is meant by decoding and spelling to a correct phonetic standard. I also used a Bible that had all the hard words diacritically marked. That is part of a correctly taught phonics system; to spell by the structure of the word, not how it sounds.
it is supposed to be ‘grammatically,’ not ‘grammactically.’
I am going outside. It is warm and winter is almost over.
Cricket sez:
ever read any of the letters written by average American citizens in the 1800’s? They are what I call word painting….elegant, emotional, poetic, and descriptive beyond belief. That was when latin and the classics were required subjects. Read some of the letters written by Civil War soldiers, letters written by barely literate, barefoot farmboys and you will see a natural grasp of the literary art. A grasp used to describe their world and their fears and hopes. They were natural observers of the world around them, and were never at a loss to describe those observations.
That talent, being an observer, is something that I drill into my art students. They are a generation that has not learned to describe the world around them in prose…..hell, they barely even get out into the world anymore, preferring to get lost in cyber environments on their PS2’s instead. I’m always astounded at the complaints I get from them when I require them to draw 5 pages of observational drawings a week,drawings of people at the mall, drawings of their cat or dog, drawings of a bowl of fruit…..they would prefer to draw recycled anime characters instead….and when they turn that crap in…….I fail them and make them do it over.
If you want to read an absolute masterpiece of 19th century writing. Read this letter from a young Civil War soldier to his love (be ready to shed a tear or two):
A letter from Sullivan Ballou
he was killed at Bull Run shortly after writing this.
Jay,
It goes back even earlier than that. Read some of the letters between John and Abigail Adams…or Nathan Hale’s speech. Yes, the spelling was rough, but the thoughts and ideas were well-done.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Frederick Douglass, Benjamin Franklin.
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is a masterpiece, and he didn’t even need a speechwriter or a teleprompter!
Our classical writing is long gone, I fear. I don’t know of any 20th century writer who even comes close to any of the classical writers.
LC SkyeChild G.L.O.R., Imperial Grammar Hun @:
You need both.
I started K through 3 doing phonics based stuff, and was then switched to memorization after grade 4. So I already had the skills needed to read or construct a word from scratch. The memorization drills drove me up a wall, but I did get to the point where a misspelling leaps out at me.
I think this might have been where things went stupid … when the schools ran out of phonics trained kids … that is when the gains made from memorization suddenly vanished.
As for math … you gotta memorize the addition and multiplication tables, preferably with flash cards … no exceptions. No other way to start arithmetic mastery. It just has to be done.
SeniorD @ 15: There was an engine plant that ICE raided. 28 illegals popped. INSTANTLY there were over a hundred applications from LEGAL Americans to fill those job slots. “Jobs Americans just won’t do”?
Prophet sez:
Welcome to the Rott! Check my post. You are so screamingly on it’s painful! But I’d be in my BDUs.
LC SkyeChild G.L.O.R., Imperial Grammar Hun sez:
Churchill comes to mind…..I’m reading the first volume of his History of the English Speaking People right now and man could that guy write.
SeniorD sez:
Fixed it for ya.
SeniorD sez:
Just caught that, did ya? Hussein can READ that teleprompter though boy! Damn he’s goooood at that!
LC SkyeChild G.L.O.R., Imperial Grammar Hun sez:
Illeritates? Snrk.
Cricket @ lots of postage: Fired up there, are we? ROCK ON!
LC LittleRott84: Proud of you. That’s it. All I need say re: this thread.
Jaybear, Colonel of Imperial Ancient Artillery @ 63: You do realize that will never make the publik skrewl sistum, nicht?
LC cmblake6, Imperial Black Ops Technician sez:
Ja….Das is richtig
ganz unglaublich
Oh Yez…I am familiar with the writing of 19th century Americans. Letters, essays and books. I love art, but can’t ever figger it out. Are you telling me that prose can be depicted? I am teasing you…I love Howard Pyle and Carolyn Haywood as illustrators. I used to collect her books too. Her drawings of children really seem to evoke Maria Hummel’s style. I can’t draw for beans, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy seeing how other people view their world. Especially children’s literature. But then, I am odd.
Rock on? Thank you, I will.
Math is logical. It can be taught in such a way as to teach a child through a concrete application before they get to the abstract of numbers. Dr. Maria Montessori has a fabulous system where children, with a mentor, can teach themselves arithmetic through manipulatives such as Golden Beads and problem cards. Google Dr. Maria Montessori and prepare to be blown away.
cmblake,
I’ll see your
and raise you a
Congrostitute or Congrestitute whichever floats your boat.
Tallulah sez:
I’ve been screaming this since 2006: if the southwestern states (i.e. Arizona and New Mexico) ever go reliably blue, it’s -over- for the GOP electorally.
(Thank you very much, Senator McCain.)
SeniorD @:
Hubert Horatio HotairbagHumphrey Dumphrey the last of the conservtive Democrats?O tempora, o mores
We always refer to him as Humpty H. Dumpty.
That was why I made the distinction about Arizona being ‘Goldwater’s.’ Even in the Republican Party there are Goldwater Republicans who come the closest to being libertarians, along with conservative Democrats like Joe Lieberman. I do remember the elections of 1964…because that was when Lyndon Johnson swore he would not spill one drop of red American blood in Vietnam. Nor was he about spending, until he robbed the Social Security accounts to fund his Great Society and his War on Poverty.
Democrats Are To Blame For Wrecking The Economy…
Democrats keep pointing to “failed Bush policies” as the cause of this economic crisis, but they never say which policies specifically. Why is this? It’s simply because they know that it’s not true. It’s the Big Lie of our time,……
Grammar Hun
Get thee the Impossible H.L. Mencken if it’s still in print. Then go to the Days books, the Letters, The Prejudices, 35 Years of Newspaper Work, his Diary, The Chrestomathy; then H.L. Mencken A Life, by Fred Hobson.
Right now I’m reading The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez Reverte.
I’ll cut up any Amerika Depress card. It’s no good on the black market.