Has education simply ceased to exist, or is communication no longer important?

Question

It seems the younger generation either is no longer receiving an education in the schools, or is otherwise indifferent about how their written words are viewed. One need only look to these questions. There are entire paragraphs with no punctuation, no capitalization, and egregious spelling errors. And forget grammar--it appears there is no effort made in that area at all. Is it just me? Am I, at 41 years old, an antique? Does communication mean anything anymore?

Answer 1

Well, it is overstating it to say education doesn't exist, but it is certainly true to say education in grammar does not. And it has probably played a role in leading to an indifference. To some extent, this is the land of mediocrity, and catering to the lowest common denominator (which has a propensity to slide lower all the time). Newscasters that can't string a literate sentence together, pretentious actors wishing to sound erudite, using "I" in all the places that "me" would be the correct form - and a whole population that doesn't know the difference, doesn't care, because mediocrity rules.

Answer 2

When I was in high school, there was a big stink of 25% of the adults being illiterate. That meant, at the time, that the adult could not properly fill out a 1040 EZ form.

The "No Child Left Behind Act" has shown that it's not just the kids that aren't passing the high school exit exam, but also the teachers, principals and superintendents. Some of these teachers and principals failed three and four times before they got it right.

Answer 3

Probably the former, as communication has to remain important. (Doesn't it?) And the use of text messaging, where one pays by the character, has encouraged the use of abbreviations, which have now come into common use. (Compare that with the old telegram pricing system which charged instead by the word, and gave us elegant little treats like "Peccavi", sent by some military guy whose name I have forgotten, to mean, and be understood as, I have Sind, after he had taken that Indian province.)

Answer 4

Perhaps if our generation's idols were better equipped grammatically, we would be as well. In a society where rappers, amongst others, who don't know how to speak, or write a legible sentence, get paid millions of dollars to rhyme; how can you expect to motivate children and teenagers to imitate their parents. Find us some better role models, or heck, become one yourself. Until the young people in society are driven to succeed in how they speak and write, they won't change their ways.

Answer 5

Overcrowded classrooms and underpaid teachers. That's where the problem starts.