Don on Teaching English

By Don Lechman

             Teaching writing in community college has been one of the great experiences of my life. I hate to say that I have learned more than my students, but it is possible.

             I am not trying to put any college students down. There are many that have writing skills and also, more importantly, are dedicated to eliminating their shortcomings. But the state of students’ English capabilities coming into community college is generally dismal. Maybe incoming university students are better, but the reports I get from other instructors are not promising.

            Most students do not have the tools to write a sentence, much less an essay. Very few know the difference between a subject and a preposition. Punctuation, is guesswork?

Knowledge of “grammer” is nonexistent. Spelling is “fare.” Many “dont” know the purpose of an apostrophe. But many also want to be the first in their family to go to “collage.” It is also my personal opinion that it is probably true and affirmative that they can be very wordy and redundant.

            I had a student in a higher English class, not beginning, write a research paper on Diana, Princess of  “Whales.” I had another student write an essay on procrastination. “I often procrastinate when I drive,” she wrote. “I try to be careful but I am often close to having an accident.” I asked her if she thought that procrastination meant careless. She was not sure, but she kind of nodded. I told her that procrastination meant to delay or put things off. “Oh,” she said, nodding. I asked her to redo the paper. She did. She turned in the very same thing the second time.

            I had another young gentlemen turn in someone else’s essay as his own. He had blacked out the name and replaced it with his. Only the student who wrote the paper wrote about his 7-year-old son which this 18-year-old did not have. He turned in another essay, just crossing out the name so I could still see the name of the student who really wrote it. Did I say some of the students are not too bright?

            I have students who pretend they want to do all the work, but are just delaying to ensure their financial aid continues. I had a student who earned A’s on all her work, but only did half of the assignments so there is not way she could pass. She did not understand why she did not get an A. Some students do an entire research paper without citing any of the material or having a works cited page. Some students seldomly come to class, and seldomly turn in their work, and then they show up one day with most of their work and expect it to be accepted and credited.

            All students, of course, are not bad. Many neither know grammar well nor can write an essay. But they definitely want to learn. They will rewrite and revise until I am satisfied with their work. These hard-working students always pass, many with an A.

            And I can’t always tell a book by its cover. I had one young man, about 22, who had already spent three years in the army. He never talked. He was covered with tattoos. He wasn’t really big, but he looked dangerous. He wrote about his lack of interest in school and his affiliation with gangs. I actually was almost scared to talk to him. He wrote a ten-page research paper, which I think had one correction. One. He turned out to be one of the best students I ever had.

            I have had a 50-year-old student who could barely write a sentence. He asked me to help him with his work. He revised and rewrote everything. He ended up with an A for the class. I had a gentleman with four young children, a full-time job and absolutely no background of success in school. He earned an A. I had a young woman who came from India. She had only been speaking English for about a year. She was one of the best students I ever had. I had a 60-year-old woman with five grown children and no high school diploma. She also earned an A.

            Obviously, my point is that almost anyone can succeed if he applies themselves and asks for help. I tell students that I will stay after class and help them until the cows come home. Even if they don’t come home.  (That’s a fragment).

            So what’s my point? The only way the individual states and the country can extricate themselves from our huge financial morass, is to raise taxes (perish the thought) and eliminate or cut back programs and services. (Printing more money is not an option.)

          But the last place to cut finances is in our educational system. We need all the teachers and classes (I had 41 students in one class because of cutback in classes.) we can get.. (Most instructors are not exactly overpaid. At one college, I, for instance, earn about $60 an hour for four hours per week in the classroom. That’s $240 a week. Considering I work about 15 hours a week, I earn about $16 an hour. The future of teachers should not be based on student performance, especially in California, where so many students are of foreign extraction. When students enter college, they should know what a subject and a verb are and how to write a sentence.       

        What is the answer to better prepared students?

     The single most important thing you can do to make your child a lifetime learner is to interest him in reading. It needs to be emphasized at every level, and students must be expected to read not 20 books but hundreds by the time they graduate from high school. Starting in kindergarten and first grade, they should be reading Dr. Seuss and countless other books.   By the time they graduate from 8^th grade, they should have read many books – classics  like Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, David Copperfield and Oliver Twist and also books of any genre they are interested in – from sports to adventure to romance to detective to fantasy. (J.K. Rowling and her Harry Potter books have done more to advance the literacy of millions of elementary students than hundreds of classes.) I have students who say they have never read a complete book. Reading will help them improve their grammar, spelling, punctuation, comprehension and knowledge and bring them enjoyment.

       Second, teach children the tools of the trade in elementary, middle and high school. And I don’t mean classes where the teacher tells the students to write an essay on their summer vacation and then never looks at the product. Students need to learn diagramming, spelling, grammar and punctuation at an early age and continue to hone those skills through high school..

      Finally, parents must be taught to teach their children from the day they are born. They cannot depend upon the schools to do everything.

            Don Lechman is a former Daily Breeze reporter, editor and critic who teaches writing at Harbor College and Cerritos College.