What team does Herman Melville play for?
When a friend went to a local soup kitchen a few weeks ago to help, something she does about once a month, she started to get offended when they asked her if she could write. Then they explained that none of the dozen or so college students doing community service there at the time could write and they needed someone to address envelopes.
Every week I run into situations that make me wonder what is going on. If, as some claim, our education system is so great, what is going on? Turns out that plenty is, but none of it very good. The Denton ISD, for instance, is now issuing three different diplomas, which may explain why I end up talking to graduates who can’t speak English, hiring carpenters who can’t subtract, or buying carpet from people who can’t convert 72 sq. ft. into yards. In the last instance I remember the girl arguing with me because, how could I know? I wasn’t using a calculator. She solved her problem by calling the manager.
Some are kids, but some are not, which to me suggests the problem is not recent. When a customer offered me a donut a while back, I said “no thanks, they are my Achilles heel.” She looked confused, then came right out and asked what a donut had to do with my feet. At that point it was easier to shrug and eat two donuts. I can report similar instances when I have made references to Pandora’s Box, Hansel and Gretel, said “Nevermore,” or mentioned I liked Melville. “Really? what team does he play for?
For me, it’s getting harder and harder to have a conversation, unless it’s about sports or something on TV. And I can’t imagine how sad and empty a life might be without being able to read, write or even do a little math. The lost opportunities due to not speaking our language or having some degree of numeracy, even at a basic level, must be staggering.
I have a friend who teaches a graduate course in computer science at UNT and has no American students in any of his classes for the second year in a row. He explains to me that many get to Graduate School without knowing how to write a simple paragraph and can’t figure out ten percent of anything—so their university career is short lived. Of course some are persistent and plow through. I remember my babysitter who graduated valedictorian from the Hayes Co. High School, made a 30 in her nursing-school entry exam, then spent the following two years going to night school for remedial everything. “I got cheated,” she complained. And so she did.
I don’t know if learning to write, read or do math is like learning a language and the window to fluency closes after a certain time, say by the time a person is fifteen, but by then, the smart ones will figure out they got cheated. And so they did.
Link to pages of Denton Record Chronicle:
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