Loathed Gove as Ed minister but....

[Miljah]

... did he have a point?

I am still angry about how he moved the goalposts on our DC, more or less 'mid-course'; how he disregard 'expert' opinion; how he disrespected teachers and educationalists.

There is much to dislike about Gove, really.

But, tell me, how much time do you have to spend on, say, FB- to recognise the appalling levels of semi- literacy in adults who presumably encountered at least 12 years of formal education, for the most part?

OK, some are the usual there/their; but so many read like a stream of consciousness; and many, if you try and insert some grammar as you read them, can read quite differently to what you imagine the OP meant.

Why are so many of us so poor at expressing ourselves in written English?? Yet we appear not to care!

What, specifically, was his point?!
I do agree with your comment about adult literacy. I live in a reasonably affluent area but with a range of people from different walks of life. Judging by our local Facebook page (which considering the numbers in it suggests that most local people are members) there are a fair few people who can barely communicate, and often seem to rant on about their pet hates/how hard done by they are/ slating a business owner unfairly etc.
However, my English teacher did used to comment "empty vessels make most noise". I do find this often to be true and Facebook means everyone can broadcast their stupidity to much wider audiences than in previous years. I get concerned when I see lots of people joining in and following a ridiculous chain of thought without thinking even slightly critically. Then this gives the opinion misplaced credence and confidence.
I'm no genius, and have mild dyslexia myself. Perhaps this makes me more likely to carefully consider what I write than the general population, not sure.
What's the answer do you think?

My Mum is in her late sixties and went to grammar school and taught at primary and secondary for about thirty years. I know she is capable of writing properly, as back in the day she used to write me letters. In her last job before retirement she was intensely critical of a young teacher she taught alongside (who I vaguely knew as a friend of a friend) who was dyslexic and constantly spelled things incorrectly.

Her Facebook and emails are written as if she does not understand the delete button, are a stream of consciousness and lack punctuation. I find them intensely irritating to read because I know she would never have tolerated that in handwritten mediums.

Which is to say you can’t judge every Facebook poster’s education by what they post...

I’m not sure that FB is an accurate indicator of literacy levels. People tend to be far less formal and thoughtful with social media.

However, as an “old duffer” (late 40s) at work, I am often surprised and the poor literacy of the more recent graduates. Spelling, grammar, clarity of written English, laying out letters and reports. I was talking to one person about how to write letters, and it turned out she’d never written one before!

I think it’s more about laziness than ability.

When I’m at work I triple check my grammar but when I’m at home I’m a lot more carefree.

Gove didn't have a point.
He took a hugely egotistical view that he knew better than experienced industry professionals and that his solution would be a magic bullet.
That has been the problem with education - the search for one single solution dreamt up by people in rooms far from the actual work.
What education sorely needs is what IT folk (cringingly) refer to as a disruption - a full rethink of approaches and assumptions. Then you can build a learner-centred approach that is built upon learner insights, not suppositions and quick headlines policy goals.

Things in education that need to justify their existence (but for the moment live on with no evidence of worth):

Letter writing (sorry posters above) - but this is a dying communicative method that has little purpose in the future world

Hand-written exam - when was the last time you had to handwrite 4 sides of A4 on an unseen topic/question in a 2hr window?? This is not a life skill.

Teaching by year group - now I get controversial. Why do we expect that child A has more in common with child B who was born 364 days before child A, than child C born 1 day later, but over some arbitrary deadline?? Wouldn't it be better to arrange classes by current aptitude - so a child joins level 3 maths, level 4 literacy, level 1 art; mixing with all different ages but approximal abilities. If they improve at something, they shift groups.

Well I dont worry about it as much on an internet forum as I do at work. I did once see a thread so poorly written everyone thought the poster had english as a second language and were being really nice and encouraging because of this. She wasn't, and couldnt understand why everyone thought that.

I do sometimes wonder if we are any worse, or if it's just more visible. 50 years ago you could get a job in a factory and you wouldnt have to write anything. So no one would know. Now we've all got social media and it's so easy to get exposure. It's probably 6 of one and half a dozen of another.

Having lived in Gove’s constituency and seen him first hand, I believe Gove doesn’t have a point about anything, other than what is good for Gove.

I agree though, that there seems to be a belief that spelling, punctuation and grammar don’t matter, as long as you can understand the point being made. I think that ‘ stream of consciousness’ writing, makes it difficult to understand. I’ll carry on the old fashioned way.

I think it would really help if there was a “NICE” like body of experts responsible for organising the curriculum thereby freeing it from ever changing political whims. That way teachers might get a chance to master teaching the new content before it’s on to something new.

Hand-written exam - when was the last time you had to handwrite 4 sides of A4 on an unseen topic/question in a 2hr window?? This is not a life skill.
About two months ago. We had to be interviewed for our jobs and this was one part of four sections. A lot of people apparently scored very low on this section and it contributed to them losing their post.
We were given an hour and a half to to the assessment.

Other people are going through the same expierences in different departments and friends who work for other authorities have had to go through a similar process. I would say it is very much a life skill!

I have often pondered this when reading posts on FB. Then thinking about it, there have always been people who left school without functional skills but they usually found ways of coping.
FB does show up how stupid a lot of people are, poor literacy is less of an issue than people sharing bullshit/scams/Britain first crap! Lack of critical thinking skills seems to be a bigger problem.

I'm a teacher and, as much as it pains me to say it, I actually think he did have a point on SPaG.

It is helpful, when you have asked year 5 children to answer questions in complete sentences, to be able to say, "That's a phrase, not a sentence." and have them understand what you mean.

In schools where there is a strong focus on SPaG, it's a joy to read well constructed, well punctuated sentences sentences. I know they don't always write like that - e.g. when chatting to their friends online - but the fact that they do know how to and that is important.

You only have to spend 10 minutes reading online dating profiles; facebook to see just how poor some people's literacy levels are. It isn't always clear what people mean and I often have to read posts on here several times to understand what the poster is trying to say or read replies from people who have clearly interpretted a post differently based upon the way it was written. That's not effective communication.

I don't necessarily think children need to be able to identify word classes (e.g. pre-modifiers; definite/indefinite articles) although it does make it easier to explain errors in their writing and the difference between "a biscuit" and "the biscuit".

It's just that, with so much else in the curriculum, it can be hard to fit it all in and teaching these things in discrete grammar lessons doesn't always translate to the children using them in their writing.

Not only that, but the KS1 and 2 curricula were rushed through and I'm sure I read somewhere that there was supposed to be a corresponding year 3 curriculum that wasn't written and those who wrote the KS1&2 curricula said themselves that these hadn't been finalised.

However, I do also agree with AdamNichol that our whole approach to education needs a rethink.

Lack of critical thinking skills seems to be a bigger problem.

I very much agree with that.

Critical thinking's mortal wound came from making results (qualifications) the be-all-and-end-all.
Schools became immediately risk averse to getting kids to think for themselves, in place of getting them to regurgitate some standardised answer in an exam; leaving exam boards (another family career area) with very little to differentiate responses with. I had a cohort of A2 level politics papers, where examiner difference (is it worth 3 or 4 out of 6?) could account for a score that was 2 grades different - and no one really asks if something is work an A or a C.

Back to the handwritten exam thingy - so it was used as an assessment for a job, but what aspect of the job was being assessed thru this task? Is that a task which the job will require you to do frequently? Happy to be shown a valid use for large handwritten exercises.

Critical thinking's mortal wound came from making results (qualifications) the be-all-and-end-all

Absolutely.

I've also noticed a huge change in focus at primary from creativity to box ticking exercises in literacy.

Stories are now marked against their 'features' rather than the imagination/content. So a story that was lacking in creativity and imagination might but with correctly punctuated dialogue and fronted adverbials would be marked more favourably than one that was lacking in those features but was a good story.

Thanks all for taking the time to respond.

I will read each carefully.

Happy to be shown a valid use for large handwritten exercises

1. It's because there's no guarantee that systems won't crash when everyone goes online to do the exams.

1. I'd be amazed if private schools elect to de-skill their pupils by not paying attention to handwriting per se, so why would the state? It's what I always say to my students who moan about

1. There is a link between handwriting and increased neural connections that keyboarding doesn't have:

www.nytimes.com/2014/06/03/science/whats-lost-as-handwriting-fades.html