Let me start by admitting my biases. I am an English major, a writer, and an appreciator of literature. I'm one of those students that enjoys analyzing poetry and gets excited by being able to choose his essay topic. I'm a student who fills his course schedule up with English classes until there are no others to take. I'm also one of those students who has bounced through more developmental math courses than I care to admit. Herein lies the English student's lament.
It has always been a frustration of mine, somewhere deep in my psyche, but I really managed to put a finger on it early last semester. I was disappointedly dozing my way through my1302English class, because we were learning about prepositions, capitalization of titles in MLA format, and a couple of other English basics. I napped not for lack of interest, but because I knew this information already. And why shouldn't I? I learned most of it in junior high. I picked up the rest in high school, and I'd just had the opportunity to go over it again the semester before in English1301. Many of my classmates, however, seemed to have missed a few lectures. One raised his hand to ask what a comma splice was, and the instructor began teaching us about the proper uses of commas.
Then it occurred to me. I had been on the other end of the situation more than once. The difference being that when I raised my hand to ask what the Pythagorean Theorem was or how to multiply fractions in a College Algebra class, I was quickly deferred to Developmental Math0098. From there, I learned or relearned the basics and by the time I was in College Algebra again, I was able to keep up (albeit, with some struggle) without slowing down all the engineers and math majors that were scribbling through equations with ease around me.
So why the discrepancy? Why is it worth backtracking using the time and money I spent supposedly to advance my understanding of my degree, yet the idea of doing so in a math class is unthinkable? Did it cost me extra time and money to take developmental courses? Sure. Was I annoyed? Yeah, maybe a bit. Was it fair? Absolutely. It would be unacceptable for a college or university to restrict the education of other students who had bothered to learn their material the first time around on account of me.
I do believe that this lament it is characteristic of our national education system's view of English. I think it is directly related to why I cannot understand the emails sent out by people in my office. I genuinely believe that by blowing off our language, we are slowly creating a nation of people who cannot write, who cannot read advanced English, and who are unable to communicate their ideas through text. Given that we live in the generation of emails and text messages outnumbering phone calls, perhaps we should give English another look.
