Recent orders
Dear President Obama,
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear President Obama,
I am a concerned citizen interested to bring to your attention the public outrage about your frequent use of English in a non standard way. Kory Stamper points to your use of comparatives, where by you said, “madder” instead of “more mad.” Patricia O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman point to your use of pronouns, where by most people criticize you for using “I” instead of “me”. For instance, you said, “a very personal decision for Michelle and “I” and “the main disagreement with john and I.” Finally Michael Dowling point to your use of gerunds and participle. For instance, you said, “These goals can be achieved without us increasing troop levels” instead of “…without our increasing troop levels.” There are different reactions about the non-standard usage of language. Some people feel that the context in which you speak necessitates use of non standard words while some feel that it should not happen at all.
Other that what the authors above have reported, there are other grammatical mistake that the public has consistently pointed out. First is subject verb agreement. For instance, William Bigelow quoted you saying “Well, first of all, I do continue to believe that the greatest threat to United States security are the terrorist networks like al Qaeda …” instead of “Well, first of all, I do continue to believe that the greatest threat to United States security is the terrorist networks like al Qaeda …” Second is your mix-up of words or wrong vocabulary. An example reported by an American blogger is “They were fulfilling a central tenant of democracy envisioned by our founders” where you used “tenant” instead of “tenet.” Also Fan Oreilly noted your poor use of articles. For instance, your are reported saying “we are focused on a potential mission to a asteroid as a prelude to a manned mars flight.”
I agree with these critics that you do make grammatical mistakes. However, I do not agree with those who believe that the mistakes are an indication of you linguistic ability or intellect. Like I believe that you use of “madder” instead of “more mad” is for contextual purpose (register). I also believe that the use of I and me could be as confusing to anyone as it to you. For use of gerunds, I recommend Dowling’s advice that “gerunds ought to be preceded by possessive pronouns, not objective pronouns.
Sincerely
Citizen
New Preschool is Crushing Kids
New Preschool is Crushing Kids
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New Preschool is Crushing Kids
In my view, the new preschool is suppressing kids. Preschool is supposed to be a place where kids experience gentle transitioning as opposed to being crushed to things, they cannot figure out for themselves, and even though learning at that particular time. The new preschool curriculum is teaching children hard things, making it difficult for kids to learn. Imagine at kindergarten, the kids being forced to narrate and understand things such as classroom rules, bar charts, time table, motivational platitudes, among others. It sounds ridiculous and sickening. In other words, these kids are forced to learn things that are beyond their mental development. We understand that at preschools, children should be more accustomed to play-based learning as opposed to the present “seatwork.” Teachers tend to come up with scripted teaching and control the pace at which the children learn. Such a model should be used at the fourth-grade level and above. Parents and teachers are setting higher expectations for their kids. They expect the children to know how to read at a very tender age of which is not possible since their brains are not prepared for that.
Early childhood education was somewhat pleasurable and unhurried. Nowadays, the teachers in preschools expect or rather suppress kids to spend much time in books than creative play and arts. Perhaps, the teachers and other stakeholders think that they are preparing the kids’ foundation, but, they are holding the children’s development even before starting. There have been cases where a significant number of kids had failed to advance to the first grade, meaning there is a problem in learning models at preschools. Kids should not be subject to disqualification, nor should the preschools act as a barrier for kids to advance in their next development level. Preschools are indeed suppressing kids to execute tasks meant for six-year children, even without motor skills and attention span required to be successful. Teachers strain kids to attend to their scheduled work before going to play. Teachers need to understand that playing comes naturally to kids. Its part and parcel of their development.
Preschools should be pre-academic and should not engage children in learning earlier than they should know. The tendency of such practices makes kids become less interested and engaged and often result in deteriorating attitude towards the school and learning. The fact that they are not offered a chance to interact among themselves socially, these kids fail to display skills required to retell a simple story. They lack an essential foundation for understanding connecting words and prepositions. It goes on to haunt them in their advanced grades, and they end up performing even badly subject test skills. Kids fall victims to losing learning enthusiasm because of the insidious tasks. The old system of preparing kids is eroding faster, and perhaps; parents think that there is no place for the old system in today’s hypercompetitive world. The article suggests that preschools fail to offer kids anything essential for their learning development.
Dear human communication in society,
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Dear human communication in society,
I am writing this letter to address a personal communication problem that I have. I noticed this problem when I had an issue with my younger sister, who had refused to go back to her boarding school, to continue with her elementary level of education. All these issues emerged, just because I was not a critical thinker. The moment she told me that she did not want to go back to school, I immediately concluded that she had started being indiscipline. My negative attitude towards her decision made me insist that she should go back to school or I’ll take her by force. Despite her efforts to resist my decision, she ended up going back to school due to her fear of the kind of punishment that I was threatening to give her.
At one point my heart was shaken, when she bid me bye while crying, though I did not pay much attention. During the vacation, she came home with fair results, though she had dropped compared to the previous vacation. I quarreled her thinking that it was indiscipline that made her drop in class performance. I could always notice the difference between her moods when she coming home for vacation and when she was going back to school. That is, she was always happy when coming home and sad when going back. Her results continued to deteriorate whenever they did an exam. This was a person who used to be the best in class, no matter how the other students performed poorly. She was someone I had built hope in. When her performance become worse her teacher decided to summon my parents and I decided to represent them. We tried to talk her but she remained sad and it was like we were not helping her.
I came home and advised my parent to reconsider her opinion of changing the school for her. On changing the school, my sister regained her normal moods of happiness and always having stories to tell. Her performance improved tremendously and she regained her position of being the best student always. One day, as we were having free chats with her, she narrated to me her ordeal situations in her former school. The way she used to have stomach problems, due to the kind of food in that school and the nurse used to ignore her, saying that she was pretending. The matron used to harass her for using the toilets most of the time, especially at night.
The evidence for not critically looking at my sister’s opinion can be seen clearly from how I insisted that she goes back to her school. The consequences of considering my idea correct and looking at my sister’s opinion negatively, without asking myself what other reasons could have made my sister to decide so. If I was a critical thinker I should have noticed the changes in the normal behavior of my sister and therefore link them to her request to be taken to a new school. The moment she cried while saying bye to me, should have made me widen my thinking and try to find out the reason behind. Failure to do all this is an indication that I am not a critical thinker.
It is more important that I was able to resolve the issue though after my sister going through tough situation. To resolve this personal communication issue I have been trying to consider every situation from a critical point of view. I have been trying to think critically by looking at every action with a broader mind, in order to make conclusions that cover almost all variables. I would like the class to help me on how to better my critical thinking.