FANBOYs of Elitism

I am a fan of FANBOYS. It is quite a great tool to remember coordinating conjunctions. However, while I love the tool, it is not new to me. In my blogs, I have detailed the new aspects of grammar that I have learned thus far. Even so, this is not to say that I have not learned something infinitely valuable in the past few days. I have learned something that has everything to do with this class and my future as a potential educator and citizen.

I have learned about the evils of elitism. As our class looked at student writing, something happened that I see now as insidious. We made fun of the writing, bashed our heads against the tables and groaned. It seemed like simple, innocent fun, but it was representative of that “teacher’s lounge” elitism that makes educators unapproachable and devalues the potential of the student.

I did not see this right away, but after receiving an email from our teacher – Barbara Monroe – I was humbled to a great degree. It was as if I had been goliath, and a measly rock slung from a small David had taken me down to size. Now I see that David is king, and students should be our focus. Monroe made a great point when she wrote that it isn’t the fault of the students that they have not perfected writing. It is our job to teach them, and re-teach them if we have to. As educators we should be civil servants, not pompous puritans.

It strikes me as odd that many of us approached the student writing the way we did. Teaching was supposed to be of interest to everyone in the room. Instead, the only thing that seemed of interest to many of us was bullying these children behind their backs. I for one, am ashamed of myself. When we make fun of the work of students we are not TEACHERS; WE are scoundrels.

To play the devil’s advocate, I am sure none of us would treat children this way in the classroom, but it is a slippery slope. One moment, we are joking with our contemporaries, and the next moment we are ruining the English educations of this nation’s youth. I am so sorry.

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Is there ever a time when a sentence can be started with the word, ‘because?’

Those Fancy Terms

Have you ever just accepted something because it sounded fancy? When we were young, we did it all the time. Before we develop minds of our own, we assume a person that is using complex terms to explain something knows precisely what they are talking about. For instance, I used to think my friend Jesse knew a lot about politics. However, as it turns out, he is just an average Joe who knows how to use the hot-ticket political terms. He is no better at actually understanding politics than Sally Sue or John Smith.

Here’s the thing though – not many people are willing to question Jesse about politics. It is almost as though he is off-limits to all critical thought. The only reason for this that I can think of is that he knows how to employ fancy terminology. The problem is only intensified because if the people around him do not fully understand the words he is using, they don’t ask him to define anything. I believe they don’t want to seem ignorant. In this way, Jesse continues to be considered a guy who understands politics quite well.

I say nay.

While I can see through Jesse’s facade of fanciness, I find myself making the same mistakes as the people who think he is a great political mind. What I mean by this, is I sometimes just accept complex terminology without really understanding what it is that I am acknowledging. I feel like I do this in the subject of grammar all the time. In example, I have never understood what transitive versus intransitive verbs are. I have known the terms for years, but I always just accepted them as fancy ways to say something was a verb. AND I never asked what they meant. I accepted the fancy.

After a few weeks in Barbara Monroe’s grammar class, I finally came across the meaning of transitive/intransitive verbs. In sentence structure, a verb is transitive when it has an object attached to it. So, in the sentence, “Seth uses glitter pens,” the word ‘uses’ is a transitive verb because it is using the glitter pens. Here, ‘glitter pens’ is the object that makes ‘uses’ a transitive verb. On the flip side, and intransitive verb has no object in the sentence structure. The object is merely implied. An example of this would be, “Seth uses.” In this case, ‘uses’ is an intransitive verb because the object of the sentence is only implied (the object being drugs).

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Do I understand transitive/intransitive verbs correctly?

What I have Learned

Learning is an interesting phenomenon. Some say we are life-long learners. Others say that our brains are like storage disks, and they will eventually fill up. Still others say that while we do learn, the brain is like a muscle. If we spend too much time on the couch watching TV, that muscle – among others – will deflate. However, as far as metaphors go, I prefer the idea that the brain is like a sponge; it absorbs knowledge and does chores. At the same time though, if it cleans too much of one thing it starts to fester and smell bad. (No one likes stinky knowledge.) In this way, I believe it is a good idea to give the sponge multiple tasks, rinsing it every so often to make sure that the knowledge we want to use in the future does not fester.

While I am on the subject, I would like to address some of the knowledge my brain has absorbed in the last two weeks about grammar. To preface this, I have had a comma splice on my shoulder about all things grammar for quite some time. I am simply egotistical when it comes to the stuff. With that said, it is with my deepest humility that I inform you of my greatest lesson of all. (In fact, I would say that I am the best learner I know.) You see, I have realized that I am not infallible. There are times when I am WRONG, BUSTED, IGNORANT.

Amidst the time that I learned how wonderful I am at learning, it also occurred to me that I did not know all the uses of a parenthesis. It has been my general understanding that parentheses are used when you want to insert a thought within a thought without screwing up sentence structure. (It is quite Inception-esc, is it not?) I have always believed that parentheses were only used within a particular sentence structure. I thought the only pace they were found was somewhere in between a capitol letter and a period. While reading The New Yorker, I learned how wrong I was. I found a parenthesis that was its own sentence. Thus, it was a thought between thoughts. (Instead of being once removed from the sentence structure, it was once removed from the structure of the paragraph.) It was a parenthesis that was its own sentence. I was floored.

This leads me to another important lesson that I have learned: Never assume you understand all the rules of an element of grammar (because you will be surprised). Also, I believe it is appropriate to raise this question: Is it permissible for me to end this paragraph with only two sentences (while using similar structure in both)?