English Downfall

Watching this video beings back not too distant memories of arguments that took place during the English Regents when the English teachers within my high school were grading these standardized tests. Even though the rebuttal to this video of English downfall expresses distaste for the use of "Nazis," I can't help but laugh a little bit.

Some of my colleagues who have been teaching for 30+ years kind of reminded me of Hitler's mannerisms within the video. They get very flustered and angry and start beating the table with their fists to put emphasis on the point on how "illiterate" this new generation of students are. The main complaints/questions are "they have no idea what grammar is"... "why isn't grammar being taught in elementary schools?"... "Why can't these kids write?"..."Why are they so stupid?"... "How can this be passable?" and they always seem to talk about "the good old days" where the standards of writing were so much higher.

But, I feel as if the education that my colleagues had received taught them to not be innovative. They stick to what they know and they want everyone else to adapt to their methods, and they do not even consider evolving. Students are more creative now through the internet and they are self directed learners through their time spent on technology. No one is sitting them down telling them how to navigate and use all these forms of digital media. I am relatively young, and yet I cannot process and keep up with the fast paced evolution of technology... I am being left behind.

Language evolves, forms of language evolves. Today's English is very different from Shakespearean English. The form of writing that people used then is not the same as what people used 30 years ago... It is scary, but only natural for forms and language and expression to be shifted, molded, and be recreated.