Friday, October 6, 2017

"Do We Have to Study Dictionary Skills Every Day?"

"Do we have to study dictionary skills every day?" Jack asked, more hopeful than angry.

When my voice raised slightly, Nena came into the room and we converged on the young student, explaining that we, not him, decide the course of study.

"I'm sorry," Jack quickly replied.

Yet, much of what the kid is learning is, if not obsolete, seldom used anymore.

Jack writes in cursive, something many schools no longer teach, has memorized his multiplication tables, while schools teach math in another way.

Who picks up a dictionary these days, when it's so easy to just Google the word?

Sometimes, it almost feels like we're teaching a dead language.


4 comments:

  1. Robert Sanchez needs dictionary skills. His blog is a joke. He is so incredibly stupid.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. His blog is probably ghostwritten by Duardo.

      Delete
    2. You think? His actual real writing is a mess.

      Delete
  2. Dictionary skills are far from obsolete. I have dictionaries in English from all time periods which give me the meaning of the word when it was used in law. This is not easily available on the internet. At the time the King James Bible was written effeminate meant cowardly. Also internet research makes the mind lazy. The books require better focus. I rarely use one or the other. I use both, because both require different critical thinking skills, and that is the objective in dictionary skills. If we abandon old fashion research skills we will lose an essential part of critical thinking.

    ReplyDelete

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