[Op/Ed] Why Americans can’t write

As a complete outsider (not American and not a teacher), here are a couple of general observations that you may entertain, FWIW:

1) American education is excessively pragmatic. One may well argue that in many other contexts this translates into various advantages, but it also means that it will not accord to the arts and the letters - the aesthetic dimension of human experience - its due weight. Quality literature is a part of that.

2) American education doesn't structure the mind the way some other educational traditions do. And yet again, one may argue that the lack of structuring à la française (or as in other traditions) presents also a distinctive advantage, as it renders the spirit freer, but it also means that the unstructured mind will experience greater difficulties in structuring the thought. Attempts have been made to rectify this by imposing excessively rigid writing schemes (five-paragraph essays etc.), i.e. an "overcorrection" of the problem whose source isn't in this or that deliberate teaching of writing, but in how the whole of the curriculum is (not) interconnected and organized. Reasoning from examples and the concrete - and frequent inability to engage directly with the abstract underlying principles of any subject studied - is also very common among the US-educated.

3) Literary education leaves a lot to be desired. Most Americans haven't read enough quality literature (with rich vocabulary, complex syntax, intertextual connections with other canonical literary works) as a part of their compulsory education. Preference is given to minor and contemporary authors - which can certainly have their place as a part of the curriculum, but not the expense of tossing out the greats of your language. Also, Americans seem to have far less by way of elementary classical education (if nothing else, at least a proper grasp of mythology and the rudiments of Latin) than people from most European countries. This also means that many canonical works of national literature can't be properly appreciated and that students lack the basic philological education.

4) Too few Americans are proficient in a second language, even when they are heritage speakers. This is a curious phenomenon, as one would expect that in such a multicultural country this would be avoided, but the contrary has happened. As a result, people have little idea of how their own language works, grammatically (even when they are formally taught that), have no opportunities of comparison, and don't reach elementary reading proficiency in another language - possibly related to English, such as French or German - during their teenage years. All of this has massive consequences for both the structuring of their minds in how they approach language, and the writing skills themselves.

5) Free readings, both for children and adults, are too few and too low in quality. Schools instill neither the habit of reading (in the most mechanical sense: eyes that scan the text) nor much of a taste for a continued work on one's personal culture.

6) People who raise the children and work with them don't always have an excellent command of English, because they themselves are deficient in all of the areas I've just mentioned. Some of them write worse than me. English is my third (if not fourth) best language, I'm reluctanct to work with it professionally - and my profession doesn't include having to be a lingustic role model for anyone. This problem, again, comes down to the lack of a reading culture, starting with the adults.

7) Children can't recite a significant amount of poetry anymore. This is a skill far more tied into the ability to write well than it appears at first. Children who have memorized some of the best turns of their language, with rich imagery and structured ideas, will grow into better stylists.

/r/education Thread Link - ashingtonpost.com