There has been a lot of concern over the past few years about the number of college and university graduates who are functionally illiterate (which, one can only suppose, means that they don’t know what being functionally illiterate is). Surely, the education system is failing if it allows students who are missing the most basic communications skills to graduate?
It may be presumptuous of me (well, alright – it is undoubtedly presumptuous of me), but I think I have the solution to the problem. English should be taught in a way students can understand. At present, for instance, rap music is popular; why not teach using something like:
Don’t Rap the Grammar
Now, here’s a subject you may think has no glamour
You say it’s boring – I say Don’t Rap the Grammar
It’s real easy, or so I have found
All a sentence needs is a verb and a noun
A noun is a thing, like a tree or a house
A verb is an action, like to say or to delouse
If you got this far, you ain’t no reject
So you should dig that the doer is the subject
The object is the exact opposite thing
The subject does to it, it don’t do nothing
A conjunction is a word that links ideas together
It can be but, and, although or whatever
Now, here’s an idea that’ll have you singin’ praises
It’s all about subordinate clauses and phrases
A phrase is dependent on the main sentence function
A clause is complete and comes with a conjunction
Phrases and clauses you can have lots of fun on
But, use too many and your sentence will be run on
My goodness, I don’t want you to think I’m dense
But, I still haven’t mentioned person or tense
First person is I, second you, third he, she or it
Plural is me, you and them – I know you’re down with this…
Uhh, tense tells you when an action takes place
Like past, present and future, for goodness’ sake
English is easy, there’s no need to stammer
That’s why I say, Don’t Rap the Grammar
If this approach leads to an increased appreciation for the English language (or, at the very least, better test scores), it may be adopted by other disciplines. If you’ve ever taken psychology at university, for instance, you know it was never as interesting as:
The Big Psycho Rap
Now, you start with Freud, don’t worry who’s next
He says all our problems are related to sex
Man’s got a penis, I guess that’s cool
The problem with women is they all want one, too
Men want their mothers, women think dad is best
These thoughts make us guilty, so they must be repressed
Oral fixations mean eating and smoking
Anal fixations – man, you’ve got to be joking
Then came a guy by the name of Pavlov
Who rang bells for dogs to get himself off
Forget Freud’s couch, Pavlov’s our psyche’s saviour
With the right stimulus, he can modify our behaviour
Piaget put all those clinical psychologists in heaven
When he said personality develops at three, five and seven
Nature versus nurture is a load of crap
When you’re doing The Big Psycho Rap
There is no reason to believe that, if successful, this trend would only benefit the liberal arts. Any subject taught in a systematic fashion should be able to be taught in a way that reaches students on a level they can comprehend. If you don’t believe it, consider the following example:
Rappin’ the Universe
Aristotle said, for what it’s worth
That the rest of the universe revolved around the Earth
He was precise in describing this veil of tears
He thought everything revolved on transparent spheres
Galileo came along not wanting to spoil the fun
And insisted that the planets revolved around the sun
It was inevitable, I guess, that we’d all get the notion
That every body in the universe was in motion
Eventually there came Einstein, who said to much laughter
That matter is energy, and energy is matter
To mathematically prove this Einstein was dared
So he came up with the equation E equals mc squared
Now, E represents energy, m is mass, alright
C is the value of the speed of light
From this equation, it is easy to see
That with a little mass you get a whole lot of energy
You can’t go faster than light, and that is definite
Because, at that speed, your mass would be infinite
As if that weren’t enough, Einstein had the nerve
To say that the true nature of space was curved
All mass has gravity? Can that be right?
Do large enough masses really deflect the path of light?
But, Einstein’s larges blasphemy
Was his theory of relativity
Nature, you see, is a great preserver
And all phenomena are relative to the observer
If you’re moving forward, and somebody approaches you
The relative speed is yours and theirs, too
Time slows down as you approach the speed of light
Even though the rest of the universe is still going right
If you don’t know what’s happenin’, don’t blame me
Heisenberg said it all when he talked about uncertainty
Don’t understand? It could be worse
Remember: god doesn’t play dice with the universe!
It sounds absurd, doesn’t it? Grandmaster Flash teaching chemistry? Run-D.M.C. singing about algebra? However, before you scoff (or before you scoff again if I’m too late to stop you the first time) ask yourself which is more important: keeping an air of solemnity in the classroom or reaching the kids?