To the editor:
I, along with countless others I’m sure, enjoyed the children’s Thanksgiving recipes, the content of which was much thicker than the news, also noted by others, I’m sure.
And perusing them couldn’t help but make you aware that they were pure geniuses with sauces and seasonings, but totally unaware of the time a turkey takes to cook a turkey. That’s a fault remedied in time.
Though utterly enchanted by the children’s communications, I still couldn’t help but wonder how old they were (from the presumed musings of kindergartners through second grade to about-to-be middle-school graduates, where un-mastered competencies still show up in wrong words, misspelled words, etc.
And I feared that those competencies would never be mastered as shown in the number of professionals, (teachers and administrators included), who have jobs and still can’t do English.
I also wondered at the school systems that hire them and the agendas that allow or encourage it.
Deficiencies in both spoken and written English are always easy to spot, especially at grade levels because grade level competencies are clearly spelled out, I think, in curriculum most of all. Homonyms, contractions, and proper case usage, and vocal and visual vocabularies all indicate children’s growing ability to properly use the language.
When there’s no evidence of that, I worry.
There will never be an end to the delight we take in our children’s earliest learnings. Neither should there be an end to their progress. Or our interest as they do.
As a society, we will always have children who are 5.
The problem is they don’t stay 5.
Walter Sheriff
Vicksburg