The Three R’s Are Not Enough

Gary West

July 21, 2005

 

 

The Mathematics of English

Two-thirds of the Readin’, ‘Ritin’, and ‘Rithmetic is language arts.¹ 

 

And, done properly, language arts provides as much development of rational and logical thinking as does mathematics.  There’s logic to the structure of language.  The learning of English, through grammar and speaking, is important to the logic of our thinking and to the strategies we use for problem-solving – just as important as Algebra, Geometry, and any of the advanced mathematics.  Learning to use the language, through reading and writing, is equally important – as important as appreciating the sciences, the social studies, and the arts.

 

Unlike the other areas of study, our use of the language we learn allows us to share what we think, believe, know, wish, feel – and more.  While there is art to mathematics, not all of us know how to use mathematics to express that art.  On the other hand, almost all of us know how to express – through our language – what we appreciate (or don’t appreciate) about the art of mathematics – and everything else.

 

The Information Age

In the Information Age, it is essential that we are able to communicate effectively.  That means we must learn to use our language effectively.  We must understand the structure as well as the art of the language – and we must use both to make our points while understanding others as they make theirs.²  In the Information age, the ability to communicate information to others – and to understand the information others communicate to us – is essential to employability.³ 

 

Studies – and real life – have consistently shown that we are creating more information than we know how to manage.  That means we need to know more to communicate effectively – that we need to know more to be successful at whatever we’re trying to communicate.

 

Consider the table below:

 

Year	Doubling Factor
1900	1
1953	2
1977	4
1992	8
2000	16
2005	32
2008	64
2010	128
2011	256
2012	512
2012	1024
2013	2048
2013	4096
2013	8192
2014	every 35 days

 

The first column gives selected years, based on information growth projections.⁴  The second column represents the amount of information required to be successful at whatever you do – or did. 

 

Start with the year 1900, in which the information needed to be successful is a baseline of 1.  By 1953, that amount of information had doubled -- that is, you had to know twice as much to be successful at whatever you did to make a living in 1953, compared to 1900.  By 1977, that doubled again.  By the year 2000, you -- and the students you taught – had to know 16 times as much information to be successful as was necessary in 1900.  That will double again by the end of 2005.

 

Note that your information needs – as a teacher – will double twice in 2012, will double at least three times in 2013, and will be doubling every 35 days by 2014.⁵ 

 

Children who entered pre-kindergarten in the 1999-2000 school year will need to know 500 times⁶ as much information to be successful when they graduate in 2013 as did graduates in the year 2000. 

 

And we – their teachers -- must keep up with them in the process. 

 

That implies that we cannot teach them 500 times as much of their stuff unless we know 500 times as much of our stuff.  After all, if we’re going to be successful teaching them, we’ve got to know our stuff, too. 

 

But let’s face it:  We can’t learn 500 times as much stuff in the next 8 years, we can’t teach 500 times as much stuff in the next 8 years -- and our students can’t learn 500 times as much stuff in the next 8 years. We and they don’t have the time to pack that much stuff into the limited space we have between our ears.⁷

 

So where will we put it?  And after we put it there, how will we ever find it again?  Are you ready for all this?  Can you help your students get ready? 

 

The Three A’s

In today’s world – and not just in our English-speaking societies⁸ – the three R’s are not enough.  The teaching and learning of English – and its application in all areas of our lives – is changing significantly.  We can prepare for the Information Age (it's already here; so, it’s too late to start early) by adding the Three A's to the Three R's of education. 

 

The Three A's of education in the Information Age are access to information, analysis of the information we find, and application of the information within some meaningful context.

 

Access to information refers to the physical aspects of access (computers and networks⁹, for example) and the knowledge that the information is out there -- somewhere.  If you know it's there and if you have the tools to get to it, you have the foundations for success.  Note that you don't have to know what's out there -- only that there's an awful lot of it out there somewhere.  Given the tools, most of us can find something.

 

Analysis of information is the most important new strategy that we can help students develop.  All information is good for something -- but some of it may not be good for what we need right now, right here.  Our students must be able to figure out what parts of what they find make sense.  We have to help them develop the skills and strategies they need to make meaningful decisions about the information they find. 

 

Application refers to using the information in ways that make sense and that satisfy the need for which the information was sought.  This is where the real problem-solving takes place – because the whole process began as part of trying to find an answer to something.

 

For educators, it is that "something" -- the way we present the lessons to be learned, the problems we want our students to learn to solve -- that we have to re-define as part of changing the way we do the business of education.

 

Strategies and Tools for Doing Business Differently

Obviously, if there is too much to know and too much learn, we must have other strategies for maintaining and retrieving the information we need.  We must have other strategies for success – success in teaching the language, success in learning the language, and success in using the language we learn.

 

Those strategies must include technology.  Technology can remember what we don’t have time or space to learn.  Technology can recall what we can’t remember.  Technology can show relationships that we didn’t know existed.  Technology is a critical tool in the language arts – not just for two-thirds of the Three R’s, but especially for two-thirds of the Three A’s.

 

The following websites are just some of the tools available for teaching and learning language arts.  Some of these sites provide exceptional tools for students, providing dynamic thinking tools that enhance the use of the language.  Several provide resources for teaching as well as learning.  All of these websites go beyond the usual.  And each is worth an extended visit.

 

Project Gutenberg
http://www.gutenberg.net
Project Gutenberg has put online thousands of complete books and papers from the public domain.  Included are the complete works of Shakespeare, Alice in Wonderland, and thousands more.  All content areas are included.  Project Gutenberg is a library for “primary” sources – each work is in its original form.  All books and papers are downloadable so you can print or read those at your convenience. 

 

Mr. William Shakespeare and the Internet
http://shakespeare.palomar.edu/    
This website offers a complete annotated guide to Shakespeare resources available on the Internet and presents new Shakespeare material unavailable elsewhere.  Under the “Works” link, students and teachers can find study guides for each play, teacher guides to the Signet editions, and Lambs’ “Tales from Shakespeare,” which are re-writes of the Shakespeare stories for children. 

 

International Children’s Digital Library
http://www.icdlbooks.org 
The International Children’s Digital Library provides free access to thousands of children’s books from hundreds of cultures worldwide.  The site currently has titles from more than 27 cultures in 15 different languages.  When the project is completed, the site will contain about 10,000 books for children aged 3 to 13.  Several U.S. publishers, as well as international publishers, have contributed titles to the collection.  Teachers and parents can access and print the books for children.  The books can also be read online. 

 

A Visit to Copyright Bay
http://www.stfrancis.edu/cid/copyrightbay/         
Educators can have fun learning about copyright.  Teachers and other school staff navigate Fair Use Harbor, visit Murky Waters, and crash on Infringement Reef.  Fair Use Harbor includes information about audio-visual materials, multimedia, single copies, multiple copies, and distance learning. The site carries a disclaimer, stating that “this site was not prepared by attorneys, is not to be considered “legal counsel,” and is intended only to inform and entertain educators about copyright issues in a non-profit setting.” 

 

The Vocabula Review
http://www.vocabula.com         
This website strives to combat abuse, misuse, and the general degradation of our language.  The Vocabula Review seeks to promote the richness of our language by emphasizing standard and creative ways to use the language correctly.  In sum, The Vocabula Review battles nonstandard, careless English and embraces clear, expressive English. 

 

Visual Thesaurus
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/online/index.html    
The Visual Thesaurus is an interesting way to explore English language synonyms.  Students can type in a word for which they want a synonym.  The word and its synonyms show up as a "spatial map of linguistic associations," with clickable words that encourage the students to follow threads.  When a word has more than one meaning – and, thus, more than one type of synonym – each is shown in the map with clickable links to new meanings and definitions.  This is one of the most interesting ways to learn relationships – not only among the words we use but also among the ideas represented by those words.

 

The 19^th Century in Print

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpcoop/moahtml/ncphome.html

This website is part of effort by the Library of Congress to digitize books from America’s past.  This collection comprises books and periodicals published in the United States during the nineteenth century, primarily during the second half of the century. The materials highlight the areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. Also included are volumes of American poetry.  This website includes digitized images of the actual pages – not just the text – from more than 1500 books and more than 20 magazines and periodicals.

 

The Grammar Lady
http://www.grammarlady.com/
The Grammar Lady promotes correct language usage while having fun with language.  This is a really neat site if you have an interest in the way our language works.

 

Rhetorical Devices

http://www.uky.edu/ArtsSciences/Classics/rhetoric.html

This site contains resources for teaching and learning the rhetorical devices used in writing and speaking our language.  Common – and uncommon – rhetorical devices are listed, with explanations and examples.  (Who knew some of these things even existed?)

 

Communication Skills Writing Program
http://www.engl.niu.edu/comskills/

This website was started to assist students and tutors at Northern Illinois University; however, it has many excellent resources that can be used in high school classes, by students who are learning the mechanics of writing, and by parents who are working with their children on writing projects and assignments.  Student resources include editor’s grammar and mechanics, the use of quotations, citing sources, plagiarism, and more.  This site can be used in several ways in English composition classes – and there’s poetry to start every page.

 

Conclusion

While our world changes, our language evolves; yet, there is a need to understand and maintain the structure of our language so we do not lose the voice with which we describe those changes.  At the same time, we must understand that the structure will evolve as much as our words will evolve – because our language will always grow to meet our communication needs.  Thus, the circle completes – as our communication needs change, our language evolves.

 

The real world has an impact on the language arts skills required for personal and social success – while the language arts are having an impact on the real world of communication, information, and social networking.  The relationships are so complex and sophisticated that we need to know tomorrow more than we know today if we are to be successful tomorrow in teaching – or learning – enough to succeed the day after.

 

Let’s talk.¹⁰

 

 

Endnotes

1  Warning!  Warning!  English teachers beware!  This opening sentence is an English teacher’s nightmare.  Can you find all the improper uses of grammar, syntax, punctuation, and good common sense.  (You will find my thoughts on this sentence in the last endnote.  Just think; if this starts this badly, how much worse can it get!)

 

2  We teach and are taught that communication with others involves verbal and non-verbal skills – spoken and written language and body language.  Equally important in the art of communication is a third component that is typically left out of our communication lessons. That component is listening.  It does none of us any good to have great verbal and non-verbal skills if we can’t find anyone who will actually listen to us.

 

3  “Employability” is the ability to make a living in our society – where studies indicate that today’s high school graduates will change careers – not just jobs – five to seven times during their working years.   “The Information Age is characterized by the value of information, rather than raw materials and physical labor. For example, one of the main products of the Industrial Age is the automobile. Sixty percent of the cost of an automobile is due to the raw materials (e.g., steel) and physical labor needed to produce it. This is in sharp contrast to one of the main products of the Information Age - the computer. Only two percent of the cost of a computer is due to the raw materials and physical labor needed to produce it. What are you paying for? The information (software and patents) necessary to produce it. In the Information Age, information - not raw materials and physical labor - is power.”  (Rod Riegle, Illinois State University, “Education in the Information Age”; http://www.coe.ilstu.edu/rpriegle/wwwdocs/educationinfoage.htm)

 

4  “The futurist, John Nesbitt, wrote in his best selling book, Megatrends, in the middle of the 1980’s that information was doubling at that time at the rate of every 4-5 years. That was the good news. The more challenging news was that he projected that information would double every 20 months by the turn of the century—which, now, of course, has passed. This information explosion means that all of our nation’s colleges and universities must develop curricula that maximize students’ knowledge of how to access information and, most important, how to discriminate between the truth and propaganda.”  (Dr. Orlando L. Taylor, Dean of the Graduate School, Howard University, August 26, 2001; http://discus.hope.edu/general/html/messages/156/1168.html?1090275833)  Nesbitt’s prediction was that our information would be doubling every 35 days by the year 2020.  Even that prediction has moved back, toward where we are.    

 

5  All of a sudden, don’t you feel absolutely Information Aged?

 

6  In case you’re interested in where the 500 came from:  Take the doubling factor of 16 for the year 2000 and divide it into the 8192 necessary for the end of 2013 -- it’s about 500, give or take a few thousand facts.  (This calculation was not meant to be offensive to English teachers; I wanted show you that I wasn’t just making this stuff up.)

 

7  New brain research shows that we must change – drastically – the way we go about teaching if we are to create that much learning – both in our own staff development and in our own classroom practices.

 

8  English is the default language of the Internet – at least for the present time.  But that could change – if France has anything to do with it.  In July 2003, the French Culture Ministry announced that that word “email” was not to be used in government documents, publications, and websites.  Instead, the word courriel – a fusion of courier electronique – is required in all official communications.  The reason:  The French oppose “allowing English terms to seep into French.”  You can read more at http://www.wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3903.  And these folks were offended by “freedom fries”?

 

9  Some of you may note that I did not list libraries or textbooks in the short list of examples for access to information.  While libraries and textbooks – in fact, books, periodicals, and other printed materials – are important information access resources, those are becoming integrated into our system of networks.  Libraries – like telephones – are no longer tied to locations.  Like our telephones, our libraries travel with us wherever we go – if we have access to our networks.

 

10  About that first sentence.  I’ll go back to my senior year in high school, when my English class had a student teacher from Duke University.  She edited one of my composition papers and pointed out several grammatical errors.  My smart-alec response was, “I meant to say it that way.”  She said, “Oh.  Okay.”  Then, she gave me a 100.  Thus, the first sentence here.  How many mistakes were made – and how many of those were made intentionally.  Here’s what I think.  There’s a possible subject-verb agreement problem – whether the sentence starts with the subject or ends with it.  There are ‘postrophes all over the place – and to make matters worse, there are commas mixed in with all those ‘postrophes.  You’ll also see that one of those commas separates the last and next-to-last items in a series (I know the current fad but, because I’m a math major, I just know that that last comma is the right thing to do…).  And the next sentence uses “language arts” as if it were singular (and aren’t you surprised that a math major used subjunctive mood? – and, of course, we know that mathematics is singular).  About the intention of writing that first sentence:  It just came out that way… I’m a math major, for goodness sakes; I’m not even supposed to know there are options.

 

About the Author

Gary West taught junior and senior high mathematics for ten years, coordinated federal projects for a public school system for nine years, and has been the director of technology for an upstate school district for the last sixteen years.  He has degrees in mathematics and counseling.  He does not have a degree in anything closely related to English.