Why They Don't Teach Good Like They Should

The chief reason why so many young Americans cannot read and write English well is shockingly simple: according to a forthcoming report by the National Council of Teachers of English, 47% of high school English teachers "do not feel well-prepared in the English language," 48% feel shaky in literature, 63% in composition and 90% in the teaching of reading. Almost half of all high school English classes in the U.S. are taught by teachers who did not major in the subject in college.

Although English scholarship is rapidly advancing, few teachers take the trouble to keep up, or even to bone up on basic English teaching. In the past nine years, the average elementary teacher, who spends at least one quarter of her time teaching English, has taken four times more formal course work in "education" than in English, including only half a course in the teaching of reading, a subject that she barely touched in college. In ten years, only one out of seven high school English teachers has taken as much as one three-hour English course. Almost a third of the nation's 900,000 English teachers have avoided any formal English study for the past decade.

As the council sees it, key solutions include solid sabbaticals to retread teachers, summer institutes that really teach English (many just skimp it), helpful supervision by master English teachers rather than bureaucratic administrators. The majority of high school teachers, says the council, "have never had an opportunity to confer with a college professor of English or English education or with a special English supervisor." Without reforms, warns James R. Squire, the council's executive secretary, English classes across the country will go on wallowing in "dull, lifeless teaching" devoid of "one iota of excitement."

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