Why You Shouldn't Listen to Your English Teacher

Kids, very important lesson here today and so I want you to understand this.

Most English teachers are lousy at English.

They only know the structure and logic of the language, they have no ability to speak or write. And they certainly lack the creativity to engage a reader in pretty much anything. Ergo, they are forced to teach a language they're not only fluent in, but to kids who are also fluent in the language. The reason I bring this up is so that you're not concerned if you are only getting "C's" in English. Chances are it's your teacher simply not liking you and using the amorphous nature of English to knock you down a grade or two (notice I used the word "amorphous" and I also flunked out of 7th grade English).

Why do I bring this up? See below, it's a comment from this post here. I don't want people being told by the the "English Profession" they're not good at English. There are negative consequences, consequences nobody has to go through because some 20 something moron who couldn't major in a real subject decides to boost their ego by ripping or nitpicking on others' English ability.

A college degree was the equivalent of a high school diploma in the Fifties? If only.

My father was born in 1924 in a tiny fishing village — an island in the Chesapeake Bay, actually, remote and isolated from mainland life — and there were maybe 12 graduating seniors in 1942. But Pop was not among them. He quit high school at the age of 16 because he simply could not get a passing grade in English. He served in WWII (survived the entire Battle of the Bulge) and earned a two-year business degree on the GI Bill. But he was so sensitive about what he considered to be his poor grammar, Mom did all of his writing assignments. Pop was good at math, just couldn’t write worth a darn. Or so he thought. He was a cost accountant for most of his working days and always felt inferior to the college grads who were paid more and promoted more often.

So I took it on faith that Pop was a dullard when it came to writing.

My parents went through a horrible divorce in ’72, and went their separate ways. I received a one letter from him when I was a college sophomore, read it, and promptly forgot about it. Pop died in ’76, still a relatively young man.

Then, one day when my wife and I were preparing for a move (this must have been around 1984), I found the letter he had written. And re-read it. And I wondered, who was this man? It was a very well-written letter, in his own bold cursive writing style. By this time, I had been reading National Review for almost twenty years, and had thoroughly digested the writings of William Buckley, Hugh Kenner, James Burnham, Joe Sobran, and the rest of that talented bullpen. I could not kid myself: this was not the writing of a poor writer. This is the writing a thoughtful, sensitive man whose anguish at the mistakes he had made was palpable. It was easily better than typical college-student writing, and technically more correct than my own from a grammatical perspective.

Let me repeat: this was from a high-school dropout.

It seems to me that many of us paid thousands of dollars for a college degree and for the most part received a license to feel entitled.

Oh, and kids, before you head off to college, buy my book. It's worth more than all of your English classes combined, plus it's likely to get banned in your high school.