Grammar lament

In my short introduction, I mentioned that I felt there were holes in my education that shouldn't have been there. To me, the largest of these holes was any kind of formal grammar instruction. (I am perfectly willing to admit that this may simply seem this way to me because I am an English major, and therefore I'm sensitive to deficiencies in my English education.)

In my elementary and secondary education, I never had any kind of formal grammar training beyond learning the difference between nouns, verbs and adjectives. Unless catastrophe strikes, I'll be graduating with a BA in English this coming spring. Currently, my GPA stands at a 3.94. Still, there are words I hear that make me nervous--words like "participle" or "infinitive" or "predicate." The reason these words make me nervous is that I have a very strong sense that I really should know what they mean. I don't. Somehow, I suppose through the substantial amount of reading I've done in my lifetime, I've gathered purely by osmosis the ability to construct a reasonably clear, correct sentence. But it rankles me that I don't know the rules enough to ensure that my sentences are perfect. Sometimes I stare at a sentence for what seems like hours just trying to decide if I really need a comma or not. But I know that, somewhere, there are written rules to tell me if I need one or not, and if I could just learn them, I wouldn't waste so much time. It's also, of course, never really hours.

This specific gripe on my part, however, didn't really seem to be a particularly big deal; I am penciled in for a class in the spring semester, my first formal grammar class, which will rectify this problem for me. I have been promised by the professor, when the class ends, I will know grammar inside and out.

However, I've recently come to a violent change of heart in the matter of whether or not this is a big deal. It began this summer, with my enrollment in my first class in the education department: Children's Literature. My particular Kiddie Lit class is an online class in which 40% of our grade is made up of our posting on the class forum boards. It's clearly stated in the syllabus that grammar, spelling, etc. will be taken into account in this grading, so proofreading is imperative.

Apparently I am not alone in the failure of my grammar education. Participation in the class has begun to leave me utterly bewildered and depressed, because, by and large, I am not conversing with people who agonize over a comma. I am attempting to converse with people who are incapable of writing a sentence that is even coherent, and also consistently demonstrate reading comprehension that equals their writing ability. Somehow, these people got into college. Somehow, these people plan to be teachers.

The fact that I am currently pregnant with my first child has elevated this distress and frustration nearly to the level of abject terror and rage. One of these people might end up my son's teacher! One of these people who write sentences like, "I think these strories are still relevent today and maybe even more so then they were back then because I think children today have harder lives then it used to be." I promise you, that is not an exaggerated representation.

As the class progresses, I find it harder and harder to be civil in my replies, because I am so angry that this situation exists. There are people in my class who were failed by their various educational backgrounds, and, in time, perhaps college will help them make up for these failures. But there are others who simply do not belong in college; they never should have made it through the door. How can there be any confidence in the education system if these are the people who are entrusted with teaching our children?