> What makes this a business writing class, it sounds exactly like Freshman English. It also sounds exactly like the term paper requirement for my literature credit elective which was sci fi, other than sci fi class additionally required we relate somehow to sci fi. It sounds like every term paper requirement I ever had to write for every class other than not being on topic...
These are different styles of writing, emphasizing related but not fungible skills. A business writing class focuses much more heavily on being concise, persuasive, and tailoring your writing for your target audience. I wrote a lot of term papers for a lot of humanities classes in college, and these skills were only indirectly implicated, not the central focus.
> Maybe your anecdotes were not educated the wrong way with the wrong topics, but just simply not very well educated?
Possible, but unlikely. Whatever the various high school rankings are worth, mine appears in the top 5/10 (in the U.S.) of most of them. The problem was the curriculum, and indirectly the teachers who brought with them a romanticized academic mindset. Your comments are essentially illustrative of that mindset: a snobbish overestimation of the importance of literature, etc, combined with rationalizations about how studying those subjects nonetheless indirectly develops relevant skills. This basic approach to education is fundamentally flawed. It's the product of PhD's in various fields who think a grade 6-12 education should consist of little tastes of a variety of those fields, and rationalize that approach by claiming that people will pick up relevant skills in the process, or "learn to learn" or something similarly vacuous.
To circle back to the writing example, there is no reason other than snobbery that literature classes are taught in grades 6-12 while business writing classes are not. Even though kids, too lost in learning about metaphors and allegories and whatnot to pick up any real writing skills, predictably graduate without being able to write effectively, it never occurs to anyone to say: "gee, if we want kids to know how to write, maybe we should teach them how to write!"
These are different styles of writing, emphasizing related but not fungible skills. A business writing class focuses much more heavily on being concise, persuasive, and tailoring your writing for your target audience. I wrote a lot of term papers for a lot of humanities classes in college, and these skills were only indirectly implicated, not the central focus.
> Maybe your anecdotes were not educated the wrong way with the wrong topics, but just simply not very well educated?
Possible, but unlikely. Whatever the various high school rankings are worth, mine appears in the top 5/10 (in the U.S.) of most of them. The problem was the curriculum, and indirectly the teachers who brought with them a romanticized academic mindset. Your comments are essentially illustrative of that mindset: a snobbish overestimation of the importance of literature, etc, combined with rationalizations about how studying those subjects nonetheless indirectly develops relevant skills. This basic approach to education is fundamentally flawed. It's the product of PhD's in various fields who think a grade 6-12 education should consist of little tastes of a variety of those fields, and rationalize that approach by claiming that people will pick up relevant skills in the process, or "learn to learn" or something similarly vacuous.
To circle back to the writing example, there is no reason other than snobbery that literature classes are taught in grades 6-12 while business writing classes are not. Even though kids, too lost in learning about metaphors and allegories and whatnot to pick up any real writing skills, predictably graduate without being able to write effectively, it never occurs to anyone to say: "gee, if we want kids to know how to write, maybe we should teach them how to write!"