Pupils in their endeavour to be acknowledged in the classroom put up their hands and plead to be chosen by the teacher to answer the question. Inevitably they plead ‘Miss, Miss, Miss, me Miss’.
We, the community, have passed authority to teachers giving them the right to be bearers of the Skeptron. (In Homer, the speaker holds the Skeptron, which reminds the audience that they are in the presence of a discourse which merits belief and obedience.) She (let us presume it is a she) is the bearer of power and the giver of power to the pupil.
But what are the teacher's overriding interests at this juncture?
Let us take the the Skeptron away from the teacher and give it to the pupil.
"And if I do ‘speak up’ Dad, I know the teachers will only correct me, because they are kinds of ...instruments?"
"Instrument of what?"
"Well....instruments of correction, Have I got the right, Dad?"
"Spot on," I say, gushing with parental pride.
School are not a language area for semantic freewheeling, without referring to anything in particular, they are in arena of formal rigour where linguistic norms are imposed.
As a parent, I had never given a thought to the fact that the teachers were paid to teach codified language with authority for they were codified by grammarians, and their task is to encourage equivalences in a system of grammatical norms.
Through innumerable acts of correction, the educational system tend to produce the need for its own services as teachers consecrate legitimate language and conserve their monopoly in their labour of correction.
We, the community, have passed authority to teachers giving them the right to be bearers of the Skeptron. (In Homer, the speaker holds the Skeptron, which reminds the audience that they are in the presence of a discourse which merits belief and obedience.) She (let us presume it is a she) is the bearer of power and the giver of power to the pupil.
But what are the teacher's overriding interests at this juncture?
Let us take the the Skeptron away from the teacher and give it to the pupil.
"And if I do ‘speak up’ Dad, I know the teachers will only correct me, because they are kinds of ...instruments?"
"Instrument of what?"
"Well....instruments of correction, Have I got the right, Dad?"
"Spot on," I say, gushing with parental pride.
School are not a language area for semantic freewheeling, without referring to anything in particular, they are in arena of formal rigour where linguistic norms are imposed.
As a parent, I had never given a thought to the fact that the teachers were paid to teach codified language with authority for they were codified by grammarians, and their task is to encourage equivalences in a system of grammatical norms.
Through innumerable acts of correction, the educational system tend to produce the need for its own services as teachers consecrate legitimate language and conserve their monopoly in their labour of correction.
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