I learned to diagram a sentence in 4th or 5th grade. It was painful to learn, as I recall..... I suspect the practice bit the dust a while ago. We also had spelling tests nearly every day and were made to write the word over and over again if we spelled something incorrectly.

I remember once handing in a paper in 6th grade that had the word radio misspelled throughout the entire paper. To this day I don't recall how I DID misspell it - I think I erased the incorrect spelling from my memory. The teacher was livid when she saw it, graded me harshly and then required that I write the word radio, 500 times. Talk about remembering how to spell a certain word!

I think our schools are dumbing down for some reason and it just doesn't make sense. Could it be "main-streaming" that is requiring our standards to drop? I can recall the children/students being classified and put in certain reading groups and I wonder if that is still being done.... Or is everyone in the same group in a very neutral learning mode? This is what I mean by dumbing down.... Going to the lowest level in expectation rather than the highest.

I know that special education is nearly a thing of the past and many of the learning disabled are main streamed.

Since I am not in the education field I should keep my trap shut about the schooling thing! I don't want to offend anyone any more than I have already done!

Off to the lake for a swim.

SAS