I am an advocate for education and truly believe a great (even good) education can immensely impact the lives of youth in a positive and profound way.
Now, I know that judging someone from the outside is one of the worst ways to ever perceive someone. I'm guilty of it too often and definitely know better as I try my best to not live by this notion. Yet, too often in today's world, I wonder if young people are placing themselves in these preconceived positions of judgement simply by their own oral speech. Here's my point on this topic.
Imagine a student just about to leave high school for the rich and fruitful pastures of college and a grand attempt at higher education. This student has top level grades and credentials. But, then you hear the student speak and the first thing you hear is "Well he/she said blah, blah, blah, and I was like whatever, you know....."....or another example...."Hey, you know that thing we talked about in class, you know what I'm saying".....
Unfortunately, this is not an exaggeration of such particular situations. Sadly, this point of speech is all to common among youth. A form of speech which lacks clarity, purpose, subject content (the word "thing" replacing subjects/topics), expects others to know what they are talking about ("you know what I'm saying" and "you know")etc., is being driven hard into speech nowadays. Yet, this isn't a speech that is being driven by learning it. This speech is youth not learning, not attempting, or simply not knowing how to orally communicate.
It doesn't matter if youth are comfortable talking in such speech with one another or with older folks. The simply matter of fact is they are too comfortable with it as a normal way of communicating.
I'm not asking everyone to all of a suddent talk like an English professor or perfectly proper (if there is such an existence). All I'm asking for is speech that is spoken with conviction, purpose, clarity, etc.
Maybe, a class on the subject of Writing needs to be incorporated into high school as a class wholly unto itself. Or maybe Speech class needs to be modified. I still believe education to be a basis for this and haven't lost hope. Well, whatever.....
