Perpetual Ruminations

Acadamy Closed?

As you may or may not know, I've had a few years of limited activity at WDC followed by about a year of no activity. Although I liked my job, it is nice to be done with the time it demanded, the uncertain scheduling, and not having any time to devote, with any certainty, here in WDC.

Now that I'm more active here again, I find I'm kind of like a new member to many of the changes around the site, while at the same time, I have my old favorites and knowledge of things around the site, some of which have remained and some of which have changed.

One of the changes is New Horizons Academy, which is now closed. I have, for years, desired to take some courses they offer, but back then, I could not make any commitments outside of work. Not knowing if I could provide the time needed, it was best to wait for a future day to enroll in the Academy. Now, however, I can allocate some time to WDC, my writing, and taking some classes.

Even though I had ben thinking about taking some classes through them, I had procrastinated it for too long and when I thought about it again, thought I had missed the enrollment window. Since I still have plenty of demands on my time, as well as some other engagements I need to complete, I had tucked the desire to enroll aside for this winter. Then, in a recent Newsfeed Activity, the question was asked, How can you edit for grammar errors if you don't know grammar?

I had posted an answer, but since the Academy and it's courses had been tucked off to the side, I didn't really focus on the ability to improve my grammar right here in WDC. Thankfully, another member did and contacted me about taking online classes, through New Horizons Academy.

It was then, while looking into this further, and with her information, that I read the history of the Academy and how it had ended up closed. Luckily, if enough of us desire to take a class, some of the teachers are willing to provide a class for us. Even so, I see the closing of New Horizons as a real loss to the members of WDC.

Think about it, grammar and punctuation are failing so much in our modern world; I recently received an email form one of my daughters teachers about updates to "vocab" and what was due this coming week. Yes, a vocabulary teacher that won't even right out the word vocabulary. The email was also full of antonyms/internet slang. My thoughts were, "How can you teach vocabulary if you can't even write properly and use proper vocabulary.

The same daughter also showed me a story she had written for another class. The story was good, but there was no capitalization, only periods to indicate the end of a sentence, even if it was an exclamation or question -- no other punctuation at all. No indents or line spacing between paragraphs, and nothing indication dialogue from the rest.

I'm no expert, but offered to help as much as I could. She replied, "That stuff doesn't matter, just the content of the story. Our teacher doesn't grade on anything our tablets doesn't auto-correct, like spelling." This is a writing class! How can you teach students to write if you don't count any of the rules of writing?

Anyway, I digress, but it shows how many young people just don't get the information needed to write. Here, at WDC, through reviewing, many of these talented people get poor reviews, because they just weren't taught the importance of grammar and punctuation. Of course there are other's of us who know the importance, but just never learned proper grammar and punctuation, or learned some but still struggle with it in our writing.

No matter what the reason, New Horizon's is a God-send to us here. Taking regular classes through a college is expensive and often difficult compared to having our own academy right here. I feel it's a real blessing that other members have created this for us and see it as a real shame and loss now that it's closed. I understand, after reading the history, and I know, and thank everyone involved for all the time and energy they have devoted.

Now, perhaps it's time for us to come forward and offer what ever help we can to the Academy that for so long has offered help to us.