“Why don’t you teach grammar any more?” The parent’s question seemed to spark from the points of the needles. She waited for the teacher to answer, the needles poised to record the incriminating answer in the fabric she was knitting.

“What do you mean by grammar?” he answered. The yarn was so tight the needle shot out of the woman’s hand and landed on the floor between them. He picked it up and returned it to her.

“Students can’t even write a coherent paragraph when they get to college!” Again the needle shot out and landed at the teacher’s feet. She had answered her own question, implying both the results of his not teaching grammar and the guilt he should feel for not doing so. The lines were drawn. He retrieved the needle and returned it to her with a smile.

“I do teach grammar,” he said, “but it’s probably not what you think of as grammar.”

The needle shot out again. This time he did not return it.

“Ability to write comes with maturity,” he said. “Some kids who get to college don’t have it; the ear is still too young. And grammar as I think you understand it doesn’t help much.” Her eyes were on the needle he waved  to emphasize his point.

            “You see, there are three areas we might call grammar. The first is the one I think you refer to.  It’s what linguists mean when they use the term. It’s a science concerned with describing, analyzing and formulating rules about how the language works. But, of course, you know the language was in use hundreds of years before any rules were formulated….” He didn’t think this tack would be productive. 

“Native speakers really interested in the language would find the study fascinating. It could be taught in a year, but it’s difficult to get enough students signed up for one class.” She was unmoved. He returned her needle.

            “The second area refers to the language behavior your daughter brought with her to kindergarten. It includes all the basic patterns of the language she has been using fluently since she learned to talk. English is her native language. There’s no need to teach her that grammar. She already knows it.” The needles worked relentlessly.

            “The third area is the grammar that I must and do teach as your daughter develops her writing. This area is more an art than a science.” He thought he heard the needles click. “It concerns language behavior in different situations. It might be called linguistic etiquette. You know, what is appropriate. Whether language used in a particular situation should be standard, or colloquial, or even nonstandard.” As an afterthought, he added, “Even a mixture of all three.” Her eyes darted this time instead of the needles.

            There was an awkward pause. A necessary distinction between talking and writing should be made here, he thought, but she was patting the finished knitting on her lap.

“Kids write to please someone else,” he said, “to make clear someone else’s thoughts. But from the earliest grades they should write to find out what they themselves feel and think. Insisting on form and conventions too soon….”

            She sat there restlessly waiting to leave. The interview was over, but he wasn’t finished.

“You know, Anne Lindbergh knows what writing is all about,” he persisted. “She said she had to write it all out at any cost. Writing is thinking, she said. It’s more than living; it’s being conscious of living….” He was thinking out loud as he often did in class. “If only I could get kids to feel that need!”

            She was gone when he looked. In her place was another parent. She didn’t have any knitting, but somehow that was no consolation.

                        Bill Reynolds