Take away standardized tests and required English classes. If students weren’t forced to learn grammar in school, then why would they be motivated to learn it? Grammar is a huge part of our everyday life and I feel that there are simple reasons for learning and understanding English as a language. Yes, proper grammar comes in handy when we’re learning a new language, taking standardized tests, and to write well in the professional world. But there are everyday reasons to learn grammar.

Children pick up grammar as they learn to speak. They use grammatically correct sentences because the speakers surrounding them are speaking grammatically correct sentences. It’s an absorbed education. The hard part comes with identifying and defining the parts of their sentences. It’s easier to speak a language than it is to write and understand it. Speaking comes naturally and is picked up with or without formal teaching. However writing and grammar comes with a formal teacher and a taught education. Whether that education comes from a parent sitting down their child and showing them; or if a child goes to school to learn it in a traditional classroom; it’s a conscious effort to teach it.

Grammar is just as important for a child to learn as United States history and math. It’s a part of our way of life and we should understand our language. In history we use our past to understand why and how our country has developed into what it is today. We need math to do everyday tasks such as counting out money. It’s the same with English. If we can understand the basics of grammar, we can better understand what we say and write on a daily basis. For that reason alone, we should learn correct grammar.

In our society we judge people based on the way they speak. The same is true with the way we write. If we read a paper filled with poorly constructed sentences we would automatically judge that person as uneducated and therefore inferior. Understanding our language is a source of pride. Knowing how to speak, write, or spell properly doesn’t help a person gain anything. But the lack of knowledge causes a person to lose status among their peers. I’m guilty of lowering someone’s status in my head based on how they’ve written. It’s a subconscious judgment that I can’t turn off. I think the same is true for almost all people. They don’t mean to judge their peers based on writing. It’s just the way our society is.