"In the land of Gibberish, the man who makes sense, the man who speaks clearly, clearly speaks nonsense."
― Jarod Kintz, This Book is Not FOR SALE
I remember a Western teacher's frustration with Eastern European secondary school students in the 1980s. He was stunned that they could not write. They were certainly literate, but while they had been taught to memorize mass amounts of information – they could spew on cue all the American presidents and their dates of office – they had never been taught to process all this information in any meaningful way. Writing is an exercise in analyzing, organizing, and presenting information, developing a thesis and supporting arguments. They struggled with composition. This teacher exploded with, "The Western world runs on the written word! How are they going to be able to survive in that environment?"
